Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Monday 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 to an MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday where we are back on the grind after a big NFL Sunday! First and foremost, a huge congrats to Jon and Big T – two of the Win Daily Sports family that hit BIG yesterday – what a way to kick off the NFL season!
Secondly, after just laughably bad MLB DFS contests selection yesterday, let’s hope DraftKings does not continue with that trend on Sundays going forward. The way yesterday was set up, it was the easiest decision ever to simply skip the slate and I promise you – I will always be transparent if a slate is bad or the contest selection is not there – you need to take it off, and yesterday that was exactly what I was coaching members to do!
Thankfully today we have a solid 7 game MLB DFS slate and good contest selection and even better – the NFL newbies are going to infiltrate MLB DFS today to get their itch so we are going to get some folks playing that – well, shouldn’t be. However, for those of you at Win Daily Sports – we are going to break this down for you and help you build a strong lineup tonight for tournaments whether this is your first time playing MLB DFS all year or your first time since, well – we did this Saturday.
First and foremost, we need to decide on how we attack the pitching pool here, in what appears to be a really top-heavy sort of slate without much value we are going to feel good about. With Clayton Kershaw on a pitch count, we can safely move on but I do not think we have to move far and can anchor to the dup of Yu Darvish and Sandy Alcantara.
Sandy Alcantara ($9.6K) comes into this game in the best form of any pitcher on the slate, with a 35.2% K rate the last month which ranks 5th in all of baseball behind just Snell, Ray, Max and Cole. Yeah – that is how good he has been. His 32.1% CSW rate ranks 6th in baseball and his 18.1% SS rate is second in the league the last 30 days and so while his price tag may seem high, I would argue it is not high enough. Alcantara has double-digit K’s now in 3 of his last 4 outings and this spot against the Washington Nationals, should not be one that takes us off arguably the best pitcher on a short slate.
Yu Darvish ($9K) was a pitcher I was yelling to fade last game due to consistent dips in his velocity since his return from injury and then all he did was go out and shove 7K’s in 6 innings down the Angels throat. Listen, forget the game logs – go to the velocity – that is the key – it was back and it was a significant jump. The fastball which had been sitting in the low 93 MPH range his previous two starts was back up to 94.8 MPH which was actually above his season-long metrics and all of a sudden the swinging strike rate jumped with it.
That is all I needed to see – and the fact he is priced at his lowest point in 3 months is crazy. We are getting a significant discount on an elite K arm pitching in a pitcher’s park in San Francisco – it is simply too easy to go double aces today and that is the route I would suggest you all start with – this is not the slate to get cute with pitching.
Now if you are new to MLB DFS, looking to take some of those NFL winnings and double down – welcome to our little secret here at Win Daily Sports where we stack the best offense in baseball every single day at single-digit ownership. Welcome to Tampa Bay Rays Headquarters!
The Rays get a road game in Toronto, a guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats and a match-up with RHP Alek Manaoah. Now, Manaoh is a talented arm but the underlying metrics would tell you this is a brutal spot for him with his struggles against LHB and especially those who attack his pitch mix.
Over the last month, Manoah has a.6.48 xFIP and much of that is due to his struggles from left-handed batters, who are hitting him to a .323 ISO clip and overall his 1.8 HR/9 rate top LHB is where you want to attack. The Jays right-hander relies heavily on his sinker to left-handed batters – and hitters from that side are clocking it to a .364 ISO and 43% HC rate the last month.
Here is a secret that the MLB DFS family here has known for weeks – the Rays simply hammer sinkers from right-handers, so go ahead pal – throw ’em – it will end in some big-time points for our stacks.
Want proof? Sure you do.
Here are the big Rays lefties against sinkers:
- Brandon Lowe – .233 ISO, 51% HC rate and 305 feet avg distance traveled
- Austin Meadows – .297 ISO, 41% HC rate and 335 feet
- Ji-Man Choi – .171 IS), 61% HC rate and 307 feet
Now what is interesting is that Manaoah throws the sinker even more to righties but its been far more effective – in fact, he has given up just a 5% HC rate on it to RHB the last month which is pretty incredible. The flip side is that the Rays have right-handers with staggering power numbers against the pitch type so this is true strength versus strength type matchups.
Nelson Cruz and Mike Zunino both have high ISO and high HC rates against this pitch type and even more so, they both hit the slider well, which is utilized just as much as the sinker to right-handed batters.
When stacking here today, my focus would be the start with the lefties and get at least 3-4 of them in but then use the right-handed batters as “fill-ins” with the expectation that you have a game flow where they get to Manaoah early and get the bad bullpen arms to follow.
The Rays have so much value in the lineup and it is underutilized in how most stack this team – because you can take guys at the bottom of the lineup like Kiermier and Walls, especially as a road team where you can use the wrap-around stack and get them with Lowe/Meadows up top. This is one of my absolute favorite strategies to use when Stacking the Rays and it is so under-utilized.
There are two teams that I think make for strongly correlated stacks with the Rays – the Cardinals/Astros. Both teams give you punt/value options in the OF but even the big bats in the IF are priced at a level where you can mix and match them with the Rays big hitters.
The Astros allow you a similar wrap-around approach with cheapies at the bottom of the order like Chas McCormick ($2K) punt and Catcher Martin Maldonado. The Cardinals meanwhile have a value-heavy OF with Dylan Carlson and Harrison Bader sitting in the $2.7-$3K range in the OF. In both instances what you are doing is attacking road teams with guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats that correlate position-wise with the Rays stack as a priority.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Tonight’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is a strong one – and I one where I think we have more landmines than obvious plays so it could be the ideal tournament night where we simply take the clear approach with double aces and still have the ability to stack the big bats.
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.
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @2LockSports and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
