Good morning! Happy Friday! Do you love 14 game slates? I don’t! But I’ll be in here anyways. Bravely fading a handful of matchups and celebrating any ROI in the green. Here are today’s matchups

Marlins @ Nationals

Cardinals @ Mets (orange/yellow weather rating)

Yankees @ Red Sox

Rockies @ Braves

Blue Jays @ Rangers

Reds @ Astros

Angels @ Royals

Tigers @ Twins

Pirates @ Brewers

Guardians @ D-backs

Rays @ Padres

Phillies @ A’s

Giants @ Dodgers

White Sox @ Mariners

Pitcher preferences

Zac Gallen vs Guardians

Joe Ryan vs Tigers

Shane McClanahan vs Padres

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Michael Kopech @ Seattle

Kevin Gausman @ Rangers

Yu Darvish vs Rays

Rich Hill @ Brewers

Sandy Alcantara @ Nationals

Taijuan Walker @ Athletics

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Miles Mikolas @ Mets

JP France vs Reds

Trevor Williams vs Marlins

Domingo German @ Red Sox

JP Sears vs Phillies

Andrew Abbott @ Astros

Once again we have a plethora of options at SP, for Cycles and Main Slate. Zac Gallen I instinctively listed as my top option. I think, after curating this list, I would prefer Joe Ryan. Guardians are never a team to strike out much, but they’ve also got a bit of a power surge going on. Gallen can certainly shut a team like them down, but beware the lefty bats in this Guardians lineup. 

Another guy who is facing the Mid-Atlantic version of the Guardians is Sandy, who is taking on the Nationals. They’re, as we’ve coined on the UDMLB show, the right handed Guardians. They don’t strike out a lot, and are pesky when facing LHP. Sandy is of course a righty, so he might be able to cruise through this game and get to 8 or possible 9 innings, truth be told. However, he has not been that guy this season. I’m going to see what the market thinks but my gut tells me that he will be overdrafted. If he’s available late frequently, I’ll be taking a good amount of Sandy.

Domingo German is probably someone I am not giving enough respect to in this list. He’s been a good, but is going up against the Red Sox in Boston. My hope is he gets drafted highly because of his player card/past performances. I’ll take him late in the Cycle if he’s falling, but that spot is not for me, personally.

Favorite teams

Angels (Brady Singer, RHP)

Braves (Dinelson Lamet, RHP)

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Blue Jays (Martin Perez, LHP)

Dodgers (Opener John Brebbia, RHP)

White Sox (Bryan Woo, RHP)

D-backs (Triston McKenzie, RHP)

Giants (Emmet Sheehan, RHP)

Phillies (JP Sears, LHP)

Pirates (Julio Teheran, RHP)

Athletics (Taijuan Walker, RHP)

This is a haves and haves not, studs and duds, choose your cliche type of day. There are about ten teams are facing some degree of difficulty in their matchups, and then the Angels and Braves, who I don’t feel the need to sell too strongly. One word of caution is Shohei Ohtani, who has been on a tear of all tears, just pitched last night. He is a sit candidate, but quite obviously do not fade him. Too many good swap options to care about that, just pointing that out!

The Blue Jays look like a smiddash today. Facing a lefty who most people want to be a bad real life and fantasy pitcher so badly, but always seems to mute teams in these spots in Martin Perez. This feels extremely trappy to me, but I will not be able to resist a few Blue Jays combinations. In the Cycle I can see myself fading them. This is under the assumption that they are going to be pricey today. 
Update: They are not expensive at all. Near impossible to fade at their ADP currently.

The D-backs are in a very interesting spot today. I love them against anybody right now, and McKenzie on paper is a tough matchup. However, Arizona is arguably the hottest team in baseball. I’m going to ride the hot hand today and hope people give McKenzie too much respect.

On the flip side, the Phillies take on another Athletics favorite of mine (word to Luis Medina) in JP Sears. Lefties match up well with the Phillies and Sears is a good one. Here’s hoping the field just assumes Sears is another warm body in an A’s uniform, because he is actually good and facing a lefty dominate lineup. I’d be remiss to not note that Trea Turner and JT Realmuto are beginning to heat up.

And of course, I’m sure you see the Pirates on my list of favorites today against Julio Teheran. He has gotten excellent results thus far, and even his xFIP of 4.48 isn’t horrible. However, what better time to bet against him when people are finally starting to show him respect against a team people also don’t respect in the Pirates? I’ll be playing them today. Not super confident in the play, but it feels like great leverage. Doing it for me.

Here’s a pick-em I made. Simply playing the hits

Hope everyone has a good day and great weekend. Take a walk, get 10k steps in, tell your loved ones you love em. Let’s win some money.