Jared Levitt 
Welcome to the Friday edition of Picks and Pivots. Today we have a full 14 game main slate of MLB DFS on Draftkings to navigate through.
Main Slate Breakdown
It’s Jared and I’ll be filling in Brian over the next 2 weeks when I’m not writing Aces and Bases as he takes a much needed and well deserved vacation.
We have a full slate of games tonight and with that we actually have some solid options for pitching. The first pitcher that I’m leading off with is German Marquez ($8.4k). Marquez continues to be an ace level pitcher who we get at a big discount due to his pitching environment.
We’re getting a pitcher in the mid $8k range who has scored less than 18 DK points only 3 times in the last 3 months. Marquez has dialed up the K’s a bit over the past 30 days with a 28% K rate. That’s up from his season long number of 25.7%.
The lineup that he’s going to face tonight will be almost entirely right handed, minus Chisholm. Marquez’s K rate jumps to 31% vs. righties compared to just 21% vs. lefties. There’s always risk in using a pitcher in Coor’s but this is Marquez’s home turf and he’s been lights out at home this year.
The other two pitchers I’m contemplating using today are Corbin Burnes ($10k) and Chris Bassitt ($9.8k). Both guys are priced around the same but I’m coming at them from different directions. Burnes is the pitcher with more elite strike out ability but he gets to take on a tough Giants lineup.
As Adam alluded to in the Starting Rotation today, the Giants are very good at hitting the cutter. With that being Burnes’ top pitch, it definitely creates some risk in using him as you’re paying top dollar for a pitcher that may have reduced K’s. That said, no pitcher on this slate has more strike out upside than Burnes.
For Bassitt, he doesn’t have anywhere near the strike out ability that Burnes has, but he gets the softer match up. Since the trade deadline their lineup has been anemic. They have nearly a 26% k rate over the past week with just 11 barrels and 54 hard hits. Add in that they’ve walked just 7 times and we have a team here that’s free swinging and impatient. Bassitt is set up to have a nice day today.
Now that we have pitching out of the way, let’ find us some bats. The first place I’m looking at is the Oakland Athletics facing off against Mike Foltynewicz. Folty has faced the A’s three times now this season and hasn’t really had a “blow up” game yet. It’s coming folks, join me the for the ride.
The A’s have progressively hit him harder as they see him more. The first outing, their hard hit rate was 31.6%. The second was 47.4%. And the third was 55.6%. In that third game they torched him for 3 solo home runs. In all 3 games against the A’s this year he had a LOB % greater than 83%.
Tonight’s the night where he has one of his blow up games. My main targets here will Olson ($5.3k), Laureano ($3.9k), and Lowrie ($3.7k). This is the middle of the A’s lineup and they are the ones that have the most power potential. If you want to get the savings Moreland ($2.8k) is extremely cheap and has had a lot of success against sinkers.
Another great spot for offense today will be the San Diego Padres vs. Caleb Smith. In Smith we have a pitcher who’s really struggling of late. Over the last month his xFIP is sitting right at 5.89. He’s just giving up a ton of hard contact and way too many fly balls.
While the Padres lineup is quite a bit weaker without Tatis, they have a bunch of guys in that lineup that make it still one of the top lineups in the league. The guys I want to focus on here will be batters from the right side as Smith’s fly ball rate sky rockets to almost 50% against them.
Righties will see a mix of low 90’s fastballs and sliders tonight. Both Machado ($5.6k) and Myers ($3.9k) have strong power numbers against both pitches. Pham ($4.2k) is also a batter that profiles extremely well tonight.
The final place I’ll look to for offense is the place that will give us the value. The Baltimore Orioles are an underrated team when it comes to facing lefties. On the year they have just a 21% K rate, 111 wRC+, and an ISO of .769. It’s supposed to be in the upper 80’s at game time tonight and when it gets warm in Baltimore, the ball flies.
To take advantage of Yarbrough we want to grab batters from the right side as his ISO is significantly higher against righties. Austin Hays ($2.5k), Mancini ($4.7k), and Mountcastle ($3.4k) all have ISO’s greater than .240 against lefties this year. Hays is my favorite of the bunch as he’ll provide us with more flexibility with our other bats. Urias ($2.7k), Santander ($2.3k), Franco ($2.7k), and Martin ($2k) are all in play too as they’ll have the platoon advantage and all under $3k.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
With tonight being a full slate we’re back to having some pitching options. I’m going to be looking to Oakland and San Diego for my main bats tonight and then grab a couple of cheap O’s to complete my lineups.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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