Antonio D'Arcangelis 
Welcome to the Wednesday, June 23rd 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 to a split slate Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have six early games which kick-off at 12:35 PM EST to get us rolling for the day.
The over arching theme on this early slate is how loaded the pitching is – and it is not just loaded at the top with Kevin Gausman and Brandon Wodruff, this slate is DEEP with arms which means two things – 1) We have tons of viable pitching options and 2) the hitting stacks become far more limited and strategic.
If you take a step back and look at the trends of this slate, one thing that jumped out to me was how cheap the Detroit Tigers bats were against RHP Jon Gant. I bring this up because it is one of the few attackable spots with bats and their cheap price tags will make a Gausman/Woodruff double ace approach, really easy to do!
Short slates like this are always far more about strategy to me than simply finding the best plays, so how can we find ways to pivot with our plays and more so with our builds.
I think Adam Strangis nailed it in Starting Rotation that the aces paired together or with a far too cheap German Marquez as an SP2 will be the chalk builds and the aforementioned Tigers I think become the default cheap stack that holds it all together.
So what if instead of spending up for arms – we opt to spend down and stack the big bats that the Gausman/Woodruff builds cannot afford?
Adam mentioned German Marquez but there are two other arms down in this range that I have my eye on – Caleb Smith ($7.2K) and Matt Manning ($5.4K).
Smith has been under the radar from a DFS perspective since his return to the rotation just four games ago but with a 26% K rate and his pitch count now comfortably up to 90-100 in his last two starts, it is time we start to take notice.
We were all over him in his last start against the Dodgers where he racked up 20 DK points and he now gets the same match-up with a Brewers team he faced back on June 6th, striking out 8 and knocking down 22 DK points. This Milwaukee projected line-up has a 27.4% K rate against LHP this season and has 4 of the 8 hitters with 30%+ K rates individually so the ceiling is once again incredibly high for the former Marlins left-hander.
The other arm Picks and Pivots were all over in their previous start was Tigers RHP Matt Manning ($5.4K) who is one of the big-time prospect arms the Tigers have coming to the majors with a high 90’s fastball and two nasty off-speed pitches in a change-up and 12-6 curveball.
Manning was solid in his debut against the Angels with 5 innings of work, 2 runs allowed, 3 K’s and 8 ground ball outs and this match-up today against St. Louis is sneaky good.
Over their last 15 starts against right-handed starters, we have seen 9 of the 15 go for 20+ DK points so the path for success is clear for Manning, who despite the lack of K’s in his first start is still a ~30% K rate arms throughout the minors and I do think this being his first start at home will have him amped to bring some more punchouts.
If you live down in this Smith, Marquez, and Manning range – what you are hoping for is 20 DK point type outings that give you paths to the big time bats that the ace builds cannot afford and my favorite spot today is in Philly with the Nationals and Phillies against Velasquez/Fedde.
Vincent Velasquez is in the midst of one of his customary downswings where he is not missing bats and the fly balls and home run tendencies come back to bite him – and with 15 runs allowed in his last 16 innings of work, well the Nationals bats looked primed for a day-time beatdown.
The top of the Washington order is pricey but again this is where paying down for arms opens a path to pay for Trea Turner, Juan Soto and Kyle Schwarber. No matter the pitch type for VV, hitters are hammering it from both sides as there is not a single offering this season that Velasquez throws that have gotten under a 40% hard contact rate. The fact that his swinging strike rate is also in single digits the last four starts tells you this is an arm that is not missing bats and the hard contact is coming back to bite him – HARD.
Erick Fedde on the other side of this game has pitched well for the Nationals and even has done so against these Phillies but boy oh boy, does Bryce Harper look like an ideal one-off play or key part of a Philly mini-stack.
Fedde is a sinkerball arm, that is his bread and butter offering, and well – Harper, LOVES that pitch as evidenced by his .329 ISO, 57% HC rate and averaged distance traveled of 330+ feet. You guys know I despise BvP as a stand-alone stat, but when you see a division match-up like this and a pitch type that stands out like the sinker does to Harper – I wanted to see if there was BvP history, and yikes – how does 5 for 13 with 3 HR’s sound?
If you take it a step further, Fedde will fall back on the cutter to lefties as a secondary offering- again Harper has a .200+ ISO against that pitch type and this is the same pitch Fedde threw him last game and Harper deposited in the OF stands. It is hard not to look at the pitch data here and see Harper getting us a bomb on the early slate in a game stack here in Citizen’s Bank Park with a massive hitters umpire behind the plate!
Main Slate Breakdown
The main slate pitching options are well – not nearly as kind, and taking risks here could blow up in our face in a major way. I hate simply piggy-backing on Adam’s starting rotation but goodness, I just don’t see a path here off the Robbie Ray and James Kaprelian pairing on DK.
The match-up for both against Miami and Texas is elite and when the other options are all in risky spots – Bauer against SD, Musgrove against LAD, Hill against Boston and Duffy against the Yankees – there are so many more paths on the main slate that seem like they could end poorly.
One of the reasons we can just take the path to the high-end at arms is well, because DraftKings decided to keep Wander Franco at $2K. Yep.
The kid was near 50% owned in single entry GPP last night – and tonight, it will be even higher on a short slate but it is hard to argue with the talent at this price.
What was fascinating to me was that the Rays outside of Franco were all sub 5% owned so if people are only going to use him as a one-off, stacking around him could pay big dividends and I would argue that tonight – Garrett Richards is one of the best arms to attack against.
Richards metrics are exactly what we look for in MLB DFS – as he is giving up a 48% hard contact rate this season with the last five starts being where the wheels have really fallen off with a 50% HC rate allowed and in 26 innings has surrendered 36 hits and 18 runs.
You guys know the deal – the Rays are always going to be my favorite stack when we get arms that do not have swing and miss ability and give up hard contact – that is who Richards is right now. The non-Wander Rays have 5 bats with .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season with Austin Meadows, Brandon Lowe and Mike Zunino offering massive power alongside the $2K free square rookie. Stack em again guys – it is just too easy.
The Rays were money last night but I didn’t have them paired with the Oakland A’s – tonight against Folty, well, I am not making that mistake again!
Poor Folty has given up an absurd .348 ISO, 47% FB rate and 51% HC rate and 3.3 HR/9 to left-handed batters – so Matt Olson, Mitch Moreland, Tony Kemp, and even Jed Lowrie (yuck) have the advantage of the split here. The Oakland bats correlate well position-wise with the Rays and while this path may end up popular – my hope is the “non-Wander Rays” bats remain under-owned and give us the different path we need for GPP glory!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
We have two solid MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slates today that have some really intriguing options and some really clear strategic decisions.
I think the early slate is the one to take chances on because of the deep pitching pool while the main slate is one where I think we play it straight and let other’s make mistakes.
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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