Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Thursday 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: Early Slate Breakdown
What could possibly be better than all-day MLB DFS and TWO strong slates to play? How about an early slate with the best pitcher on the planet going? It is a Jacob deGrom ($11K) day and I am here for it!
This six game early slate includes a 7 inning doubleheader game between Seattle/Baltimore and while we have some rain risk in New York, the rest of the slate looks clear to play!
Let’s just get this out of the way – small slates, large slates, any slates – you play Jacob deGrom and move on. The only risk on this slate is the weather as rain is expected later on in the afternoon but I would expect the Mets being the home team, if this game is not clear to play, they are not going to waste a rain-shortened outing from their franchise star.
If deGrom as your SP1 is step #1 on this slate, I would argue finding a way to maximize an Atlanta Braves stack is step #2. Now, this is not a knock on the talent of Trevor Rogers who is an elite K arm but his splits show you that this is a pitcher that needs a lefty-heavy lineup to succeed and it is likely the Braves have just one lefty today in Freddie Freeman.
Rogers since the start of 2020 has given up a .222 ISO and 51% HC rate to RHB and in that same time frame, this Braves projected line-up has a .216 ISO and 51% HC mark against LHP. Seems to sync up poorly for Mr. Rogers huh?
The Braves are expensive but they seem oh so worth it. Since 2019, this line-up has a .232 ISO and 45% HC rate against LHP with all of Ronald Acuna Jr., Marcell Ozuna, Travis d’Arnaud, Ozzie Albies, and Austin Riley sporting .200+ ISO marks against southpaws.
Now playing deGrom and a Braves stack is going to force us to get creative – and creative we shall get!
What if I told you there was a pitcher today that had arguably the best K match-up on the slate – facing a projected line-up that has a 29.7% K rate against his handedness since 2019 and also ranks top 5 this year in K rate while also ranking bottom 5 in hard contact rate? Sounds like a spot you would be interesting in attacking right?
Now hold your noise cuz here comes the cold water.
Welcome to 2021 Dark Knight and a $6K Matt Harvey.
You may look at Harvey’s 5.59 ERA through two starts and scoff but the truth is, his advanced metrics show he has pitches far better with a 3.86 xFIP. Harvey has done an exceptional job at generating ground balls nearly 55% of the time and through two games his .375 BABIP on that high of a ground ball rate would suggest some bad luck and a whole lot of seeing-eye base hits. However, if you go and watch some of the highlights of Harvey thus far you will see he is leaning heavily on his slider and the velocity on his fastball is noticeably up.
In his second start against the Red Sox, Harvey used his Slider nearly 33% of the time and as a result you saw his swinging strike rate jump to 11% in that game where he got 5 total K’s.
Harvey relies heavily on that slider to right-handed batters and the MArines projected line-up today has 5 RHB in it. This line-up as a whole struggles with the slider from righties, racking up a 40%+ K rate against that pitch type and so there is some serious sneaky K upside for Harvey today.
I am feeling nostalgic and the thought of pairing Harvey with deGrom makes me remember a time where there was a legit argument over who was better.
Going this route with a super high/low deGrom/Harvey approach will allow you to stack up the Braves pricey high ceiling bats which I would argue is the priority on this slate. Keep an eye on the lineups also because day games are prime time for punt value plays in advantageous lineup spots to open up!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Main Slate Breakdown
The Main Slate 5 gamer thankfully does not have any weather concerns to factor into our MLB DFS decision making but boy oh boy – the pitching on this slate is a turd wrapped in burnt hair.
Can I interest you in a $10K Julio Urias? How about a $9K Rich Hill?
What on Earth are those prices? It feels like surge pricing for Uber when they know they have you – DraftKings is like, good luck finding pitching on this slate – you have to pay nearly the same price for Julio Urias as you did for Jacob deGrom a few hours earlier! MUAHAHA!
Rather than pay those hefty price tags, I am more inclined to drop down to mid-range arms with demonstrated swing and miss ability in Sean Manaea and Patrick Corbin.
Neither arm has been great to start the year but I think much of that was match-up driven as Corbin got the Dodgers in his first start while Manaea has faced the right-handed heavy Astros twice this season.
Today this duo will face the DBacks and Tigers – solid lineups for sure but not nearly on the same plane as a Dodgers or Astros lineup.
That is it – that is the kind of the selling point. You are getting solid arms who have swing and miss ability against two teams that sub IRT’s under 4. End argument.
The bats are what is going to win you this slate and while the Nationals and Dodgers will draw ownership with 5+ IRT’s, I am more interested in a little game stack with the Royals/Blue Jays.
Jakob Junis and Tanner Roark have a lot in common, they lack K ability and they give up a TON of hard contact and I would argue that lineup wise, the Royals/Blue Jays offer you talent that has similar upside to any other stack you can find tonight at a substantial discount.
Now – I have to give my man Adam Strangis credit because as usual his Starting Rotation is an incredible read. He pointed out Junis adding a cutter to his arsenal this year and if you really dig into his splits – you want to attack him with left-handed batters which is really just Cavan Biggio in this Toronto lineup.
The thing is, Junis threw just 58 pitches in his first start against the Indians after starting the year in the bullpen, so it is more likely we get multiple innings against the Royals bullpen. On the season, the KC pen has walked over 13% of batters which is the second worst mark in baseball while also giving up 38% hard contact – again second worst in baseball.
So we get a pen that will get runners on and then allow hard contact – sounds like an ideal recipe for stacking to me.
Attacking Roark is much more straightforward as he has given up a .265 ISO to LHB and a staggering .378 ISO to RHB since the start of 2020 with a 45%+ HC rate to each side of the plate.
The Toronto bullpen has been exceptional to start the year so this is kind of the flipside where we are stacking against Roark, hoping to put up early numbers and get to the “bad pen” arms for Toronto.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
There is nothing better than all day MLB DFS and we have two really strong GPP slates in my opinion that are going to force you to be creative as outside of Jacob deGrom, the pitching is going to be quite volatile.
As we march toward each of the lock times, monitoring ownership will be key to see if we can get leverage so make sure you are in Discord so we can help coach you through these slates!
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!
