Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Tuesday 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: Tuesday Pitching Picks
As we open this monster 13 game slate here on Tuesday, we have larger than usual player pool and a start time that sits 30 minutes earlier to include the 6:30 PM EST games, including the first game of the Twins/A’s 7 inning double-header. All this means we have a ton to sort through for our MLB DFS picks on this slate!
If we simply go off metrics, it is hard to argue that anyone other than Corbin Burnes ($10.8K) should be our SP1. Burnes right now is pitching at an elite level with a league-leading CSW rate at 39%, a swinging strike rate at 19.7% which sits behind only deGrom/Bieber and a 48.4% K rate that somehow does not lead the league – and that is only because Jacob deGrom exists.
Sure the match-up with San Diego is not one we want to pick on, but much like when deGrom pitched in Coors Field, you ignore the opposing factors and simply focus on the incredibly high and dominant upside of this SP1.
What is interesting is that if you just look at the metrics since the start of last season, it would be Luis Castillo ($6.6K) as the clear SP2 with a 15% SS rate which would trail only Burnes and a 28% K rate which would rank amoing the top 4 arms.
The issue is, the 2020 stats are propping up what has been a disaster start to Castillo’s 2021 but I think this is more a story of bad luck than an overall trend.
If you look at some of the underlying metrics for Castillo, his ground ball rate remains elite at 53% which is in line with career norms, his 13% SS rate remains high and his 29.4% CSW rate is exactly in line with last year.
So what has changed? How about some bad luck? Castillo has just a 46% left on base rate, significantly down from his 70% mark last season and the league average of 72%. His hard contact rate sits at just 17% on the season, with a BABIP of over .333 – again a mark that is way over the league average of .280 this early season.
The truth is, so much of the early metrics are skewed by a horrendous opening day start against the Cardinals. The last two games – 12 innings, a 12:1 K/BB ratio and 40 DK points over those two starts.
The last two games, Castillo has posted a 14.5% SS rate and 26% K rate – again fun with numbers when you take out that first game outlier. The fact that Castillo threw 30% sliders in that first start and has thrown just 6% the last two games – tells you he is making an adjustment from that outing and if you dig into the game script from his last outing via our friends at Baseball Savant – you see a very interesting story.
You can see Castillo is anchoring more to his change-up which generated a 41% whiff rate and 30% CSW rate which is going to be the primary weapon he deploys against a lefty heavy Arizona line-up here tonight. I expect a bounce back for an ace who is priced as a gas can.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Picking Our Stacks
When I opened this slate and saw Patrick Corbin back on the hill, my interest was piqued – and then I saw it was against a right-handed heavy line-up like the St. Louis Cardinals. Good gravy this is going to be ugly.
Since the start of last season, Corbin has a .225 ISO and 55% hard contact rate to RHB and this lineup has each of the top 4 in its lineup with .230+ ISO marks since 2019 against LHP.
My only concern is ownership frankly – even on a 13 game slate – because 50% of the field got burned by Corbin his last start, they will be itching now to pick on him and oh by the way – the Cardinals scored 10 runs last night as the GPP takedown stack which means recency bias will be all too real.
At the end of the day it is still baseball and so while I love the stack – I see almost no reason to hit overwhelming hitter chalk on a 13 game slate if the Cardinals get out of control.
The other way to play it – would be to pair a chalky stack with a lower owned stack that correlates well alongside it – and I think we found exactly that with the New York Mets against Jake Arrieta in Wrigley Field.
Arrieta is exactly what we expect at this point – a heavy sinker ball arm, throwing it nearly 50% of the time, and one who has struggled with left-handed power to the tune of a .200 ISO mark the last season plus and one who the Mets are intimately familiar with since he has spent the last 3 years pitching Philadelphia.
Jacob deGrom is not pitching so we can feel free to deploy the Mets bats – especially since this is a spot where the left-handed heavy Mets line-up will work to their benefit.
The Mets LHB against that sinker have significantly strong pitch type data as all of Jeff McNeil, Dominic Smith and Francisco Lindor have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type with Michael Conforto leading the team with a .386 ISO mark against it.
What I like about the Mets stack here tonight from a roster construction perspective is how we align with the Cardinals positions. With the St. Louis priority bats in the infield, it leaves you openings for mid-range OF’s and that is where the Mets come in with – Smith, Conforto and lead-off man Brandon Nimmo.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
Much like we had last night, the pitching spots are not “obvious” but the winning formula continues to be – go after the high K arms time and time again in our MLB DFS picks.
Last night, the high K arms like Joe Musgrove, Brandon Woodruff, Danny Duffy and Kevin Gausman were top scorers on the slate and I think if we simply anchor to those “kinds” of arms night and and night out – we give ourselves the best chance to win.
Corbin Burnes is that clear ace tonight from a metrics perspective and absent one outlier bad start for Luis Castillo, he deserves to be in that same conversation. The fact you can pair them together with a high/low salary build and still focus on getting high dollar bats/stacks – makes this an optimal path in my opinion.
Enjoy this slate – let’s get in our FREE Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and custom projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this MLB DFS season with some big wins!
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!
