Ahead of the Count: MLB DFS plays for Sunday (7/4)

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This is Ahead of the Count. This article is going to cover my thoughts on the slate, top to bottom. My goal is going to provide you with as much analysis, strategy and advice as possible on a daily basis to help you guys not only make winning lineups, but learn, develop and dial in on a process of your own.

I will have my main slate preview article Monday-Friday, as well as my projections. My projections are currently loaded into our brand new FTN MLB DFS optimizer on the site, but make sure you’re checking back and not setting lineups too early as my projections will often change once starting lineups are confirmed. My player-rater system and ownership projections will also be integrated into the optimizer as well as available on the FTN MLB Ownership and Projections page.

Be sure to check out the rest of our FTN MLB DFS content as we have you covered with anything you could look for. Also, please be sure to check for spotty weather and to confirm the starting lineups for each person I write up to ensure they made the starting lineup that day.

Pitchers

Expensive tier

Gerrit Cole, New York Yankees (DK — $10.6k/24.51 points/32% pOwn%, not on FD slate)
Freddy Peralta, Milwaukee Brewers (DK — $9.7k/22.77 points/35% pOwn%, FD — $9.9k/38.3 points/27% pOwn%)

Mid-tier

Lucas Giolito, Chicago White Sox (DK — $8.9k/22.4 points/26% pOwn%, FD — $9.6k/38.8 points/28% pOwn%)
Charlie Morton, Atlanta Braves (DK — $7.8k/21.9 points/31% pOwn%, FD — $9k/37.5 points/21% pOwn%)

Value tier

Kenta Maeda, Minnesota Twins (DK — $6.2k/15.7 points/12% pOwn%)

My pitcher rankings

Stacks

Chicago White Sox
Minnesota Twins
Toronto Blue Jays
Milwaukee Brewers
Cincinnati Reds

Here are the stack and HR raters for today — the HR rater looks to identify the pitchers most likely to give up power:

Slate strategy

There are plenty of good pitching options Sunday, so getting away from Gerrit Cole is fairly easy to do — it is clear that he has been struggling without the foreign substances, and while I am sure he’ll figure it out, I don’t think this is a slate where you need to rely on taking that risk. Freddy Peralta has a higher K% than Cole on the year and has the better matchup, so I would much rather just go there, especially for the discount. You can also save even more by going to Giolito in an elite matchup — he hasn’t had elite K stuff this year, but he has still been very good at getting strikeouts, as his K% sits at 29% on the year, and the Tigers lineup is striking out over 26% of the time against RHPs. Those are the two I would be looking at first up top, with Charlie Morton being a damn near lock-button SP2 play for me, he is under $8k, there aren’t a ton of options below him I like, and Morton has been very solid this year, he has a sub-4 xFIP and is striking out nearly 28% of hitters, for the $7.8k price tag, he is by far my favorite SP2 option on DK, with Kenta Maeda being the guy if I am looking for more of a punt to open up salary for the bats, but I don’t know if it is necessary.

No Coors slate on this one, which is refreshing. Coors slates are usually not my favorite, but they do open up unique opportunities at times where we see spots going overlooked because everyone is focused there. I do think we still have teams going overlooked Sunday, namely the Cincinnati Reds, Toronto Blue Jays and Milwaukee Brewers. The top two stacks in terms of ownership (and also in my stack rater) are the White Sox and Twins — both are in great spots, so I can’t argue against those plays. It will be interesting to see what the Padres ownership comes in as, Vince Velasquez is typically someone the public either loves or hates, but the Padres total is down a little bit in comparison to other teams, I wouldn’t mind taking a shot on them, though they would be a team I would want to be underweight on if they were to be a top-three stack in terms of popularity.

Quick hits

Favorite value hitter — Jake Burger
Favorite value pitcher — Charlie Morton
Favorite one-off hitter — J.T. Realmuto (especially on DK)
Favorite contrarian pitcher — Not getting too contrarian at pitcher today
Favorite contrarian stack — Cincinnati Reds
Favorite value stack — Houston Astros
The bleacher report (HR calls) — Jesse Winker, Mike Zunino, Teoscar Hernández, Patrick Wisdom