Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!
If you are new to MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, the goal of this article is not simply to list out the “best plays” but rather to walk through the context of the slate and help you identify the best arms and stacks to build around for MLB DFS tournament play. We will use DraftKings pricing as our anchor and help you get a head start on your winning builds!
Main Slate Breakdown
Welcome in my friends to a 13 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where we are officially in the final days of the regular season and there are a handful of games where playoff lives are on the line. Now, we saw last night where the arms that simply had to win – went out and balled – as arms like Charlie Morton, Walker Buehler and Zack Wheeler led the scoring in playoff-like atmospheres. Tonight we can expect much more of the same as we have ace-level arms in must-win spots – so before we get into it, let’s simply look at which games really “matter.”
- Braves/Phillies – This is basically it for the Phillies after a loss last night as they sit 3.5 games behind the Braves with just 5 games to play.
- Dodgers/Giants – 2 games seperate these teams for the division with games against the Padres/DBacks on tap.
- Yankees/Boston/Seattle/Toronto/Oakland – The AL Wild Card teams remain totally jumbled up here with the Yankees atop the standings while Boston clings to a .5 game lead over the surging Mariners and just 1 game over Toronto.
Pitching Pool
I bring up these teams because much like last night, I think our pitching pool needs to be focused on the high-end arms here with something to play for.
Not only do we have those arms in bulk tonight – but we have ones with elite K ceilings that come into this game in great recent form. In fact, we have 4 of the top 11 strikeout arms in baseball over the last month on the hill tonight with Max Scherzer, Gerrit Cole, Nathan Eovaldi and Jose Berrios on the mound.
If we look at last night, the field took a very lopsided ownership approach- focusing very clearly on the arms that had something to play for against the teams that didn’t. Ownership projections were largely spread out during the day but when the slate locked, we saw something totally different as Logan Webb was pushing 60% on DK and Chris Sale was the early chalk with a 40% share – no other arm topped 20%.
So extract that to tonight – who are the elite arms in must-wins against teams without something to play for? Max Scherzer ($10.4K) and Nathan Eovaldi ($8.4K) stand out from the list above but I also think we end up seeing Alex Wood ($7.9K) draw ownership at home against the Diamondbacks.
What will be interesting to see is what folks do with the other set of arms – Gerrit Cole/Jose Berrios, Aaron Nola/Max Fried and Frankie Montas/Logan Gilbert – the pitching match-ups against each other in must-win games. These were the spots last night that the field largely ignored and my guess is we see a similar approach tonight which could be the spot to get different in GPP’s and with an offense that will likely be clear chalk – this may be the spot we use to get different.
Stacks and Chalk Bats
When you step back and look at the dynamics of this slate – I think end up with some serious hitting chalk as the Boston Red Sox are the clear top dog here tonight with a 6 IRT against LHP Zac Lowther and the Orioles bullpen. The Red Sox check all the boxes with a road game in Camden Yards, 9 guaranteed innings and the high Vegas data that is going to likely make this team the chalk stack of the night.
So you have some options here – eat the chalk – but if you do so, I think you need to find the different pitching path that I laid out above. If you think going Max/Eovaldi/Wood with Boston is going to be sneaky – my guess is, once we see ownership you will be disappointed. So instead of using the chalk arm pairing, maybe like last night you go with the secondary arms (think Morton/Walker last night) to gain your edge.
Last night, I argued to eat the chalk with the Rockies because the metrics were SO strong, it did not make sense to fade – but honestly, tonight – the Red Sox to me are not must-haves. Lowther has actually been pretty good outside of one blow-up against the Jays, giving up just 4 runs and 1 HR over the other 14 recent innings. Now the .212 ISO and 48% HC rate against RHB is the key metric here to anchor to if you go this route as you are going to want the right-handed power from Boston but again, I don’t think we HAVE to eat this chalk or if we do we can get different in how we do so.
Our GPP Core
The first decision point you have to make tonight is at pitcher, and I think there is a very clear takeaway from last night – we are in playoff mode and that means pitching takes priority over stacks. The fact we can anchor to two of the best tonight in Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole is a path I think we should look to focus on at the core of our GPP builds. These two have been two of the best K arms across all metrics all season long and over the last 30 days and any time we can anchor to 30-40% K rate arms as the weather turns colder, this becomes the key spot for me to allocate salary to.
Anecdotally, I think Cole is the low-owned arm up top tonight that we all look back and go – why didn’t I lock him in? At just $300 below Mad Max, I think most will find a way to pay up for Scherzer and overlook the spot for Cole. After Jameson Taillon could only go 2 innings last night, the Yankees bullpen was forced to cover the majority of the game which puts Gerrit Cole in a spot now tonight with the Yankees able to really distance themselves in the WC race here he will be asked to go deep into this game against the Blue Jays.
Now, you may be thinking – how exactly am I going to get the offenses I covet with two high dollar aces? Well – first let’s go back to Boston. Yeah, Boston.
One thing we talked about in Discord last night was the ownership on the Rockies. As you went down 1 through 5 in the batting order you saw 30, 40 and 50% owned bats but slide down to Daza/Hillard at the bottom of the lineup and you had sub 5% owned hitters in the stack you wanted.
So tonight if the Red Sox bats become the chalk – why can’t we look to the bottom of the lineup to get exposure to them in a cost-effective way? If you look at the projected lineup – we have Bobby Dalbec, Christian Arroyo, Alex Verdugo and Christian Vazquez projected to be 6-9 in the order. So you get a nice tidy 4 man stack and they all sit right around $3K in pricing and will be the lowest owned way to stack the big bad Red Sox.
Now, we don’t have to go far for a correlation here – and sorry to my friend Ghost, but I want pieces of this New York Yankee lineup against Jose Berrios. The Yankees lineup right now is just SCORCHING hot, and kudos to my man Jared who was all over this Giancarlo Stanton heater before it even started. Berrios relies heavily on a sinker/curve combination to both sides of the plate and the two bats that absolutely eat up those offerings – Giancarlo Stanton and Joey Gallo.
I won’t take the easy way out and make the red-hot Stanton my HR pick – instead, I am calling my shot with Gallo here as over the last month, Berrios has given up a .244 ISO to LHB and against the primary pitch types Gallo has a .315 ISO against the sinker and a .429 ISO against the curveball. Joey Gallo is going deep tonight – BOOK IT.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
This is a beast MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate tonight and one I think we can use ownership and the lessons learned from last night to our advantage. At this point in the season, people get LAZY, and they play optimal lineups and simply pick “best plays” and so for us – as GPP players willing to take the time – we can gain a serious edge if we look, listen and follow the ownership as the day goes on.
I feel damn good about this slate – I am ready to crush it with you all!
Good luck tonight all! Let’s keep that hot streak rolling! Come join the Win Daily Sports Team – grab a Gold Membership and take advantage of all the tools, articles, and expert coaching we can give you to make you a consistent winner in DFS.
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