Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Monday 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: Monday Main Slate Pitching
We have a smaller six game Main Slate here on Monday with a clear slate weather wise to make our MLB DFS Picks! What I like about this slate at first glance is that nothing seems obvious – we have good plays but none that come without warts and so I think we can make arguments today in GPP’s where we pivot in spots to give ourselves an edge.
First stop pitching where Joe Musgrove ($10.3K) stands out as the elite SP1 with a slate leading 34% K rate and 14.3% SS rate since the start of 2020 and now he gets a match-up with a Yelich-less Brewers team that has a 27%+ K rate against RHP in their projected line-up.
My one concern with Musgrove is the pitch count. Outside of his 112 pitches in a no-hitter against Texas, he has throw just 78 pitches and 81 pitches the other two trips to the mound.
That same pitch concern lies with Dustin May ($9.7K) who was yanked with just 71 pitches thrown last time out in a typical Dave Roberts managed start for a Dodgers starter. May’s metrics this season – a 31% K rate and 14% SS rate would rate him as one of the best arms on the slate against a Mariners projected line-up with a 26% K rate against RHP this season.
So there in lies in the concern with both top priced arms – you are paying premium pricing for the potential of a shortened outing.
If you opt to skip over the top two arms at the top – I think the likely landing spot is to live in this $7K range with Dylan Bundy ($7.7K), Danny Duffy ($7K) and Kevin Gausman ($6.6K).
Bundy has an interesting match-up has his 27% K rate and 13% SS rate are largely inflated by his ability to dominate right-handed batters to the tune of a 34% K rate. So while the Rangers are an elite K offense to attack, they also will likely roll out 6 lefties to face Bundy tonight.
Now this Rangers team is one that ranks among the worst against right-handed pitching this season, with a 30% K rate that is second highest in baseball and a team ISO that is among the five lowest in the league but let’s not forget that Musgrove’s no hitter against this same line-up is skewing much of those statistics.
Duffy gets a boom or bust match-up against the Rays – a team with a 26% K rate against LHP but also a team ISO north of .200 – so are you feeling lucky? Duffy has done a nice job of limiting hard contact, just 30% of the time since 2020, and his near 11% SS rate gives him a path to success after throwing 97 and 100 pitches in his first two outings against the Indians/Angels where he racked up 22 and 24 DK points on his way to well pitched wins.
Gausman meanwhile has the K metrics to make the argument he is an elite arm on this slate – with a 30.4% K rate which would trail only Musgrove and Woodruff and a 14.6% swinging strike rate which is actually the best mark of any arm on this slate.
Gausman’s issue has always been left-handed power however, with a .200+ ISO mark to left-handed batters and so pitching in Citizen’s Bank Park with Bryce Harper and Didi Gregorious on the other side of this game presents some serious risk. The flip side is the Phillies lineup other than these two bats is going to be all right-handed so the path for Gausman is there IF he can avoid the lefty power bats.
One last arm I want to focus on is Jack Flaherty ($8.5K) who frankly is kind of priced in no man’s land – but he gets an intriguing match-up with the Nationals. Flaherty just faced this team, racking up 6 K’s and 23 DK points and has now thrown 94, 96 and 100 pitches – so where we have pitch count concerns with others on this slate – Flaherty is taking on a consistent load every time out.
The splits for Flaherty have always been right-handed heavy as he has a near 30% K rate against RHB and a .116 ISO mark so the risk with Flaherty is really with the lefties like Soto, Schwarber and Bell. This is going to be the same line-up he just faced and so while the risk remains, the path to success is clearly demonstrated.
So you probably get to this point and go – great – you told me why I could play guys but also why I shouldn’t – but that is the point, there are no slam dunks on this slate and nobody that I think you start your day building around. Instead, I think we can look at the bats/stacks and work our way backward, knowing we have a ton of potential arms in the player pool to choose from – none of which feel like must plays.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Picking Our Stacks
From a Vegas perspective, the stack to start with is the Dodgers and their slate leading 4.7 IRT against LHP Justus Sheffield however much like the arms, I can find reasons this is not the best spot to attack.
Sheffield in his short MLB career has limited RHB to a .9 HR/9 rate with a 34% HC rate and 53% GB rate so while the Dodgers bats are great against left-handed pitching – is this really a blow up arm they can hang a cooked number on?
So let’s go back to the Philly/San Francisco game for a minute – we talked about Gausman’s struggles with left-handed power and the very same applies to Chase Anderson on the other side of this game – who has given up .317 ISO mark to LHB since 2020 with 7 HR allowed in those 19 innings to LHB.
Guess what the Giants are going to roll out today – a left-handed heavy lineup with 1-4 in the line-up have .200+ ISO marks against right-handed pitching. All of Tommy LaStella, Mike Yazstremski, Alex Dickerson and Brandon Belt have massive power splits against RHP.
If we dig into the pitch type data – all of Yaz, Belt and Dickerson have .200+ ISO marks against the change-up which Anderson throws 30% of the time and if you look at his fastball which he throws nearly 40% of the time, Yaz, Dickerson and LaStella all have .300+ ISO marks against that pitch type!
Now we mentioned Gausman as a pitcher we could use – but the flip side is that his 37% hard contact rate is the second-worst on the slate and so if we build around the lefties we mentioned above in Harper/Didi – I think you can extend this stack a bit more in a power park as we have in Philly.
JT Realmuto is a pricey addition to a Philly stack but one that has some interesting profile advantages against RHP. Realmuto has a .233 ISO and an average air distance traveled of nearly 350 feet since last season and with Gausman’s reliance on a splitter to RHB, this is a pitch type JT has handedl exceptionally well. Realmuto has a .300 ISO mark with a 50% HC rate and a 431-foot average distance traveled on that pitch type – aka, home run city.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
After digging through this slate to find my top MLB DFS picks – what I landed on really was how much I loved the Giants stack and the idea of pairing it with a Phillies mini-stack is really appealing considering the power upside.
What it likely means is that I am living more in the cheaper SP range at first look because the pricing on the bats seems elevated today and so with that context – I am willing to absorb risk at pitcher to afford the bats that I think make the difference.
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!
