MLB GPP Tournament Picks: 7-14-17

The purpose of this column is to highlight some players with upside and well-suited for tournaments. While the majority of the hitter picks will likely have power upside, that's not necessarily the case for all the listed options. Other contextual factors such as batting order, ballpark, opposing pitcher, price, speed, etc also come into play, and you'll see these items sprinkled into the write-ups below. Along with that, we'll be gauging the ownership levels, giving you some plausible pivots from the popular choices in a given game slate.

Top GPP Pitcher

Johnny Cueto has had a pretty rough year so far. He has a 4.51 ERA, which is clearly his highest since his rookie campaign. Cueto also has a ground ball rate of under 40%, again, something he hasn't seen since his rookie season. However, Cueto has great numbers against these Padres. Over the past two seasons, he's allowed just seven runs in five starts, including two complete game shut outs last season. This year, he struck out seven Padres in seven innings while allowing just one run against them. Against righties, the Padres have been the third worst team in total strikeouts and rank dead last in batting average. Overall, Cueto does have a good matchup, and his ineffectiveness as of late might lower ownership rates. When you consider Cueto's discount from the top pitchers on the slate, he makes it worth it rostering him in GPP's.

Top GPP Hitters

Bryce Harper is always priced high and sometimes isn't worth rostering. However, since he's facing Tim Adleman, that definitely changes things. Harper always has a chance to go yard, and Adleman is allowing a 2.35 HR/9 to lefties on the year. Although Adleman is allowing a higher wOBA to righties, lefties still have a .331 wOBA against him. Harper struggled in the second half last year, connecting for just five home runs in 61 games. While he may regress in the second half, he was phenomenal in the first half, compiling more home runs and a batting average of over 60 points higher than last years first half. Since wear and tear is likely to happen to Harper in August and September, he should still be fresh enough to do some damage against Adleman.

I absolutely love Nelson Cruz' price tag on FanDuel. Sure, he's still expensive on DraftKings, but he still is worth considering since he is facing James Shields. Shields has given up big numbers as of late, including two of his past three outings where he gave up six runs in each. One of those six run games was in Oakland, a notorious pitchers park. Surprisingly, Shields has held righties to just a .239 wOBA on the year. However, he also is allowing a 1.33 HR/9 to righties. While most DFS players may gravitate towards some of the lefties, like Robinson Cano in this lineup, due to Shields allowing .430 wOBA to lefties, Cruz still has tons of power which could give Shields trouble. Cruz only has one home run in his career against Shields, but some of that came before Shields started posting ERA's around five.

Willson Contreras is one of my favorite under-the-radar plays on this slate. He really doesn't have great numbers at all, but he does have some pop in his bat. Homers has plagued Kevin Gausman basically his entire career, and still is allowing a 1.37 HR/9 to righties on the year. On the flip side, due to the Cubs' struggles against righties on the year, Gausman could be a sneaky GPP play. With that said, the Cubs should get new life in this second half with the recent acquisition of Jose Quintana. Obviously, Quintana is a starter, but we've seen moves like that boost the entire mood of the team and jump start the offense. Gausman is also coming off of a start where he gave up six total runs to the Twins. Gausman does have some saving grace, considering this game is in Baltimore where he has an ERA of 4.45 compared to his 7.98 ERA on the road. I know it's a small sample size, but Contreras did have good numbers leading up to the All-Star break. In the month of July, Contreras had a .250 ISO and a .432 wOBA. He also collected at least one hit in seven of his eight games this month.

Obviously, there are some downsides of rostering a hitter batting eighth. However, J.T. Riddle was on an eight game hitting streak while hitting .419 in that span before the All-Star break. Admittedly, he has struggled with a .247 wOBA at home this season. Brandon McCarthy has been pretty good this season, but has seen his ERA rise more than a half of run on the road. He's also been a reverse splits type of pitcher, so this play doesn't come without some risk. McCarthy is just allowing a .252 wOBA to lefties on the year.