The Guardians’ bats finally broke out in Game 3, forcing a Game 4 with a lopsided 9-3 victory.
While the White Sox do still hold a 2-1 edge in the series, there’s some real question marks about the sustainability of their current bullpen usage and, obviously, their overall lack of any starting pitching.
Conversely, things set up pretty nicely pitching-wise for Cleveland to close out this ALDS. The team will throw American League Cy Young candidate Parker Messick this evening, with Gavin Williams waiting in the wings for a possible Game 5 on Saturday.
With all that in mind, let’s break down tonight’s all-important tilt from a Showdown perspective.
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB Showdown $70K Relay Throw [$20K to 1st] (CLE @ CWS)
Captain’s Picks
Parker Messick ($18,600 CP) – Messick is the lone pitcher in this game who even has the chance to throw five innings. That simple fact makes both his ceiling and his floor so much higher than any other asset on this slate. It helps that he’s quite good, too. Among qualified starters during the regular season, Messick’s 2.56 ERA over 186.1 innings was the sixth-best mark in baseball, sandwiched between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Drew Rasmussen. Now, Messick doesn’t possess elite strikeout ability — which is generally so crucial in DFS — but the rookie left-hander did strikeout just over a batter per inning (9.32) with an 11.1% swinging strike rate. Considering the White Sox set the record for strikeouts in a nine-inning postseason contest literally less than 24 hours ago (19), I think Messick’s arsenal is more than capable of exploiting this matchup.
UTIL Plays
Chase Meidroth ($8,200) – By the advanced numbers, Miguel Vargas ($9,600) is the White Sox’s best hitter of left-handed pitching, but his salary makes him difficult to pair with Messick at 1.5x value. That opens the door for Meidroth, who slashed .350/.431/.592 in his 183 plate appearances against LHPs during the regular season. That includes a .242 ISO and a 187 wRC+. Not a bad pivot by any means.
Jo Adell ($6,600) – I’m shocked Adell’s price tag is this low. It doesn’t make any sense. Hagen Smith ($4,000) is going to open this game, and Chicago has relied heavily on its left-handed bullpen arms in this series. That means Adell is going to get a few at-bats in his preferred handedness split. I can see why he prefers lefties, too. Among hitters with 100 PAs within the split, Adell’s .596 expected slugging percentage versus LHPs is the second-highest mark in MLB. The man has 60 long balls dating back to the start of 2025. Power and upside is not lacking.
Hagen Smith ($4,000) – In both of the games that Smith has opened in the postseason, he’s at least pitched into the third inning and he’s exceeded the 35-pitch plateau. I don’t know how much baseball you’ve been watching in October, but outside of aces, that’s about the average playoff start in 2026 — except on this slate, Smith’s priced like a reliever. If that wasn’t enough, the former fifth-overall pick possessed a 37.3% strikeout rate in his 28.0 regular season innings with Chicago. He could easily rack up four or five strikeouts in a single trip through the order.
Fades
Munetaka Murakami ($9,200) – While I can appreciate that Murakami took Messick deep in Game 1 of this series, the stats say that was an exception to the rule, not a sign of things to come. Murakami hit .180 with a .195 ISO against LHPs in the regular season. For context, his ISO versus RHPs was .302. The former NPB star has also been scuffling in the postseason outside of that single swing, striking out in half of his 22 plate appearances. The floor here is non-existent.
