Dave Gloeckner 
It’s Tuesday so it is The Sweet’s Spot’s weekly article here at WinDaily. If you haven’t seen it, DraftKings is having Single Entry Leaderboards for MLB this week. Their contests range from $5.55 to $222.22. For those that play often, this is a great chance to compete and win some bonus prizes.
This article will focus on Pitchers, from aces to value, and Hitters, from team stacks to studs to value plays. Prop bets for today will be provided in the Gophers and Gas article.
There are many tools available, but I hope you’re using the WinDaily Projection Model as that has been very helpful in rostering key players each night.
For DFS, the featured card today begins at 7:07 pm with 9 games on the slate. All DFS plays below will come from those 9 games and any earlier games will be captured in Discord.
PITCHERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 7:07 PM Start
JUSTIN STEELE ($10,100 DK) & JOE RYAN ($10,500 DK)
It is hard to believe that Justin Steele is a $10K pitcher. I remember writing articles last year and recommending him as my value pitcher on many occasions. And he even started this season with a $6K salary in his first start. But he’s earned his way up the ladder by sprinting out to a 3-0 record and a 1.44 ERA in his first four starts.
As for Ryan, he’s 4-0 and has not thrown less than 6 innings in a start yet. He’s also had two outing with 10 K’s. Entering his age 27 season, he’s definitely on-track to have his most successful year yet.
And while I said this last night on the WinDaily You Tube Pre-Lock Show with Tony, both Ryan and Steele (the only two pitchers over $10K) do have value. But I feel like their ceiling is not that of a $10K pitcher. Ryan has one outing over 30 points and Steele’s highest output is 29.4 DK points. Both are fine pitchers and their matchups are attractive. But both have batting averages against in the 0.160 range. And both have BABIP’s of 0.200 or under (Steele is 0.200). Some form of regression is coming, and for that reason, I’m off both in GPP’s. We have some better matchups to attack today especially in the mid-range.
I feel fine rostering one in cash and would lean Ryan. Ryan dominated the Yankees lineup two weeks ago and not much has changed since with New York’s bats. As for Steele, SDP is batting 0.215 on the season (good for 28th in MLB) but ups that to 0.241 versus LHP’s. And Tatis is back which adds a dimension to their lineup that makes it tougher to pitch to.
NESTOR CORTES ($9900 DK)
Ok, this isn’t the quantum leap to the mid-range that I spoke of earlier. But Cortes still needs to be considered in your lineups tonight. The biggest reason is his strike out potential versus this Twins lineup. Cortes faced Minnesota 11 days ago and struck out 7 batters in 7 innings. He allowed just two hits, both being solo home runs, to finish with his best fantasy outing of the season at 21.6 DK points. And one of those home runs was a fence scraper at just 331 feet. That would be a long fly ball out tonight in Minnesota.
ERIC LAUER ($8800 DK)
Here’s where I’m starting most of my GPP pitching combinations and it’s with Eric Lauer at $8800. Lauer is coming off two solid starts on the road in San Diego and Seattle where he pitched a combined 13.2 innings and allowed just 3 ER’s. That was a big relief for fantasy owners as he had two poor outings at home prior to his starts in SD and Seattle. And home is where he’s been much more effective over his career with an ERA almost 1 full run less in Milwaukee than anywhere else (3.68 vs 4.58).
Tonight, he faces Detroit who despite a few recent outbursts is still near the bottom of the league in every batting category. Against LHP in particular, the Tigers are 24th in batting average and 30th in ISO. And they strike out at the 3rd highest rate; 29.7%. Based on recent upward trends and matchup, this is a good spot to deploy the Brewers lefty in your fantasy lineups.
CHARLIE MORTON ($8600 DK)
Charlie Morton as seemed to take turns between seasons in having a good year than an off year. And good news for the Braves is that 2022 was an off year where he posted a 4.34 ERA which was 1 full run higher than his 2021 season. He’s started 2023 with 4 solid starts posting a 3.22 ERA. And tonight he gets the good fortune of facing the Marlins who are 10th in K rate, 24th in wRC+ and 25th in wOBA. Not to mention, it took until the 8th inning last night for them to get their first hit off Spencer Strider. While Morton has big shoes to fill backing up the mustached flame thrower, he also has enough in his arsenal to keep this light hitting Marlins team off-balanced and rack up positive pitching stats tonight.
JOSE BERRIOS ($8100 DK)
Berrios started the 2023 campaign with two rough outings against the Royals and Angels. In his 3rd start, he was setup for failure facing the Rays and their 13 straight wins to start the season. But Berrios ended up being the streak breaker and pitched his best game of the season while leading the Jays to hand the Rays their first loss of the season.
So that has to build confidence, right? Berrios took the mound last week, following that great game against Tampa, and threw another solid outing versus another good opponent in the Houston Astros. So over his last 2 games, he’s gone 12 innings and allowed just 3 ER’s. Which does mean the ERA is lowering while the confidence is growing and he’ll bring that into a favorable matchup tonight with the Chicago White Sox. Over the past 10 days, the White Sox are batting just 0.196 which is good for 30th, or last, in baseball. They are also 30th in wRC+ and 28th in OPS in that span. So for tonight, it’s to Infinity and Beyond with Jose Berrios and this favorable matchup. The confidence meter keeps pointing north for the Blue Jays RHP.
KOOL-AIDE MAN (SWEET SPOT VALUE PITCHER UNDER $7K)
GRIGGIN CANNING ()
In Sunday’s edition of the Sweet Spot, I recommended both Bailey Ober and Grayson Rodriguez as value pitchers. They respectively scored 19.15 and 18.45 DK points show ~3x value. Many of the top lineups had at least one of these pitchers which allowed the to stack the expensive part of Cleveland’s lineup.
So there is still value, not to pun the term, in diving down below the $7K range to look for cheap pitching.
Today’s recommended play is Griffin Canning of the Los Angeles Angels. Canning has pitched twice in recent weeks as he joined the Angels to complete their 6 man-rotation. In those outings he’s fared decently by posting a 3.48 ERA and an average of 11.8 DK points per game. There are two things on my radar that make Canning attractive tonight. First is his opponent, the Oakland A’s, which we all know good and well to attack early and often. And maybe it’s a good sign they broke out for 11 runs tonight because they may have used them up.
But secondly is his positive upward trend in his GB% and pitch count. It’s a small sample size but the GB% has jumped from 35% to 45% so far this season. And his pitch count got to 100 in his last start. As long as he can manage his way through the A’s lineup, there is potential for a 6+ inning game out of Canning tonight making his potential ceiling in the low 20’s for DK points.
BONUS PICKS
I do like BRADY SINGER ($7,200 DK) to an extent tonight against the D’backs. Yes, Singer has been bad this season as he carries a 8.14 ERA. But Arizona hasn’t been great on the road as they are 22nd in batting average and 27th in both ISO and wOBA away from home.
HITTERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 7:07 PM
SWEET SPOT STACK ATTACK: The stacks I like today are the Kansas City Royal (vs Nelson), the Chicago Cubs (vs. Snell), the Atlanta Braves (vs. Hoening) and the Milwaukee Brewers (vs. Turnbull). One other stack we talked about last night is the Mets against Josiah Gray. Gray has a 9.6% walk rate and the Mets are 2nd in the MLB with an 11.6% walk rate. Additionally, Gray had two starts against the Mets last year and allowed 10 ER’s in 9 innings which is good for a 10.00 ERA.
CORE BATTERS
WILLSON CONTERAS ($4700 DK)
I don’t often recognize catcher’s in this spot but it’s hard to ignore Contreras’s recent form. He’s had 5 multi-hit games in his past 8. And he has a hard hit percentage of 62% in those contests. He’s seeing the ball well and will likely face a bullpen game tonight in SF opening up some opportunities to jump on weaker arms.
WHIT MERRIFIELD ($3600 DK)
Whit Merrifield is quietly putting together a nice season for the Blue Jays. In fact, in the past 10 days he has a 04.17 batting average and has averaged 10 DK points per game. Tonight he gets Mike Clevinger who he has 10 career hits off of and is also the owner of a mismatched ERA to FIP; 3.26 ERA but a 5.13 FIP.
SLAP HITTER (SWEET SPOT VALUE BATTER) – LESS THAN $3K
BRETT BATY ($2500 DK)
Baty is starting to turn it on as he has a modest 3 game hitting streak coming into tonight’s contest. And left-handed batters hit 40 points higher against Gray in 2022.
Now that you finished reading the MLB Sweet Spot article make sure to check out MLB Lineup Optimizer and our YouTube Livestream that breaks down the entire slate of games and gives you the info to nail MLB Prop Bets and DFS Plays.
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