Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Tuesday, June 1st 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 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!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown
Happy Tuesday and welcome to June my MLB DFS friends and family. The Win Daily Sports team closed out May with a BANG as you can see above, with Monday’s early slate of baseball resulted in some big time wins and bankroll building including a Picks and Pivots Rays/Reds stack that carried the day alongside two aces!
Today’s 14 game slate has an interesting dynamic as Adam Strangis outlined in Starting Rotation as we have a very top-heavy and condensed player pool at Starting Pitcher which is going to drive our MLB DFS Picks.
There are three arms up top that I am looking at to drive my player pool – with Tyler Glasnow, Chris Bassitt, and Robbie Ray all having the type of elite K upside to anchor my DraftKings builds.
Tyler Glasnow ($9.8K) is the cream of the crop with a 36% K rate and 17% SS rate this season who has racked up double-digit K’s in 6 of his last 10 outings and gets a Yankee line-up that is ice cold right now.
The question is not so much about Glasnow but it likely comes down to whether I use Bassitt or Ray as my SP2.
If we just look at the metrics, Ray seems like the better play as his 28% K rate and 16% SS rate this season are far stronger than Bassitt’s 26% and 11% marks. The match-up for Ray has more K upside as well as the Marlins projected line-up has a 25% K rate against LHP since 2020 while the Mariners line-up has just a 21% K rate against righties like Bassitt.
Honestly – the decision between these two is a coin flip and with just $600 of salary between them, I think you build with Bassitt to start but feel free to drop down to Ray if you need to few hundred of salary.
Going with a Glasnow and Ray/Bassitt combination will still allow you to build around a high upside power stack as you will have just under $4K per batter and with the hitter pricing as it is – I am not sure there is any reason to drop down at pitcher since you can afford the bats you want while staying in that upper echelon of arms.
The Minnesota Twins will likely be a popular stack with a slate-high 5+ IRT against LHP Bruce Zimmerman in Camden Yards and for good reason. The Orioles LHP has given up a .221 ISO this year and a 43% hard contact rate to RHB and the Twins projected line-up has a massive .286 ISO mark against LHP this season.
The best part of this Twins stack is how you can balance the pricing of your stack – anchoring to big bats like Nelson Cruz or Josh Donaldson up top but using a cheap punt like Rob Refsnyder ($2.2K) to help keep the cost of the stack in check.
Zimmerman relies nearly a third of the time on his change-up to RHB and this is a pitch type that all of Kyle Garlick, Rob Refsnyder, Josh Donaldson and Nelson Cruz hit with .200+ ISO marks and all but Donaldson have 50%+ HC rates against.
One way to make this stack work without breaking the bank is to use a “wrap-around” stack with $2K punts Refsnyder and Andrelton Simmons at the bottom of the order in the #8-9 spots and wrap it around to Garlick/Donaldson/Cruz.
With the Twins being the road team here in Camden Yards, this is the perfect time to use the bottom of the order bats in your stacks because they are guaranteed the 9th inning at-bats which is a key component of using bats in the lower part of the order and it will help differentiate you from those who simply stack 1-5 in the Minnesota offense.
This is Picks and Pivots so you know where I am going for Stack #2 today – yes, right back to the Tampa Bay Rays offense.
It continues to amaze me how arguably one of the best offenses in baseball goes totally ignored every day but the Rays are almost never played in MLB DFS, outside of the Win Daily team of course. Over the last two weeks, no team in baseball has scored more runs (88), they have the second-most HR’s (23), and are second in steals (11).
Yes despite the well-rounded offense and high ceiling – they are a single-digit owned stack on a daily basis and I think today they are an ideal secondary stack as a way to move off the chalk.
I am not always spot on with early ownership but this feels like a day where the three arms I noted are the chalk pitching and they are going to be built with Minnesota and/or Coors Field bats.
So how do we get different? Yep – fire up those single-digit owned Tampa bats in Yankee Stadium’s short port once again.
Domingo German is a solid arm, but one that has struggled this year with the long ball – especially at home in New York, giving up a 3.15 HR/9 rate with a 3.55 HR/9 rate specifically to RHB in NY.
German has given up 7 HR in 4 home starts this season with 5 of those coming from the right side which makes guys like Randy Arozarena and Mike Zunino stand out. Zunino is the one that the metrics really line up for as he has a .279 ISO and 46% HC rate this season against RHP and has a .237 ISO and 55% HC rate against the sinker which is the pitch German relies on nearly 30% of the time to get RHB out.
If you look at German’s starts this year at home – it tells a story of how to attack him. He has given up 7 HR’s but just 10 ER’s so this is a spot with the Rays where I think you use them as a HR or bust mini-stack instead of a full on 5 man stack that will put up big innings.
If we are going home run hunting, you simply cannot leave off Austin Meadows ($5.2K) – yes, I know – I write the dude up every day. With the short porch in RF, Meadows and his .348 ISO mark against RHP this year and his team-high 55% RB rate makes him ideal for Yankee Stadium bombs.
Meadows has a .200+ ISO mark against both of German’s primary pitches in the change-up and curve and while I despise BvP as a stand alone metric, I think it is interesting when the pitch data aligns with the history and Meadows is 4 for 8 with 3 HR’s against the Yankees right-hander.
Just keep fading Meadows – we will keep playing him at Win Daily sports and getting single-digit owned bombs every day.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Alright kids we got ourselves another strong MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate and the formula for this one seems clear as we can pay up for two high end K arms while still building big time power stacks around them!
Even with such a large slate ahead of us, I think the player pool is incredibly condensed as we can anchor to a Glasnow and Bassitt/Ray line-up while being able to stack the right-handed Twins in Camden Yards and using the Rays power to complement them in a low-owned mini-stack!
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!
