Just over one month remains in the MLB regular season, as the final games are set to be played on September 27. In six days, the calendar will flip to September, and rosters will expand slightly to allow top prospects to dip their toes in the MLB waters and audition for a postseason role. <\/p>\n
Although all 30 teams are in action today, only seven games are available as part of tonight\u2019s featured late slate of action at DraftKings. A relatively small slate requires picking players wisely, choosing the best options at a range of price points to maximize the $50,000 budget. Here\u2019s how I\u2019d go about building my lineup.<\/p>\n
Make your\u00a0DraftKings<\/a>\u00a0MLB DFS picks here:\u00a0MLB $125K Bat Flip [$25K to 1st]<\/a><\/p>\n MLB DFS Targets, Values for Wednesday, August 26<\/p>\n Pitcher<\/p>\n Stud: Roki Sasaki, LAD at ATL ($7,700)<\/p>\n Value: Connor Prielipp, MIN at ATH ($6,200)<\/p>\n Infielder<\/p>\n Stud: Luis Garc\u00eda Jr., NYY vs. HOU ($5,000)<\/p>\n Value: Salvador Perez, KC at TOR ($3,400)<\/p>\n Outfielder<\/p>\n Stud: Jordan Walker, STL vs. BAL ($5,700)<\/p>\n Value: Luis Lara, MIL at NYM ($3,300)<\/p>\n PITCHER<\/p>\n Stud<\/p>\n Roki Sasaki, Los Angeles Dodgers at Atlanta Braves ($7,700) \u2014 Sasaki has become a completely different pitcher since the All-Star break. Since then, he\u2019s made six starts, tossing 35.0 innings and pitching to a 2.31 ERA (18.7 FPTS per game), giving up two or fewer earned runs in each game. He should have no problem continuing his hot form against a struggling Braves offense that ranks just seventh in OPS in August and is just 7-10 in its last 17 games. Sasaki has some issues with walks, but Atlanta has drawn the third-fewest free passes in the league this season. <\/p>\n Value<\/p>\n Connor Prielipp, Minnesota Twins at Athletics ($6,200) \u2014 Prielipp has had a pretty rough rookie season, posting a 5.57 ERA and averaging just 12.6 FPTS per game, but like Sasaki, he\u2019s begun to show more flashes as of late. In a five-start stretch between June 28 and August 9, Prielipp pitched to a 4.00 ERA, averaging 17.5 FPTS per game, and while he\u2019s imploded in his last two starts, shutting down the Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres is a much tougher task than shutting down these Athletics. The Athletics are currently without Nick Kurtz ($4,200), Shea Langeliers ($4,300), and Tyler Soderstrom ($2,000), taking virtually all of the juice out of their lineup.<\/p>\n INFIELD<\/p>\n Stud<\/p>\n Luis Garc\u00eda Jr., New York Yankees vs. Houston Astros ($5,000) \u2014 In recent games, Garc\u00eda has alternated trash with treasure, posting games of 22, 0, 18, 4, and 31 FPTS, but it\u2019s resulted in pretty good numbers overall across a 10-game span (.949 OPS, 8.8 FPTS per game). He\u2019ll be facing one of this slate\u2019s most expensive pitchers, the Astros\u2019 Peter Lambert ($8,700), but Lambert is coming off of a stinker against the Los Angeles Angels on August 20, giving up nine runs in 3.2 innings (negative-9.8 FPTS). Lambert has had a below-average pulled fly ball rate in four of his five seasons, and that could be all Garc\u00eda needs to send one into Yankee Stadium\u2019s short porch. He\u2019s posted a .587 xSLG against right-handed four-seamers this season.<\/p>\n Value<\/p>\n Salvador Perez, Kansas City Royals at Toronto Blue Jays ($3,400) \u2014 The Royals have somehow won nine straight games, and their talisman has found his groove, recording double-digit FPTS in four of his last six games. It\u2019s been a brutal season for the 36-year-old Perez, but the last week has demonstrated that he still has it. He doesn\u2019t have the easiest matchup in a Toronto bullpen that has posted a 3.42 ERA this month, but Mason Fluharty ($5,000) and Braydon Fisher ($4,000) have both thrown on three of the last five days and Tyler Rogers ($4,000) threw 18 pitches last night, so it\u2019s possible that none of those three pitchers will be available tonight.<\/p>\n OUTFIELD<\/p>\n Stud<\/p>\n Jordan Walker, St. Louis Cardinals vs. Baltimore Orioles ($5,700) \u2014 Since Sasaki is relatively cheap for a stud pitcher option, let\u2019s break the bank here a little bit and go with Walker, who had a cold stretch right after the All-Star break but is thoroughly in the zone right now, slashing .366\/.409\/.756 (14.1 FPTS per game) across his last 10 games. Kyle Bradish ($8,000) is a decent pitcher, but he doesn\u2019t generate a lot of chases or whiffs, mitigating Walker\u2019s biggest weaknesses, and he sports just a 41st-percentile barrel rate. Bradish has also given up a significantly higher slugging percentage on the road.<\/p>\n Value<\/p>\n Luis Lara, Milwaukee Brewers at New York Mets ($3,300) \u2014 I\u2019ve picked Lara in this spot before, as I\u2019m high on the Brewers\u2019 young core in general (Lara, Cooper Pratt ($3,700), and top prospect Jes\u00fas Made), but if it\u2019s not broke, don\u2019t fix it. Over his last 10 games, Lara has posted a .308\/.325\/.462 slash line, averaging 7.6 FPTS per game, and the Mets are turning to a relatively untested option in Robert Stock ($5,000), who has a 4.99 career ERA in 92.0 innings. The switch-hitting Lara has been far better against right-handed pitchers, slugging .585 against the righty four-seamers that Stock likes to throw.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just over one month remains in the MLB regular season, as the final games are set to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":789220,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2276],"tags":[5,2291,4,1586,4010],"class_list":["post-789219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb-draft","tag-baseball","tag-major-league-baseball-draft","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-draft","tag-top"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/117164078739736055","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=789219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/789219\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/789220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=789219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=789219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=789219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}