MLB GPP Tournament Picks: 7-18-17

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

This is a very similar situation for Mike Clevinger as it was for Josh Tomlin yesterday. Although Tomlin's and Clevinger's numbers look very similar, Clevinger holds a strikeout rate of 10% better than Tomlin had going into the game yesterday. Tomlin was very effective against this weak Giants offense, despite striking out five over 7 1/3 innings. In his last five starts, Clevinger hasn't given up more than two runs in any appearance. In fact, over his past three starts, Clevinger has compiled three quality starts while averaging close to seven strikeouts per game. The Giants offense ranks third worst in total runs per game, averaging 3.89 runs per game. To make matters worse, the Giants own the worst runs per game of 3.50 at home this season.

Top GPP Hitters

For the record, I'm not advocating attacking J.A. Happ with tons of Red Sox hitters, but finding some good one-offs, like Mookie Betts, could definitely help out your DFS team tonight. Over Happ's last six starts, he owns a 2.27 ERA, so it's definitely not a great idea to have multiple Red Sox bats. With that said, Happ did surrender three home runs and six runs, but only two earned, in his last start against Houston. Happ also is allowing a 1.78 HR/9 to righties on the year. Since he's a lefty, he also allows a hefty wOBA of .321 to righties. Haop also owns a 4.20 ERA at home, compared to just a 2.90 ERA on the road this season. Despite hitting under .200 against Happ, Betts has done well against lefties in a short sample size on the year. In the short month of July, Betts has already hit four home runs with a .340 wOBA.

After seeing just a total of five runs scored yesterday in Oakland, I bet DFS users avoid this game. But if you want to take advantage of potentially low ownership levels, it'd be smart to roster some Rays, including Logan Morrison. The clean up hitter for the Rays this year has been surprisingly great. Over the first few games since the All-Star break, Logan Morrison has already gone deep twice, both coming in Anaheim, also a bad park for hitters. Morrison's huge ISO against righties is so impressive. In the month of July, Morrison owns a .443 wOBA, which is close to 60 points higher than his second highest month. He will face Chris Smith, making just his second start this year. His first one wasn't too shabby, allowing three runs over six innings. However, Smith did give up a home run to a lefty in Jarrod Dyson. It was Dyson's just 12th home run in his career. With Morrison having tremendous power in comparison to Dyson, if he connects, it could be a huge night for him.

If you look at Seth Smith's splits this year, you'd see that he's done better against lefties. However, that's very misleading when you consider the sample size. He's still a good force against righties, and gets a favorable matchup and park. At home, Smith has a .352 wOBA and a .239 ISO on the year. He's been lowered in the batting order the past few games, but could see a rise since he's performed well lately. In July, Smith has put together his highest wOBA and ISO since the beginning of the year. In his short time in the bigs this year, Ross has held lefties at bay, allowing just a .255 wOBA. But again, he's only thrown five games this year, so it's a very small sample size. In his last full season, which was 2015, Ross allowed a .323 wOBA to lefties, so I feel there's some regression bound to occur.

Tommy Joseph is your prototypical lefty masher, with seven home runs in just 78 at-bats this year against lefties. He's only hit .231 against them this year, but has a pretty impressive .362 wOBA. This month, Joseph has gone deep twice in 46 at-bats. Adam Conley will be making his first start since May, when his season took a turn for the worse. Before he was sent down to the minors, Conley got absolutely demolished in his final three starts. Over just 10 2/3 innings, Conley gave up 18 earned runs for a 15.12 ERA. Righties have gone deep against Conley three times this year in just 21 1/3 total innings. Even though there's a chance Conley figured things out in the minors, I like my chances with Joseph. Plus, you get a huge discount with a guy who has some power.