Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Wednesday, July 28th 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!
Early Slate Breakdown
Welcome into a split slate Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we kick the day off with a 4 game day slate that is super intriguing for GPP play.
We actually have a strong pitching slate but in all cases, the arms like Sean Manaea, Blake Snell, and Yusei Kikuchi are met with brutal match-ups that frankly, I doubt we would pick on if this were a larger slate. The flip side of this, specifically with Manaea and Kikuchi are that they come into this game in elite form as the only two arms with 30%+ K rates over the last month and while the match-ups are not ideal, they are the two arms on this slate that have the ceiling we are chasing in MLB DFS GPP play.
If you guys have played these daytime small slates with me this year you know I focus far more on strategy than pure best plays when we get to these types of slates and today is no different.
One thing I noticed about today is the start times of the games. Yes – the start times.
St. Louis/Cleveland and Detroit/Minnesota games start at 1:10 PM EST while the Houston/Seattle and Oakland/San Diego do not start until 3:40 and 4:10 PM EST respectively.
I bring that up because that 3-hour difference likely means we go to lock without lineups for 50% of the slate. Now, maybe we get lucky and that is not the case but if we play out that scenario I think as far as bats are concerned we either front load or back load our builds.
We know in daytime games the lineups can look funky – and so if you go into lock stacking the Padres as an example and all of a sudden Fernando Tatis Jr. gets a day off – well, your core play in your stack is now firmly on the bench and you are left scrambling.
So one strategy today could be to simply front-load the bats we have confirmed lineups for and then use the arms like Kikuchi, Snell and Manaea.
The Detroit Tigers are the obvious early stack in my mind against our favorite – LHP JA Happ. Over the last 30 days has surrendered a .308 ISO and 48% HC rate to right-handed batters and the Tigers will offer us a line-up with likely 8 right-handed hitters to choose from.
Eric Haase is the main play for me from Detroit as over the last month he is straight hammering LHP to the tune of a .652 ISO and only a 6% soft contact rate. His C/OF eligibility gives you maximum flexibility on DraftKings as well.
The other stack early that I love for GPP play is the St. Louis Cardinals against RHP Zach Plesac. One of the reasons I love this spot is that Plesac is a reverse splits arm, giving up more power to RHB (.217 ISO on the season) and over the last 30 days, specifically his .300 ISO and 56% hard contact rate to right-handed batters jump off the page.
On a smaller slate like this, the non-traditional splits may lead the Cardinals to be an under-owned difference-making stack where we can attack Plesac’s 2 HR/9 mark against RHB this season.
Over the last month, Plesac has relied essentially on a two-pitch mix of fastball and slider to RHB nearly 85% of the time and both pitches have been hit to the tune of a 300+ ISO mark and a 60% hard contact rate.
Stacking up the right-handed Cardinals bats on this slate could pay off in a big-time way and get the slate started for the Win Daily family early as we cement our spots up top the leaderboards and dare the field to catch us!
Main Slate Overview
The 11 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate includes a 7 inning tail end double-header of the Jays/Sox and once again we actually have strong pitching options up top with Walker Buehler and Zack Wheeler sitting as the primary spend ups.
While we have been hesitant lately to pay up for double aces, I think this slate is going to play differently and my initial lean is to lock in both who I believe have 30+ DK point type ceilings today.
Two of Buehler’s last five starts have come against the Giants, where he has racked up 29 and 31 DK points with 9 and 7 K’s in those outings.
Wheeler meanwhile will face a watered-down Nationals lineup with Trea Turner now out and one that is also going to have 5 of the 8 batters hitting from the right side which plays into Wheeler’s splits with a 32% K rate to RHB over the last month.
The flip side of this slate is that we have tons of AWFUL arms and that means another night of offensive fireworks is likely – so can we pair double aces with high upside stacks? I believe we can!
The two stacks that stand out to me are the White Sox against LHP Kris Bubic who has given up a massive .290 ISO and 56% HC rate to RHB the last month and the Phillies against LHP Patrick Corbin who has a .220 ISO and 45% HC rate to RHB on the year.
Now, you may not think of those teams as value but we actually have a significant amount of punts within these two high-powered stacks that open up the path to double aces.
The White Sox are simply too cheap overall – we have five batters in the projected line-up under $3K with Eloy Jimenez and Andrew Vaughn at $2.8K and the bottom of the order stack with Hamilton/Mendick and punt catcher Seby Zavala at $2.2K-$2.3K each. Flip this to the Philly side and while you don’t have as much pure punt value, we do have Luke Williams at $2.1K with 2B/OF eligibility.
I bring this up because, with so many cheap options, you have the ability to go high/low with these stacks to attack the arms we want to stack against without having to compromise on arms. I simply love this path today!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
We have two slates of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots goodness today and honestly, it’s nice to have real pitching for once and I plan to take full advantage by anchoring today to high K arms on both slates while using the value we have across the board to attach high powered offenses against bad opposing arms!
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!
