Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Tuesday, May 11th 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: Never Leave the Table on a Hot Streak!
Welcome back to the Tuesday edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots and after a monster night on Monday, we are back and ready to keep the heater rolling. As you can see above, the Reds stack paid big dividends around our Alex Wood/Tyler Mahle combo and we hit big as a Win Daily Sports team last night – absolutely nothing better than seeing the games go final and the Discord screenshot parade begin! You simply love to see it!
At first glance in looking over this slate, there is a clear cut ace up top with Walker Buehler but what really stands out to me is the mid to lower range of starting pitchers on this slate with elite K upside and/or match-ups.
My man Adam Strangis did an exceptional job today as he always does in his Starting Rotation of going pitcher by pitcher and I implore you – guys, this is the best pitching article in the industry and if you are not reading it and REALLY listening instead of just “trying to pick plays” – you are doing yourself a disservice.
What Adam lays out perfectly is how strong this mid-range is with K upside and while I do like Buehler as a play, at first glance I see myself living in the value range with arms like Shohei Ohtani, Dylan Cease and Brady Singer.
One of the main reasons that I like that type of build for GPP play is that you can anchor to high upside K arms and you still have significant room to build around the bats that are going to win you the slate.
The spot for the offense that I LOVE tonight is in Atlanta as we get the Braves and Blue Jays and two offenses that have slate-breaking potential. Now the one tricky part – The Braves are still undecided on their starting pitcher for this game but indications are they could recall Bryse Wilson to start from AAA.
What we do know is that Robbie Ray will start for the Jays for the second time this season against Atlanta where he gave up just 2 ER back in April with 5 K’s.
Robbie Ray is a fascinating case for DFS because his K ability is always something that draws people in to use him but his advanced metrics simultaneously scream we should load up bats against him.
Take the name out of it for a second – if I told you there was a pitcher that since 2020 against right-handed batters had a .280 ISO, 48% hard contact rate, 48% fly-ball rate, 17% walk rate, and 2.5 HR/9 rate – and oh, by the way, will likely face 7/8 RHB tonight, wouldn’t you be stacking as much as you could?
If you go back to that first game against Atlanta, Ray threw his fastball a whopping 68% of the time and while the average velocity of 96 MPH may seem impressive, the reality is, the pitch generated just a 13% swing and miss rate.
Take it a step further and his most used secondary offering – the slider, which he used nearly 20% of the time in that game, has a average hard contact rate of 72.3% (yikes) when facing RHB this season.
The game logs tell you he can and has been successful but when the advanced metrics are flashing red lights and you see a pitcher, relying almost entirely on a two pitch mix that A) is getting hit HARD and B) is not generating swing and misses – it is only a matter of time before you have to pay the piper.
You start any Braves stack with Ronald Acuna and Marcell Ozuna and I would argue that Ozzie Albies deserves to be added to that list as all three have .200+ ISO marks against LHP since the start of last season. All three of these hitters mash high-velocity fastballs as well with Ozuna (.600 ISO) and Albies (.364 ISO) leading the team with Dansby Swanson also sporting a .360+ mark of his own.
This is an all-or-nothing type stack – the best kinds for GPP play – as Ray could finally have that blow-up outing in arguably the best hitter’s environment on the slate with 70 degrees and the wind blowing out in Atlanta. With Coors Field on the slate, will these Atlanta bats be overlooked? If so, giddy up!
If Wilson is recalled by Atlanta, it is hard not to load up on Jays bats considering that Wilson has given up 10 runs and 4 HR in just 12 innings of work this year with the large majority of the damage coming from the left side. Now – the hard part with stacking Jays is that they may only have one lefty in the line-up with Cavan Biggio so the “splits” are not as clear to attack.
There is one path for the right-handed hitters though and that is Wilson’s sinker, a pitch he throws nearly 40% of the time to batters from the right side. This is a pitch type that all of Bo Bichette, Marcus Semien and Randal Grichuk hit and hit well with Semien (.294 ISO) and Grichuck (.318 ISO) leading the charge.
These two teams correlate incredibly well on DraftKings with the Blue Jays infield dominant roster and the Braves likely taking up at least 2/3 of your OF with Acuna/Ozuna. With two pitchers who struggle with hard contact and opposing batters who profile well, buckle up for some DFS fireworks!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
We have a massive slate here tonight to sort through when making our MLB DFS picks and with a game in Coors Field, it will likely draw much of the ownership even on such a large slate.
Personally, I think the offense is the priority on this slate but I do not feel the need to eat Coors Field chalk when I could argue the Braves/Jays game environment is just as good and has far more talented rosters to draw from. The fact that the DK pricing on arms is soft in the mid-range, gives us a path to all the big bats without having to sacrifice on K upside from our bargain arms!
Good luck tonight all! Let’s keep that hot streak rolling!
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!
