Well hello. Fancy seeing you here. Thursday is usually a light day in the MLB streets, and that’s kinda the case today. It’s also kinda not the case. We’re left with a 6-game main slate starting at the standard 7:10 PM ET, and there’s some stuff to like. There’s also some stuff not to like.
Now that we’ve gotten an incredibly generic intro out of the way, let’s discuss the ballgames.
Best MLB DFS Pitchers (7/30)
- Bryan Woo ($9,000, at Dodgers)
- Nolan McLean ($8,800, vs. Marlins)
- Eury Perez ($8,300, at Mets)
- Sonny Gray ($8,100, at A’s)
- Robbie Ray ($7,800, at Padres)
- Roki Sasaki ($7,500, vs. Mariners)
We’ve got some semi-aces on this slate, but nobody I’d call a real one. Fake aces? I guess so, man.
Bryan Woo is the most expensive of the lot, though $9,000 isn’t all that expensive. He probably shouldn’t be the most expensive, though, given the brutal matchup in LA against the Dodgers. They’ve predictably done a lot of damage (.193 ISO, .354 wOBA, 20.9% Ks) against righties.
Woo is solid in all facets, though, and I assume his ownership will be on the lighter side. A 24% K-rate is decent enough, while his SIERA (3.63) is quite a bit lower than his ERA (4.37). Stranding baserunners has been an issue, while his BABIP is pushing .300. Bad luck, I say. Woo isn’t allowing a whole lot of loud damage, he’s just gettin’ nickeled-and-dimed out there, whatever that means. Sounds like something a 1920s detective would say to the dame that just walked into his office.
I don’t think Woo is a great play in a vacuum, but he is an interesting contrarian option if the guys just below him in salary are going to get exponentially more ownership, which they will.
The chalkiest pitcher on the slate will be Nolan McLean, who comes in for $200 less at home against the Marlins. McLean has excellent stuff, but his 28.6% strikeout rate is quite high for a guy with just a 10.1% swinging strike rate. Woo’s is at 11.6%, by comparison. McLean also has dicier control – though it’s not alarmingly bad – and, obviously, you’d rather face the Marlins than the Dodgers, and it’s better to pitch at Citi Field than Dodger Stadium.
Most of McLean’s issues have come against LHBs, and he’s likely to see 6 of them here. Over the last month, Miami has actually raked right-handed pitching (.213 ISO, .368 wOBA) without a ton of Ks (19.4%). I think McLean is a fine play – the Marlins only have a 3.33 total – but it’s also not hard to see where things can go south.
Eury Perez on the other side of the matchup is interesting, too. He’s the opposite of McLean in terms of expected Ks. His 13.4% swinging strike rate and 116 Stuff+ number are both quite a bit better than McLean’s in the same categories, yet Perez has a lower strikeout rate (26.6%). He’s also walking too many (9.5%) and finding too many barrels (10.9%), which has kinda always been the case with Perez.
The Mets have been worse than the Marlins in just about every offensive category for the season (.143 ISO, .308 wOBA, 21.7% Ks), and they’re a lot less patient without the league’s most patient hitter – Juan Soto – healthy. Perez will also face quite a few lefties, and he’s actually had much more success overall against opposite-handed hitters. At $8,300, I think Perez is the best play on the slate.
Sonny Gray should also get some ownership despite a park downgrade going into Sacramento. His strikeout rate has dwindled to 21.5% this season, though he’s still doing a fine job of keeping power in check and the ball on the ground (48%). This version of the A’s is also horrific with Shea Langeliers done for the season and Nick Kurtz questionable to play in this one. What’s left is a lineup with a .133 ISO and .316 wOBA vs. right-handed pitching. They’re still a pretty high-contact team (17% Ks), so it’s not necessarily a great spot for a ceiling game from Gray, but at $8,100 on a small slate without a ton else to love, I get it.
Robbie Ray and Roki Sasaki are awfully similar. At least, Sasaki is similar to how Ray was earlier in his career. The 2026 version of Ray is no longer a massive source of strikeouts (20.5%), while the old control issues have crept back up (11.4%). He’s also allowing some power to right-handed hitters, which isn’t new at all. The Padres are an impotent lineup (.146 ISO, .309 wOBA vs. LHP) and Petco is pitcher-friendly, so Ray is on the radar at $7,800 despite his waning skills.
Sasaki is the ultimate wild card. He’s looked great since the Dodgers gave him a bigger glove to help him avoid tipping his pitches, though we’ll see how long that lasts. For the season, a 23.6% strikeout rate and a 9% walk rate isn’t terrible, but he’s also allowed an ugly 11.4% barrel rate. The barrel rate over the last month is similar, though he’s upped the Ks (25%) while limiting the walks (6.8%).
Seattle is a boom/bust offense getting a park boost. They’re only about average in every regard (21.8% Ks, .171 ISO, .318 WOBA vs. RHP). Sasaki is also just $7,500, which, I guess, should be the lead story. He’s cheap and has upside, and the Mariners’ implied run total is hovering around 4. Seems like a good spot to play both sides.
If you want something cheaper, I think JP Sears ($6,500) is playable. Similar to how paper is technically edible.
SP Rankings
- Perez
- Sasaki
- Gray
- McLean
- Woo
- Ray
Best MLB DFS Stacks (Thursday, 7/30)
- Red Sox (at Mason Barnett)
- Pirates (at Rhett Lowder)
- Reds (vs. Yohan Ramirez)
- Braves (vs. Jake Irvin)
- A’s (vs. Sonny Gray)
- Nationals (at Grant Holmes)
- Dodgers (vs. Bryan Woo)
- Giants (at JP Sears)
The Red Sox and A’s just keep playing each other, but if no teams score any runs, are they really playing? Mercifully, this is the last game of the series, so we don’t have to keep doing this shit to ourselves. I assume we’re getting Red Sox chalk again, just as we have for the last 3 slates.
Mason Barnett is starting for the A’s, but he’ll probably top out around 60 pitches, so it’s more of a bullpen game. Left-handed hitters (.304 ISO, .422 wOBA) have really eaten this guy’s lunch. Boston generally looks worse against righties (.158 ISO, .305 wOBA) so this will be some shaky chalk yet again. Wilyer Abreu, Willson Contreras, Jarren Duran, and Anthony Seigler are the hitters I’d want the most, but the reality is, I want none of them. They’re a fine stack, and we shouldn’t let the last 3 games cloud our thinking, but we have a pretty large sample of this lineup just being Not Very Good.
The A’s are playable on the other side of that one, but again, I haven’t loved this team all week for a reason. They’re bad, and Sonny Gray, while elderly, is still respectable. I’m not even sure what we’re supposed to like. I suppose it’d be a mini-stack of Tyler Soderstrom + Carlos Cortes + Donovan Walton, but you’re really just hoping Gray has an off night. Which is possible, obviously.
I guess the Braves will be chalky because The Public wants to think they’re good, but they’re kinda not? I suppose the more important thing is The Public thinks of Jake Irvin as a gas can, but that isn’t really true, either. His SIERA is under 4.00 despite his ERA being well over 5.00, which is quite the discrepancy. Irvin is a flyball pitcher allowing a 12% barrel rate, so he’s been at the mercy of the HR/FB% gods. Despite the high barrel rate, he hasn’t really allowed a ton of damage, with a .156 ISO and .319 wOBA allowed on the year along with a respectable 25.4% K-rate. The Braves’ first 5 hitters are talented enough to stack against anyone (Baldwin, Acuna, Olson, Harris, Albies), but that’s also the same 5-man stack everyone stacking Atlanta is going to play. If it’s chalky, I don’t feel like I need it.
Seems like the better target is the PIT-CIN game. Yohan Ramirez is a reliever, so he’s an opener, and someone called Hunter Barco (L) could pitch bulk. Barco means ship in Spanish. We don’t know for certain if Mr. Ship will pitch, so this is all kinda complicated if you want to stack the Reds. JJ Bleday and Nathaniel Lowe won’t look quite as appealing if they’re facing The Boatman for a few ABs, but I’d still play them in stacks along with the usual core pieces of Elly De La Cruz, Sal Stewart, and Eugenio Suarez.
The case for the Pirates is cleaner against the disastrous Rhett Lowder, who has been an utter disaster against left-handed hitters. It’s easy to talk yourself into Bryan Reynolds, Brandon Lowe, Ryan O’Hearn, and Jacob Gonzalez here from the left side, while Esmerlyn Valdez from the right is totally fine. Valdez has a strikeouts problem, but strikeouts shouldn’t be a huge issue here against a guy with an 18% K-rate vs. RHBs. I’m more confident in the Pirates than I am in anyone else I’ve mentioned so far.
The field won’t play Woo, but they also probably won’t pay up for the Dodgers against him. Woo has historically allowed more thunder to LHBs, so Shohei Ohtani, Max Muncy, Freddie Freeman, Tommy Edman, The Husk of Kyle Tucker, and Dalton Rushing are The Ones You’d Probably Want. Ownership should be pretty low, I guess.
I like Sasaki, but this is a guy we should always be hedging against if he’s popular. Seattle has been doo-doo, but, in theory, there are still some capable hitters here between Julio Rodriguez, The Husk of Cal Raleigh, Randy Arozarena, Cole Young, and Dom Canzone.
The Padres and Giants are both facing attackable lefties. It’s a pitcher-friendly park, but I don’t mind these teams at what should be pretty low ownership. The righties are the main attractions on both sides:
Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., Ty France for the Puds, Willy Adames and Heliot Ramos for the Giants. Sears can still give it up to lefties a bit, keeping Luis Arraez and Devers/Eldridge in play.
Noah Simpson is a New England-based DFS writer who has spent the better part of a decade obsessing over MLB DFS. He got his start playing DFS recreationally before realizing he was spending more time building spreadsheets than actually watching games, and decided to make it official. At DFSBuild, Noah covers MLB DFS strategy with a focus on finding edges that casual players overlook. When he’s not staring at Statcast data, he’s somewhere on a hiking trail in Maine with his two dogs, Sandboy and Johnner, who are undefeated at ignoring his lineup advice, because they are dogs. They don’t have the cognitive or motor skills required to operate a computer, let alone process complex theories and information.
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