Jared Levitt 
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of Picks and Pivots. Today we have a nice sized 11 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 2 slates today but the article will be focused on the main slate.
Tonight should make for an intriguing evening as we have Max Scherzer ($9.1k) facing the Astros in his Dodgers premier. I’m going to be hands off tonight with Mad Max as this isn’t the match up that I want him in. The Astros have one of the best lineups in the business and even at a reduced price for Scherzer, the upside in value just won’t be there.
The ace I’m going to go with tonight is Lucas Giolito ($10.6k). I said it yesterday that the Royals aren’t normally a team to attack with pitching. But they are struggling mightily right now and lost Andrew Benintendi to a calf strain last night.
The Royals over the past week are striking out nearly 28% of the time and not putting much wood on the ball when they actually make contact as they have just 9 barrels. 2 of which came from Benintendi. Rostering Gio will make us want to have a bottle Rolaids sitting around as he’s been extremely inconsistent this year. He’s my guy though tonight because he still has elite K ability and he’s facing a team that’s struggling.
Where do we go next for pitching? Could we go to Coors field? I think I might! Rostering a pitcher in Coors is never a sure thing but we have a pitcher in Jon Gray ($7.2k) who has pitched well this season and has been able to navigate some tough matchups recently.
His last 4 outings have been against the Padres and Dodgers and hasn’t given up more than 2 runs in any of those contests. Over the past month he’s also seen an uptick in strike outs as his K rate is 24.4% vs. 21.7% for the year. He’s facing a lineup tonight that no longer has Rizzo, Baez, or Bryant. Outside of the Royals, no team has a lower wRC+ over the past week than the Cubs. Always a risk going to Coors with a pitcher, but Gray is on a roll and gets a soft match up here.
Now that pitching is out of the way, let’s find some bats. My favorite pitcher to attack is on the hill tonight in J.A. Happ and he’s facing a tough Braves lineup. One of the common missteps people make when facing a lefty is ignoring a guy like Freeman ($5.1k). Last night guys like Albies ($4.9k), Swanson ($4.2k), and Soler ($3.3k) all had ownership around 20% while Freeman was around 7%.
Guess who was the highest scoring of the bunch? Freeman. He outscored Albies, Riley, and Swanson combined. The match up tonight speaks for itself. Happ is a shell of his former self with an xFIP of 4.83 over the last month. He’s been especially bad against righties this year with a .270 ISO against and a 43% hard hit rate.
While I’m going to load up on the righties here, I’m going to make sure I include Freeman in my stack because he’ll go under owned in the match up and at some point, probably around inning 4 or 5, the game will be turned over to the Cards bullpen and Freeman will more than likely get a L/R match up.
With some of my Braves targets being on the high end of the salary scale I’ll want to find a stack that’s cheap and in a great match up. Look no farther than the Los Angeles Angels. As a whole, the Angles have been somewhat struggling but the match up tonight is just too juicy.
Kolby Allard has been downright awful over the past month. In his last 23 innings of work he’s surrendered 7 long balls and 13 barrels. If ever there was a pitcher that would waken bats up, it’s Allard. My hope is that Max Stassi ($3.3k) makes the lineup tonight as he’s been the Angels hottest hitter and has crushed lefties this year with a .216 ISO and .340 wOBA.
Phil Gosselin ($2.4k) is near min priced and should bat between Ohtani and Upton ($3.4k). Both Upton and Gosselin have wOBA’s over .340 this year against lefties. They are cheap and should be productive.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Tonight’s slate has a land mine waiting for us in Scherzer. While I love his price tonight, I just don’t want any part of facing a solid Astros lineup. I’d much rather face depleted lineups like the Royals and Cubs with my pitchers. Enjoy our J.A. Happ day folks. I promise, it will be even better than our Lester day yesterday!
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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