Brian Tulloch 
Welcome to the Thursday, June 17th 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 in to a solid, albeit smaller, 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate on Thursday where we have another night in Coors Field, some high K arms and five teams already with 5+ IRT’s which will make picking the right stack a key on this small slate.
When looking at arms today, we have a very clear upper echelon of K arms with all of Brandon Woodruff, Joe Musgrove and Shohei Ohtani sporting 30%+ K rates and SS% rates of 13% or higher since the start of last season. The difference on DraftKings continues to be that Shohei Ohtani ($8.1K) is simply never priced at the level he should be when you consider his K upside alone which gives us the chance each and every time to get an ace arm priced as an SP2.
My man Adam Strangis made a great case in Starting Rotation for Woodruff in Coors and even why Musgrove may not be ideal, but there is one arm he did not mention that I want to dive into on this slate and that is Tigers right-hander Matt Manning ($4.7K).
Manning is a former first round pick, 9th overall, and is currently the 18th overall prospect in all of Major League baseball who received his promotion to AAA this season after finishing the 2019 season as the Eastern League Pitcher of the Year.
Manning is a big 6 foot 6 right-hander with a mid to high 90’s fastball, a change-up that dives out of the zone, and a NASTY 12-6 curveball that were all on display in his most recent AAA start where he struck out 8. If you are a person who needs to see the analysis – go watch the highlights of that outing here and tell me you are not intrigued.
Now, Manning has had his bumps in his first go-round in AAA and maybe people see the 8+ ERA and his 3 HR/9 rate which both rank dead last among qualified minor league pitchers and they think this kid is a gas can to pick on rather than use – but you don’t get drafted in the first round and have top 20 overall prospect status by mistake – this kid has the goods.
Manning was one of the “big 3” arms in their minor league system alongside Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal and most prospect evaluators had Manning as the best of the bunch. The Tigers have really worked to develop these young arms and while we saw Skubal specifically have a rough start to the year, we are seeing the Detroit organization really work to develop the secondary pitches on these young arms and they have largely been as advertised, especially recently.
It is not often we get a top prospect debut, priced under $5K on DK, facing an Angels team that is banged up and has demonstrated high K ability – and what is weird, I think the 8+ ERA player note on DraftKings is going to keep people away, not realizing how supremely talented Manning really is. Going with an Ohtani/Manning build means you get every single bat you could ask for!
Well, it is a day that ends in Y and so that means it is time once again for a Tampa Bay Rays stack to be featured in Picks and Pivots!
The Mariners will throw out RHP Justin Dunn, who has been torched by LHB over the last 2 years with a .235 ISO allowed and a 48.5% hard contact rate to go along with a 2+ HR/9 rate allowed. There is no pitcher in baseball this season that has given up higher hard contact to left-handed batters than Dunn, who at 43.8% sits dead last among qualified Major League arms and well, if you do not think this is a prime Rays stack day, you do not even know me.
This is kind of a nightmare spot for Dunn with the Rays getting to deploy their left-handed heavy brigade of Brandon Lowe, Ji-Man Choi, Austin Meadows, and Joey Wendle in the heart of the order as they all have .200+ ISO marks against RHP since the start of 2020.
The other spot that I love here today is the Atlanta Braves against RHP Jon Gant, the poster boy for regression this season who the last two starts have finally started to see the advanced metrics swing back with 12 ER allowed in just 5.2 innings of work.
Gant is a heavy sinkerball pitcher, especially against the right side of the plate, throwing it over 50% of the time and giving up a near 50% hard contact rate. Now when you profile against a ground ball pitcher like Gant, you want to try and find hitters that not only make hard contact but do so with fly ball tendencies and that is where Ronald Acuna Jr. jumps out to me as his fly ball rate is 10% higher than his ground ball rate against RHP.
The other right-handed batter that stands out – Dansby Swanson, as he has a .210 ISO, 43% HC rate, and a 55-45 FB/GB rate against the sinker – against trying to find guys that can make hard contact but also elevate the ball.
The issue for Gant has been the walks, with a BB:K ratio of 8:3 the last two starts, and any time we see a pitcher struggling with command, it sets up well for a full-on stack where you get base runners and crooked numbers as the offense get in favorable hitters counts – this Braves line-up even without Ozuna, is still loaded with power and they make for an ideal stack alongside the Rays tonight.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
We have a solid 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate tonight and while Coors Field may be a starting point for some, personally I feel like it is not a necessity like it was yesterday and that goes for both sides of the ball. With a belief that Brandon Woodruff is not a need at $10K in Coors and the Brewers bats against German Marquez is a spot that has an equal downside and frankly, if the game was in Milwaukee we would all be arguing to use the Rockies RHP.
Today, I think we have under-priced elite K arms that will allow us to build around strikeout ceiling while also going “double-stack” with two power laden offenses against low K opposing arms that have struggled with the advanced metrics saying we have more room to regress!
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!
