MLB DFS Picks Today 7/10: Royals Stack, Cheap Ray

July 10, 2026

Dave Loughran is already on the beach; the MLB All-Star break starts the second this Friday slate wraps, and he grabbed his vacation a day early. So Josh Engelman is running Stokastic's Perfect Lineup solo, and the build he lands on is a bet on ceiling at every spot that lets you afford one: Hunter Greene (CIN) at $8,600 despite a rough first start back, Robbie Ray (SF) as the cheap arm that frees up the rest of the roster, and a Kansas City Royals (KC) stack the field is barely touching outside one name. The honest question hanging over the whole thing is whether it's right to throw out Greene's last outing entirely. Hold that thought, because the single-lineup Sim answers it in one number by the end.

In Summary

SP1: Hunter Greene (CIN) at $8,600, 14% owned, betting his stuff was rust and not decline vs. the Chicago Cubs.
SP2: Robbie Ray (SF) at $6,800 vs. the Colorado Rockies, a salary-saver more than a strikeout play.
The Stack: the Kansas City Royals (KC) against Brandon Young (BAL), anchored by Bobby Witt Jr. (KC) at $6,400.
The Payoff: the Stokastic single-lineup Sim graded the full build at a 63.5% simulated ROI and a 31% cash rate.
Offer: 10% off Stokastic MLB with promo code PERFECT10.

Watch The Video

Watch Josh Engelman build the full lineup live in the Sims: Watch on YouTube.

Hunter Greene (CIN): Betting The Stuff, Not The Last Start

Every build starts with a decision about how much one bad outing should matter, and this one starts with Hunter Greene (CIN) at $8,600 against the Chicago Cubs. Greene got started late this season, needed two minor-league rehab starts to get right, and then didn't have it in his first game back in the majors. That's the drawback. Here's the case for going to him anyway: the underlying stuff never left. Greene is still a 30% strikeout arm with legitimate swinging-strike numbers, and the read here is that the first start was rust, not decline. The Cubs matchup itself is nothing special, 11th in wRC+, a middle-of-the-pack strikeout team, but this pick was never about the matchup. It's about paying for a ceiling that can single-handedly break a slate.

The price backs that up. Greene sits at just 14% ownership, well below where a pitcher with his top-two-pitcher odds (14.5%) usually lands. For comparison, Nolan McLean (NYM) is drawing 30% ownership today and Chris Sale (ATL) 20%, both because they're the safer, more obvious plays. Greene is the field fading the last box score instead of the track record, and that's exactly the gap a ceiling-chasing build wants to exploit. If he gets knocked out early, the lineup wasn't winning anyway; if the stuff shows up like it usually does, this is the arm capable of a 40-point slate-breaking score.

Robbie Ray (SF): Buying Salary, Not Strikeouts

If Greene is the ceiling bet, Robbie Ray (SF) at $6,800 is the salary play, and the matchup does the heavy lifting. Ray isn't the swing-and-miss ace he used to be; his strikeout rate is down to 20% this season, though he's still generating a double-digit swinging-strike rate, enough to get outs without missing bats at his old rate. What makes him worth rostering is the Colorado Rockies lineup on the other side. Colorado is dead last in the league in wRC+ against left-handed pitching this season, and the same lineup also strikes out at the highest rate in baseball against lefties. That combination, worst offense and most strikeout-prone, is precisely why $6,800 is cheap for what Ray needs to do tonight. He doesn't have to dominate. Sixty percentile Robbie Ray against this Rockies lineup clears the bar, and every dollar saved at his salary is a dollar that funds the stack.

The Stack: Kansas City Royals Vs. Brandon Young

That saved salary goes straight into the Kansas City Royals (KC), stacked against Baltimore Orioles starter Brandon Young (BAL), a solid innings-eater who doesn't miss many bats. The Royals carry a five-run implied team total tonight, and the Sims have them 2nd in top-stack odds and 4th in overall stack score for the entire slate, even though they rank just 13th in top value. That value gap barely matters here. It only shows up because Bobby Witt Jr. (KC) is priced at $6,400, and that's not really a discount problem, that's the best shortstop on the board being the best shortstop on the board.

Royals Hitter	Salary	Ownership	The read
Bobby Witt Jr. (KC)	$6,400	9%	The best shortstop on the slate most nights; the "expensive" name in this stack
Carter Jensen (KC)	$4,900	Under 6%	A leadoff catcher, a rare combination of lineup spot and salary
Vinnie Pasquantino (KC)	$4,200	Under 6%	Cheap, completely unowned power at first base
Michael Massey (KC)	—	Under 6%	Rounds out the middle of the order without adding a salary tax
Lane Thomas (KC)	—	Under 6%	The outfield piece that completes the stack

Outside of Witt at 9%, nothing else in the Royals lineup is rostered above 6%. That's the actual thesis of the stack: it isn't a leverage play on the whole team, it's a leverage play on everyone in the lineup except the shortstop, funded by the salary Ray and Greene's price tag freed up earlier.

Worked Example: Building It In The Single-Lineup Sim

This is where the ceiling bet either gets validated or exposed. Lock Greene, Ray, and the five Royals bats, Jensen, Pasquantino, Massey, Witt, and Thomas, and the build lands at roughly $3,500 per remaining roster spot for third base and two outfield slots. Hit "complete this lineup" in the Stokastic single-lineup Sim and it fills the rest optimally off the salary and positions left: Eugenio Suárez (CIN) at third, then George Springer (TOR) and Colton Cowser (BAL) in the outfield, with zero ownership anywhere in that trio.

Run the simulation against the full player pool and the number comes back 63.5% simulated ROI with a 31% cash rate. That's the answer to the question this build opened with. Disregarding Greene's first start and paying for his ceiling instead of his last box score is the correct read here, at least according to a lineup that leans on a Royals stack barely anyone else is building.

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FAQ

What is the Perfect Lineup show? It's Stokastic's daily MLB DFS build show, normally run by Dave Loughran and Josh Ingram, where they construct a tournament lineup live in the Sims. With Loughran starting his All-Star break early, Josh Engelman ran Friday's build solo.

Why pay up for Hunter Greene after a bad first start? Because the underlying stuff, a 30% strikeout rate and real swinging-strike numbers, never went anywhere. The read here treats the rough return start as rust from a delayed, injury-shortened ramp-up rather than a decline, and his 14% ownership reflects the field pricing in the last outing more than the track record.

Who is the top stack for MLB DFS today? The Perfect Lineup build stacks the Kansas City Royals against Brandon Young, leaning on Bobby Witt Jr. at shortstop while getting everyone else in that lineup at single-digit ownership.

How do I build these lineups myself? Use the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims and projections and the single-lineup optimizer, and grab 10% off with code PERFECT10.

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The Bottom Line

Every one of tonight's three decisions, Greene's ceiling over his last line, Ray's price over his old strikeout rate, and a Royals stack that's cheap everywhere except Witt, only makes sense together. Pay for Greene's stuff, save at Ray, and let that savings buy a stack the field is priced out of everywhere but shortstop. The Sim backing that up at a 63.5% ROI is the actual proof, not just a hunch about a bad first start. Build your own version in the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims & projections, and if you want the full toolkit behind it, take 10% off Stokastic MLB with code PERFECT10 at stokastic.com

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