As the second half of the MLB season gets underway, the stretch run should be pretty good: three of baseball’s six divisions have four teams within eight games of the division leader, and no team clearly dominates all others.
With a pretty exciting slate of options for tonight’s 10-game featured DFS contest at DraftKings, the second half of the season is off to a great start. As the backbone of a fantasy team is the starting pitcher, here are my five favorite options from tonight’s contests.
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB $200K Knuckleball [$50K to 1st].
1. Kodai Senga, New York Mets ($9,300)
Senga was one of the most egregious All-Star snubs this season, although his teammate Juan Soto ($5,800) certainly makes a compelling case himself. Though the Japanese pitcher missed roughly a month with a hamstring injury that he suffered on June 12, he was solid in his return, pitching four innings of scoreless ball (13.4 FPTS) on July 11, and his 1.51 ERA would lead the league if he’d pitched enough innings to qualify. His forkball has been frequently cited as one of the nastiest pitches in baseball this season, with a 42.0% whiff percentage and just a .179 xwOBA.
The Los Angeles Angels have had roughly a league-average offense this season and a .753 OPS since Mike Trout ($5,100) returned from injury in May 30, so they aren’t the easiest matchup. However, Los Angeles has had a slightly worse mark in road games than home games, and Citi Field is one of the league’s most pitcher-friendly venues. The Angels also walk at the league’s seventh-lowest rate, helping mitigate Senga’s sole weakness, the fact that he ranks in just the 18th percentile in walk rate. Plus, Trout has historically struggled (by his Hall of Fame standards) against split-finger fastballs, so Senga is well-suited to quiet Los Angeles’ best hitter.
2. Jacob Lopez, Athletics ($6,800)
For the most part, Lopez has been pretty solid this season, including a three-start stretch in which he posted 24 or more FPTS in each, and for $6,800, his salary is a relative bargain. The southpaw has excelled at limiting hard contact and also ranks in the top quintile in whiff percentage, strikeout percentage, and expected batting average. Though he’s been worse overall on the road than at home, his best two starts — as well as three of his four low-scoring relief outings — came on the road, so the numbers are somewhat skewed.
Texas, meanwhile, has struggled offensively all season, posting the sixth-lowest OPS, and though part of that can be attributed to luck — it has posted the second-lowest batting average on balls in play — the Rangers still haven’t been great overall. They struggled mightily on offense in their first series of the second half despite taking two of three from the Detroit Tigers, scoring just seven runs in total, and they chase at the league’s fifth-highest rate, mitigating one of Lopez’s weaknesses.
3. Shane Baz, Tampa Bay Rays ($9,000)
I’d take a lot of pitchers against the Chicago White Sox, who have posted the league’s second-worst OPS overall and the third-worst mark on the road en route to being the league’s second-worst team overall. Though they scored 27 runs in a sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates to open the second half, I’ll need to see that level of production in a larger sample size before I start to believe in them. I have seen enough to start believing in Baz, who’s given up three or fewer runs in six or more innings in each of his last four starts, averaging 23.45 FPTS per game across that span. He still struggles with the long ball, as the 17 he has conceded ranks ninth in the AL, but Chicago has hit the third-fewest dingers in baseball.
4. Noah Cameron, Kansas City Royals ($8,000)
I’ll ride with the hot hand here: over his last three starts, Cameron has pitched 18.1 innings and conceded just two runs, walking four and striking out 20 (23.5 FPTS per game), lowering his season ERA to 2.31, which would be the third-best mark in the American League if he’d pitched enough innings to qualify. The 26-year-old rookie is one of the best breaking-ball pitchers in the game, as opponents have whiffed on 30.2% of his sliders and 31.6% of his curveballs, posting a wOBA south of .150 against each one.
Cameron would rank higher on this list if he wasn’t facing the Chicago Cubs, who have had the league’s third-best OPS this season. But the Cubs are coming off of a poor offensive performance, scoring just one run last night against the scorching Boston Red Sox, so they’re beatable by an elite lefty. Cameron is no Garrett Crochet, but he might be provide nearly as much value on a much cheaper DFS salary.
5. Bryce Elder, Atlanta Braves ($6,300)
Elder, like Cameron, is in hot form, although his streak of strong performances stretches just one game, when he pitched 6.2 innings of two-run ball (23.6 FPTS) on July 9. Still, he’s had other excellent starts this season, including an eight-inning, one-run (38.2-FPT) outing on June 7, so his fantasy ceiling is higher than that of other pitchers around his price range. While his underlying stats are poor, at least he doesn’t walk many people and he’s elite at inducing ground balls, thanks to his reliance on a sinker.
Tonight, he’ll face the opponent that 38.2-FPT performance came against, the San Francisco Giants. San Francisco has posted the league’s seventh-worst OPS this season, including just a .655 mark since dealing for Rafael Devers ($4,600) on May 17. They got swept by the Toronto Blue Jays at the fairly hitter-friendly Rogers Centre to open the second half of the season after dropping two of three to the slumping Los Angeles Dodgers to finish the first half. Though Elder has been much worse at home than on the road this season, those figures are skewed by a negative-16.7-FPT disaster on June 27 against the Philadelphia Phillies.
