Jared Levitt 
Hey Everyone, It’s Jared filling in for Brian today. Welcome to the Monday edition of Picks and Pivots. We have a nice sized 10 game slate tonight on DK. My goal today will be to walk you through the slate and provide a path to the winner’s circle.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Slate Breakdown
Pitching today will not be for the faint of heart. The best pitcher on today’s slate is in a less than ideal spot for him. Tyler Glasnow ($10.3k) gets to take on the Los Angeles Angels tonight. Not a team that you normally want to face off against. But as I’ve said in the past, strikeout pitchers tend to find their K’s.
Glasnow does not come without caution. For the season the Angels have been pretty good against right handers. They own a low K rate of 21.1%, a very respectable OPS of .772, and a wOBA of .333. Not numbers that you normally want to attack. But this is Tyler Glasnow who has been for all intents and purposes this season, elite.
Outside of Ohtani and Walsh, this is a pretty right hand dominant lineup. Dating all the way back to 2019, Glasnow has a k rate of more than 35% vs. righties. This season, that number is above 41%. While at some point regression will come to that number, what we do know is that Glasnow dominates righties. Not only is he K’ing them at a higher rate than ever, he’s also really limiting hard hits when they do put the ball in play. His hard hit to righties this year is a whopping 15%.
The main secondary pitch that Glasnow throws is his slider and he’s throwing it 30% of the time. Here’s why I’m not as scared of Trout tonight as I normally would be. Trout’s whiff rate against the slider is nearly 32%. If there’s a kink in his armor, it looks to be that pitch. There will always be risk attacking Trout and his friends. But the setup for Glasnow tonight looks pretty good.
SP2, this should be fun… Do we go with Daniel Lynch ($4k) and give ourselves $4,550 to play with per batter? Let’s look to see what the Indians have done vs. lefties this season. K rate – 20.2%, OPS – .659, wOBA – .292. So they aren’t K’ing much, but they aren’t doing much of else either. At 4k, do you need a ton of k’s? Nope. Not at all. He’s literally priced less than most batters tonight.
Or do we go with Shohei Ohtani ($7.6k) vs. the Tampa Bay Rays which still leaves us $4,100 on bats. The Ohtani situation will be something that needs to be monitored until there’s clarity about his role tonight. He was hit by a pitch in his arm but stayed in the game and said his arm felt better as the night went on. If he plays, I’m going to use him as my SP2.
He’s been great this year with a 37% k rate, while also giving up a ton of ground balls. He gets a matchup with a Rays team that has had trouble with righties this year. They’re k’ing at a near 25% clip and a rather low OPS of .667. Being able to spend $4,100 per batter while also having 2 elite pitchers is not something that happens often. I’m hopeful that Ohtani takes the mound. That said, if there’s a player that warrants some extra TLC, it’s going to be Ohtani since he’s such a versatile and meaningful player.
Now that we have the pitchers out of the way, where do we go for bats? The most glaring spot to start takes us to Chi-Town and The Los Angeles Dodgers. Weather and ownership will be concerns here. The weather here looks pretty bad tonight and there’s a decent shot of a PPD. If this game does indeed happen, the match-up is great. Hendricks has had an up and down season. He’s had 2 quality starts (both against Milwaukee), and 2 absolutely horrific starts, giving up 7 ER in each. With everyone on this lineup being affordable outside of Betts, this is going to be a popular spot. Fade at your own risk.
With the chalk stack out of the way, where else do we look? I’m going to go against the grain a bit and go with the San Diego Padres. I think Colorado will be popular. A big concern with this game is that you have two extreme ground ball pitchers. Marquez at 57.5% and Sanchez at 60.3%. While this could be a high scoring affair, there’s an equally good chance that it will be a low scoring game with the 2 GB pitchers.
San Diego has started out slow against lefties this year. It’s only a matter of time before they breakout. Tyler Anderson isn’t a bad pitcher. He’s actually been pretty good this year. My lean to the Padres is due to his pitch make up. He throws a 91 mph fastball which is a pitch that both Fernando Tatis ($5.9k) and Manny Machado ($5k) have had a lot of success against. Lefty on Lefty crime? His main pitch to lefties is a the cutter. While it’s a small sample size, it’s shown to be a pitch that Trent Grisham ($5.6k) can handle coming from southpaws. This is going to be an expensive stack. But it’s also one that will potentially go overlooked with the Dodgers in play and a game in Colorado.
The final team I also like today is the Minnesota Twins. They are facing off against Dane Dunning who is giving up hard contact at a rate of 44.8% this season, while not missing many bats. His main pitch is the sinker. Up and down the lineup, the twins have ISO’s north of .230 against that pitch. The Twins have a .746 OPS and a .323 wOBA against righties this season. This is a great spot for them too.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: The Wrap Up
Tonight’s slate has a ton of question marks. Does the Dodgers/Cubs game play? Does Philly/Mil game play? Will Ohtani pitch? Will he hit? Does Story play tonight after getting hit on the finger yesterday? You’ll need to keep tuned to info throughout the day. A lot will rely on whether Ohtani pitches.
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