WEATHER
Mostly good to go. A chance of showers in Atlanta and Minnesota could bring delays but no PPD.
JACOB DEGROM (DK: $9600)
Prefer deGrom over Schlitter for the Ace today. He’s really been held back by the long ball, something that certainly is a risk vs Cleveland’s heart of their order (Ramirez, DeLauter, Manzardo). But he has also been great vs lefties in general & we know Cleveland is going to try and throw a ton of those at him today. I trust the vet, with the roof obviously being closed in the graveyard down in Texas.
SHANE BAZ (DK: $8500)
There’s something here. I have never been a Baz guy, but maybe he’s just dominant within the division. Three straight starts 6+ IP, 4 total ER, keeping the walks down, striking out at a good rate and his hard hit rates are in general pretty balanced across all his pitches. It’s a battle of his Knuckle-Curve and Gausman’s splitter today up in Canada. And, well, I don’t play one of these guys on Sunday’s… So lets go with Shane and the Orange Birds.
SUNDAY SLEEPER
Aaron Nola: No man in 2026 should look at Aaron Nola in a day game and think — yes, I wanna put money on that. But, you. Yes, you. You know its the right play. Don’t try to sit there scared that Colson or Benintendi (okay, he might) are going to hit one out to RF. This won’t be a repeat of yesterday on Painter — who absolutely has not turned the corner. A veteran pitcher like Nola saw that and will come out today with the responsibility to push through 7 innings to rest the pen.
Whenever I see tons of pretty good hitting spots I naturally gravitate towards a one off day. This comes with the caution that we’re always likely to see one or two teams just explode late in games off bullpens on Sunday’s. Often times, that is also a road team who you might not expect it. So, I present to you first the tier of teams who could be those road teams to just nuke the bullpen today.
- Mariners: Maybe my favorite sleeper team today. Yes, definitely my favorite. Good weather in Comerica, horrific Tigers pen & Naylor/Arozarena/Julio have good history vs Flaherty
- Athletics: Power lefties against Burrows. The Houston pen is pitching much better though but Cortes, Kurtz, Soderstrom are certainly enough to push this into a full stack
- Rays: If Sandy implodes this is the slate winner. It’s that simple.
Now for the teams who we have to get exposure to…
- Braves: There’s one guy here. One specific guy. Play him.
- Phillies: If they cannot beat up the White Sox today then folks in Philly are going to be switching their focus to second round NBA draft analysis very quickly. That said, if Nola’s rolling as I anticipate I can see this just moving along and being a 6-1 game.
- Royals: There is also one guy here. One specific guy.
CATCHER
- Salvador Perez
- Adley Rutschman
- Tyler Stephenson
FIRST BASE
- Matt Olson
- Nick Kurtz
- Pete Alonso
SECOND BASE
- Richie Palacios
- Cole Young
- Sunday Jazz Chisholm Jr.
- JJ Wetherholt
THIRD BASE
- Alec Bohm
- Yandy Diaz
- Patrick Wisdom
SHORTSTOP
- JP Crawford
- Darell Hernaiz
- Kevin McGonigle
OUTFIELD – Mt. Rushmore
- Julio Rodriguez
- Lars Nootbar
- Kerry Carpenter
- Tyler Soderstrom
OUTFIELD – Tier II
- Brandon Marsh
- Wyatt Langford
- Ryan O’Hearn
- JJ Bleday
- Matt Olson – 1B – Atlanta Braves – Chairman of The Dongers Club
- Salvador Perez – C – Royals
- Julio Rodriguez – OF – Mariners
- Jazz Chisholm – 2B – Yankees
- Lars Nootbar – OF – Reds
- Alec Bohm – 3B – Phillies
- Tyler Soderstrom – OF – Athletics
- Gunnar Henderson – SS – Orioles
- BONUS …. Nick Kurtz – 1B – Athletics
BETS
- Mariners / TIgers OVER 8.5
- Orioles ML