Four games, two clear run environments, two aces on the mound. My cash-vs-GPP arms, the low-owned stack I'm smashing, the value bats that make it all fit, and build cores from single-entry to 150-max.
Here's the setup. This is a tight 4-game early slate — TOR @ BOS, SF vs LAA, SD @ MIA, ARI @ WSH — and the run environment could not be more top-heavy. My proprietary CourtEdge projections now have Washington on top at 5.5 implied runs, with San Francisco right behind at 5.3. Miami sits third at 4.8. Everybody else is 4.3 or below, and the bottom of the board — San Diego 3.3 and Boston 2.8 — is where the aces live.
That's the whole story in one line: the runs are stacked in WSH and SF, the strikeouts are stacked in the TOR–BOS game, and the field is going to over-invest in the obvious side of both. Below the fold I break down exactly how I'm attacking it — cash vs tournament arms, the mini-stacks for cash and the full stacks for GPP, my favorite value bats, and how the build changes as you scale from one lineup to a 150-max portfolio. Let's get into it.
My cash vs tournament arms, the cash mini-stacks & GPP smash stacks, the value bats that make Cease + a stack fit, the single-entry / 20-max / 150-max build cores, and my favorite-plays exposure list.
Before I give you a single name, understand why a 4-game early slate is a different animal than a 12-game main. Three things get magnified, and if you don't adjust for them you're leaving edge on the table.
1. Pitching leverage is enormous. On a 12-game slate there are ten viable arms and ownership spreads thin. On four games there are maybe five arms worth rostering, and the two best ones — Cease and Sonny Gray, who happen to be facing each other — are going to soak up a huge chunk of the field. When everyone funnels into the same one or two pitchers, the leverage you get from being off them (or being uniquely on a cheaper ceiling arm) is worth more points of separation than any single bat.
2. Stacks are concentrated, not diversified. With only eight teams on the slate, and really only three of them (WSH, SF, MIA) with a total worth stacking, everyone is fishing in the same small pond. That's a double-edged sword: the correlation upside of a good stack is still there, but so is the ownership. The winning move is to be right about which of the two top totals the field ignores — and right now that's clearly Washington at a slate-high 5.5.
3. Ownership matters more, and it's lumpier. Fewer players means ownership piles up in fewer spots. A 30% owned bat on a 4-game slate is genuinely hard to differentiate from; a 5% owned bat in a good spot is pure gold. On a slate this size I care about projected ownership almost as much as projected points, because the leverage swings are so violent.
Five arms are in play. The split between cash and GPP is really a split between floor and ceiling + ownership leverage, so I'll break them out that way.
1 Dylan Cease TOR $10,400 · 23.4 proj · 34.1 ceil · 17.2 floor · 31.2% own
The anchor, full stop. He draws the Boston offense projected for a slate-low 2.8 runs, and he carries both the highest projection (23.4) and the highest floor (17.2) on the board. In cash games where you just need to not blow up, a 17-point floor from your pitcher is a cheat code. Yes, he's the chalk at 31.2% — but chalk on a small slate is chalk for a reason, and fading the best floor arm to be different in a cash game is how you lose slowly. In cash, Cease is as close to mandatory as it gets.
2 Sonny Gray BOS $8,600 · 19.9 proj · 30.9 ceil · 14.0 floor · 30.5% own
The other side of the same ace duel, and my second cash arm. Gray draws a Toronto lineup that's fine but not scary (4.3), and at $8,600 he's a $1,800 discount to Cease with a 14.0 floor and a 30.9 ceiling. That price break is what lets you fit Cease-level production at one pitcher slot in single-pitcher formats, or run a legitimate two-ace core in double-pitcher formats without punting your bats. Note the field has caught on — Gray's up to 30.5% owned, nearly level with Cease now — so this isn't a leverage play, it's a pure floor/salary play. I'm here for the 14.0 floor at $8,600, not the ownership.
1 Eury Perez MIA $8,200 · 20.2 proj · 27.4 ceil · 26.4% own
My favorite tournament arm now that the field has piled onto the Cease/Gray ace duel (both ~30% owned). Perez is the highest-projected non-Cease arm on the board (20.2) with real strikeout ceiling, and at 26.4% he's the cheapest way to get ace-adjacent production while sidestepping the two chalkiest pitchers. He's $2,200 cheaper than Cease, which frees the salary to build a real bat stack on top. If you want one arm that plays in every format, Perez is the best blend of floor, ceiling, and ownership on the slate.
2 Foster Griffin WSH $8,800 · 18.5 proj · 29.2 ceil · 9.2 floor · 20.3% own
Pure GPP leverage. A 29.2 ceiling at just 20.3% ownership — that's the boom side of a boom/bust arm the field is under-rostering. The 9.2 floor is why he never touches a cash lineup, but in a tournament you're paying for the top 20% of outcomes, and if Griffin hits his ceiling while everyone else is on Cease or Gray, you've bought yourself a lineup nobody else has. Note the correlation wrinkle: Griffin is a Nationals arm, so he does not pair with a WSH bat stack — he's a standalone leverage swing.
3 Robbie Ray SF $7,900 · 17.0 proj · 23.7 ceil · 0.4 floor · 18.5% own
The highest-variance arm on the slate and one of the lowest-owned at 18.5%. That 0.4 floor is genuinely terrifying — one bad inning and your lineup is dead — so he is a hard no in cash and a hard no in single-entry. But in large-field GPPs where you need a ceiling nobody else has, a 23.7-point outcome from a sub-19% arm is exactly the kind of correlated-to-nobody leverage that wins a 150-max. Same caveat as Griffin: Ray is a Giants pitcher, so he doesn't combine with an SF bat stack.
The teams worth stacking: Washington (5.5), San Francisco (5.3), and Miami (4.8), with Arizona (4.0) — the Corbin Carroll stack — now a live fourth and Toronto (4.3) right there too. How you use them depends entirely on cash vs GPP.
In cash you're not trying to win the whole pot — you're trying to beat 50% of the field with a high floor. That means 2-to-3-man mini-stacks from the safest high totals, not a full 5-man swing-for-the-fences build. You want the top-of-the-order bats where the floor is real:
Cash mini-stack targets
The logic: a 2–3 man piece captures most of the correlation benefit (when a team scores, the guys hitting around each other all cash together) while keeping enough salary for the Cease floor. Full 5-man stacks are too volatile for a cash floor — save those for tournaments.
Tournaments are where the full stack lives, and this slate hands you an obvious edge:
🐕 WSH — the leverage smash TOP TOTAL + LOW-OWNED
James Wood $6,600 · CJ Abrams $6,100 · Curtis Mead $5,000 · Dylan Crews $4,200 · Andres Chaparro $2,900
This is the play of the slate. Washington owns the outright top total (5.5) — clear of San Francisco (5.3) — but the field's attention is on the Giants and on Miami's cheap bats — so WSH ownership lags its run projection. That's the exact definition of leverage: a top-of-the-slate run environment that's going under-owned. Chaparro batting 3rd at $2,900 (5.7% owned!) is the enabler that lets you fit all five bats and pay all the way up to Cease. Build the full 5-man here in every large-field GPP.
💰 MIA — the pay-up-for-an-ace stack
Otto Lopez $4,600 · Heriberto Hernandez $3,300 · Griffin Conine $3,100 · Kyle Stowers $3,900 · Esteury Ruiz $2,900
Miami's third-best total (4.8) comes at a huge discount — those five bats total just $17,800, which means you can stack all five and still afford Cease ($10,400) with room to spare. That salary math is rare and it's the whole appeal. Heriberto Hernandez (30.2%) is the one chalky piece; Conine (6.1%) and Ruiz (8.8%) are the leverage that keeps this stack from being fully obvious.
⚡ SF — the high-floor GPP stack
Luis Arraez $4,600 · Casey Schmitt $4,700 · Heliot Ramos $4,500 · Rafael Devers $4,400 · Bryce Eldridge $3,900
The #2 total at 5.3. This is the "safe" GPP stack — highest-floor of the three because of all the contact — but that safety is also why it'll be more owned than WSH. Great as your second primary stack in multi-entry, or as your single-entry tournament stack if you'd rather not sweat WSH's boom/bust profile.
Everything above only works if you can afford it. The reason you can pair Cease + a full stack is these cheap bats, which project like mid-tier players at min-price salaries. Click any header to sort by projection, value, salary, or ownership.
Value = projected points per $1,000 of salary. Ownership figures are CourtEdge projected ownership. Default sort: value.
| Bat | Tm | Salary | Proj | Val ▾ | Own% | Order | Ceil |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andres Chaparro | WSH | $2,900 | 9.44 | 3.26 | 5.7% | 3rd | 18.0 |
| Esteury Ruiz | MIA | $2,900 | 9.19 | 3.17 | 8.8% | 8th | 11.7 |
| Jake Cronenworth | SD | $2,800 | 8.27 | 2.95 | 7.6% | 2nd | 13.3 |
| Heriberto Hernandez | MIA | $3,300 | 9.70 | 2.94 | 30.2% | 3rd | 18.1 |
| Javier Sanoja | MIA | $2,600 | 7.62 | 2.93 | 22.5% | 6th | 14.6 |
| McCann (James) | ARI | $2,500 | 7.00 | 2.80 | 8.8% | 8th | 14.7 |
| Griffin Conine | MIA | $3,100 | 8.63 | 2.78 | 6.1% | 7th | 15.5 |
| Masataka Yoshida | BOS | $2,800 | 7.46 | 2.66 | 13.7% | 5th | 14.3 |
| Ty France | SD | $3,300 | 8.72 | 2.64 | 11.8% | 4th | 18.3 |
| Vaughn Grissom | LAA | $3,100 | 7.87 | 2.54 | 11.5% | 3rd | 13.7 |
Andres Chaparro (WSH, $2,900, 5.7% owned, batting 3rd) — the single most important bat on the slate for build construction. He's the top value number (3.26), he's in the top total, he's batting third, and almost nobody is on him. He's both a core piece of the WSH leverage stack and the salary reliever that makes Cease-plus-a-stack fit. If I own one value bat everywhere, it's Chaparro.
Esteury Ruiz (MIA, $2,900, 8.8% owned, batting 8th) — the second-best value (3.17) and the piece that completes a cheap Miami stack. Batting 8th caps his ceiling (11.7), but at this price in a 4.8-total offense he's a pure salary-saver that keeps his correlation with the rest of the MIA bats.
Jake Cronenworth (SD, $2,800, 7.6% owned, batting 2nd) — the best value outside a stackable team. San Diego's 3.3 total means you're not stacking the Padres, but a 2-hole bat at $2,800 with a 13.3 ceiling and sub-8% ownership is a perfect one-off value plug when you need a dollar-efficient body next to a big stack. Great in cash for the floor, sneaky in GPP for the low ownership.
Ty France (SD, $3,300, 11.8% owned, 18.3 ceiling) — another Padre one-off, but this one has real pop. That 18.3 ceiling at min-ish salary is a legitimate GPP-worthy outcome from a bat the field will mostly ignore because of the team total. Pairs well anywhere you need ceiling on a budget.
Same slate, three completely different jobs depending on how many lineups you're firing. Here's how I'd approach each — as cores to build around, not finished lineups. I'm giving you the anchor arm + primary stack and then who else to consider; you make the final roster calls.
In single-entry you get one bullet, so you want the highest-floor version of a correlated lineup — not a lottery ticket. The core:
SE core
Arm: Dylan Cease. Primary: a 4-man from one of the two top totals — I'd lean WSH (Wood, Abrams, Crews, Chaparro) for the leverage on the slate-high 5.5, or SF (Arraez, Devers, Ramos, Schmitt) at 5.3 if you want the higher floor. Secondary: a 2-man from the other top total or from MIA (e.g., Otto Lopez + Kyle Stowers).
Who else to consider: Cronenworth or Ty France as your dollar-efficient plug in the last slot. Sonny Gray instead of Cease only if you specifically want to get off the top chalk in a smaller single-entry field. Skip Griffin and Ray entirely here — their floors will bust your one lineup.
With 20 lineups you can express a portfolio of reads without spreading so thin you dilute your best ones. The core idea: 3–4 different primary stacks and 2–3 different arms, mixed so no two lineups are identical.
20-max cores
Rotate Cease / Gray / Griffin across the 20 so you're not dead if the ace duel goes sideways. Keep Chaparro, Ruiz and Cronenworth as your recurring value plugs so the stacks + ace always fit.
At 150 lineups you stop thinking about individual builds and start thinking about exposure distribution. Weight everything by team total, cap your exposure so no single outcome sinks you, and deliberately carve out a chunk of low-owned leverage.
150-max portfolio rules
Distilling the whole slate down to where my chips actually go: