San Francisco runs an ace against a weak Angels offense in the last game on the board — a spot that produces a very specific captain decision and a rare pair of tournament-winning leverage bats. Here is the LAA / SF Showdown playbook: top 5 captains, the top flex plays, the game scripts that decide it, single-entry vs. multi-entry strategy, and cap-legal lineups.
Game Scripts — how this game gets won
You captain the script, not the name. Four ways the LAA / SF Showdown plays out:
- Webb dominates + SF grinds runs (the base case). The ace does ace things — length, a stack of strikeouts, a quiet Angels lineup — while the Giants push their implied 5.0 across the weaker arm. Captain Logan Webb; he is the highest floor and the highest ceiling on the board. This is the most likely outcome and the safest captain.
- SF blows it open vs. Grayson (the mid GPP script). Grayson Rodriguez gets touched early, the Giants hang a crooked number, and one SF bat goes 3-for-4 with a homer. Captain Rafael Devers or Heliot Ramos inside a 4-1 SF stack — the highest-projection tournament build that stays fully defensible because the run environment backs it.
- LAA keeps it close / steals it (the leverage script). If the Angels' bats show up, it is Trout, Neto, and Adell doing the damage — and at 4.8% / 10.3% / 18.8% owned, captaining one of them wins a large field outright, because virtually no one rostered the road dog's stars in the leadoff spots.
- Low-scoring Webb gem (the under script). Both starters are efficient, the game stays in the 6-7 run range, and Webb's strikeouts carry it. Here Webb captain + a thin SF stack + one cheap bat is the play; you do not want to be heavy on either offense.
Webb is the safe side and San Francisco is the higher-scoring side. The Angels' bats are the winning side when the game breaks open — and no one is on them. Which lever you pull depends entirely on your contest.
Top 5 Captains (1.5×)
All projections are CourtEdge proprietary projections; captain salary is the standard 1.5× tag.
| # | Captain | Sal (1.5×) | Proj | Own | Why |
|---|
| 1 | Logan Webb SF P anchor | $18,600 | 28.7 | 50.9% | The best captain on the board, full stop. Ace workload against a weak Angels offense means innings, strikeouts, and the win equity of a home favorite — the only player here whose floor is independent of the bats. Highest projection and highest floor; in any SF-leaning build he is the captain. |
| 2 | Rafael Devers SF 1B stack anchor | $11,700 | 13.3 | 58.6% | The premier power bat, hitting cleanup on the 5.0-run side against a hittable right-hander. Captaining Devers puts 1.5× on the exact lineup slot a favored offense does its damage. Popular, but the projection and matchup justify it in the SF-blowup script. |
| 3 | Mike Trout LAA OF leverage | $14,400 | 13.1 | 4.8% | The tournament-winning captain. The best bat in the Angels' lineup, batting second, at a stunning 4.8% ownership. If LAA scores at all, almost no one in the field captained him — this is the single highest-leverage swing on the slate and the play that separates a first-place ticket from the pack. |
| 4 | Zach Neto LAA SS leverage | $12,600 | 13.1 | 10.3% | The Angels' leadoff bat — extra plate appearances, speed, and the top of any LAA rally — at 10.3% owned. Nearly identical projection to Trout at a lower salary. In the leverage script, a Neto captain is pure differentiation with a real ceiling. |
| 5 | Heliot Ramos SF OF leverage | $12,000 | 11.8 | 19.7% | Highest raw ceiling among SF bats (18.5) at middle-of-order production and below-market ownership. Captains the SF-blowup script while carrying far less ownership than Devers or Eldridge — the leverage play inside the favored stack. |
The captain read: Webb is the highest-probability winner and belongs on the bulk of single-entry tickets. Trout and Neto are where a large-field GPP is actually won — the field is stacked on Webb and the cheap SF bats, and captaining a 4.8%-owned Trout in a game the Angels keep close is how you beat thousands of entries.
Top Flex Plays (UTIL)
Five-to-eight flex bats worth building around, with the case for each:
| Flex | Sal | Proj | Own | Why |
|---|
| Bryce Eldridge SF 1B chalk | $7,200 | 8.25 | 50.0% | Top-of-order power (bats 2) with a 14 ceiling at a mid price — the salary that makes a 4-bat SF stack fit. Chalky at 50%, but a legitimate ceiling swing in the blowup script. |
| Luis Arraez SF 2B value | $8,800 | 8.35 | 14.5% | SF leadoff, elite contact, and only 14.5% owned — a high-floor bat at the top of the favored order that the field is under-rostering. Excellent leverage-adjacent SF piece. |
| Jo Adell LAA OF leverage | $6,600 | 7.83 | 18.8% | The Angels' power source (17 ceiling) batting fifth at a discount. The correlated bring-back behind a Trout/Neto captain and a ceiling bat in the LAA-keeps-it-close script. |
| Nolan Schanuel LAA 1B chalk value | $5,400 | 7.31 | 63.9% | The slate's chalk value at 63.9% — cheap, bats third, and productive. You do not need him, but fading the top-owned value bat is a risk; include him when you want a safer LAA stack. |
| Willy Adames SF SS value | $7,400 | 7.75 | 13.2% | Pop from the lower third of the SF order at just 13.2% owned — a low-owned way to get a fifth Giants bat into a stack without touching the chalk. |
| Josh Lowe LAA OF cheap | $3,800 | 6.76 | 59.7% | The cheapest productive bat on the board (bats 8) — pure salary relief that lets you afford Webb plus a stud stack. Chalky, but the price makes stud-heavy builds legal. |
| Vaughn Grissom LAA 2B/3B value | $5,200 | 6.86 | 44.2% | Bats cleanup for LAA at a value price — a natural bring-back and a mid-owned salary saver that keeps a stack correlated. |
| Casey Schmitt SF 3B leverage | $9,000 | 7.75 | 8.8% | Middle-of-order SF bat at only 8.8% owned — the lowest-owned way to get exposure to the favored offense. Priced up, but the ownership makes him a leverage flex in a Giants stack. |
Flex read: the correlated core is Webb + Devers + one of Eldridge/Ramos on the SF side. Where you win is the low-owned glue — Arraez, Adames, and Schmitt let you build a Giants stack the field is not on, while Adell and Neto are the LAA bring-backs that pay the leverage script. Lean on Schanuel and Josh Lowe only for the salary relief that makes a stud build fit.
Single-Entry vs. Multi-Entry — how to attack this Showdown
Single-entry (one bullet). It has to be defensible and have a ceiling, so you build the most likely winning script: Logan Webb at captain, a high-floor SF stack (Devers, Eldridge or Ramos, one of Arraez/Adames), one cheap salary saver, and exactly one Angels leverage bat (Trout, Neto, or Adell) as the bring-back. This is the chalkier, higher-floor approach — you accept the base-case script, max the cap, and let Webb's ace floor carry you while the single LAA bat covers the "they answered" run. Confirm lineups after the late scratches post.
Multi-entry (e.g., the $11 48-max). A small-field multi-entry rewards diversified, correlated bullets, not spray. The plan:
- Rotate captains across Webb / Devers / Trout / Neto / Ramos. Webb and Devers cover the base and SF-blowup scripts; Trout and Neto are your leverage swings for the LAA-keeps-it-close script; Ramos is the low-owned SF ceiling. Do not spread across all 20 — concentrate on the captains that change the outcome.
- Lean the low-owned LAA captains harder than cash. Because the field is heavy Webb and cheap SF chalk, your Trout (4.8%) and Neto (10.3%) captain tickets are where the top of the leaderboard lives if the game goes over. In a small field you can push that exposure aggressively.
- Cover both game scripts. Have Webb-anchored SF builds and LAA-captain leverage builds in your entry set so you are live whether the ace dominates or the Angels erupt.
- Correlate every build and cap exposure. 3–4 bats from the captain's team + a one-bat bring-back; own the inning, not scattered names. Cap any single non-Webb player around 40–50% of your entries so one bad line doesn't sink the whole set.
Example Cap-Legal Lineups
All three fit under the $50,000 cap with a 1.5× captain. Salaries and CourtEdge proprietary projections shown; validate before you fire.
Build A — Single-entry: Webb captain, SF stack + 1 LAA leverage.
CPT Logan Webb ($18,600) · FLEX Rafael Devers ($7,800), Bryce Eldridge ($7,200), Heliot Ramos ($8,000), Drew Cavanaugh ($4,200), Josh Lowe ($3,800 — LAA bring-back).
Total salary: $49,600 · Projection: 65.2. The ace anchor, a correlated Giants core, a punt catcher to fit it, and one cheap Angels bat. Highest-floor build on the page.
Build B — GPP leverage: Trout captain, LAA stack + SF bring-back.
CPT Mike Trout ($14,400) · FLEX Zach Neto ($8,400), Jo Adell ($6,600), Nolan Schanuel ($5,400), Vaughn Grissom ($5,200), Rafael Devers ($7,800 — SF bring-back).
Total salary: $47,800 · Projection: 52.7. The tournament ticket: a 4-bat Angels stack captained by a 4.8%-owned star, with one elite SF bring-back. Lower projection, but the build that wins a large field if LAA scores.
Build C — GPP: Devers captain, SF blow-it-open.
CPT Rafael Devers ($11,700) · FLEX Logan Webb ($12,400), Bryce Eldridge ($7,200), Heliot Ramos ($8,000), Drew Cavanaugh ($4,200), Vaughn Grissom ($5,200 — LAA bring-back).
Total salary: $48,700 · Projection: 60.2. Captain the cleanup bat, keep the ace in flex, pack the middle of the SF order, and bring back one cheap Angel. Highest-projection GPP build of the three.
Build & simulate it: load this game in the
CourtEdge Showdown Lab — pick your
contest type (Cash / SE / 20-Max / 150-Max) and
field size, hit Optimize, and it builds cap-legal captain-and-flex lineups and simulates them against a field of that size. Enter the $11 48-max as a small-field GPP.