Brian Tulloch 
Welcome to the Friday 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
We get a split slate MLB DFS Friday with a 3 game early slate appetizer that actually looks at first glance to have some interesting paths and DraftKings makes it appealing with some strong GPP prize pools.
The pitching decision for me on this early slate likely comes down to the three at the top – Walker Buehler, Corey Kluber and Johnny Cueto.
Buehler is the class of this slate from a metrics perspective has his 31% K rate and 13% SS rate since the start of 2020 can attest. Kluber’s metrics are solid but his mid 70’s pitch count in the opener and continuous velocity drop throughout Spring Training and into the start of the year makes me really nervous and instead pushes me to Cueto as an SP2.
Cueto was dominant in his first start against Seattle with 7K’s and a 15% SS rate and now gets the Rockies in San Francisco. This Rockies lineup is one we have talked about that we would attack every time out if they were not in Coors Field and here we are – first game out of Coors and going to the polar opposite ballpark in The Bay – this sets up for a great spot again for Cueto.
The tricky part on this slate is the pricing for bats as there is seemingly little value and the bats are priced up which makes mixing and matching stacks a challenge – but I think the answer stays in San Francisco. The Giants will throw an almost entirely right-handed lineup at LHP Austin Gomber and that could spell disaster as the Giants projected lineup has a near .300 TEAM TOTAL ISO against lefties since the start of 2020. Seriously – the whole team!
Gomber is a low K arm who went full Ankiel on his first turn through the rotation with 7 walks in 3 innings of work. Now walks in of themselves are not a sexy DFS stat but this is where stacking is key – walks turn into baserunners, turns into long innings and crooked numbers and we can do it without necessarily counting on long balls to get us fantasy production. Keep the chain moving and let the right-handed hitters tee off!
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the prime stack on the slate against RHP Joe Ross even with Cody Bellinger unlikely to suit up and questions on whether Mookie Betts will return from back tightness which forced him to miss last game. Now this does open up some value as Zach McKinstry ($3.1K) will slide into the starting lineup again and his 2B/OF eligibility on DK makes him an elite option due to his flexibility in your builds.
My two favorite bats on the Dodgers are Max Muncy and Corey Seager as they simply hammer Joe Ross’ primary offering to lefties – the sinker. Since 2019, this duo has a .476 and .302 ISO mark against that pitch type and so I am calling my shot with HR’s from this Dodger duo today!
The Early Slate is solid – I think we have enough pitching options to feel good about our builds and the Giants/Dodgers correlated stacks provide enough value to attack the two best offenses on the early slate in my mind.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown
The Main Slate MLB DFS slate is basically a repeat for nearly every arm available as their second turns through the rotation are largely rematches of their first turns which will make the game log watchers life that much easier! The issue with simply assuming a repeat is these offenses now get a second look at the same arm and a chance to make immediate adjustments so we cannot simply assume the past repeats itself!
The over arching thought on pitching is that we get a ton of sneaky good strikeout arms and they are all very fairly priced – so I think it makes for a slate where the builds will be strong top to bottom as a result of the pricing on DK.
My pitcher pool will likely consist of Zach Plesac, Lance McCullers, Joe Musgrove and Tyler Mahle and that was before I even glimpsed at Adam’s Starting Rotation which essentially echoed those choices as high swing and miss arms. Lock and load my friends.
Personally, I love the McCullers/Mahle combination and what it opens up from a salary perspective by going high/low with our SP1 and SP2. Both guys were swing and miss machines in their first starts and I think we can go right back to the well here today.
For stacks, there are two that jump out to me – one I think will be popular and one I think may be the sneakier one. The Blue Jays take on LHP Andrew Heaney who has given up a .210 ISO and 48% HC rate to right-handed batters since the start of 2020 and this Toronto lineup is LOADED with right-handed power as they have 6 batters with .200+ ISO marks against LHP since 2019.
Heaney relies heavily on his sinker to RHB, nearly 60% of the time and Marcus Semien and Vladdy Daddy have .300 and .420 ISO marks respectively against that pitch type.
The other stack today I love is the left-handed Indians bats against RHP Julio Teheran. Since 2019, Teheran is giving up a .220 ISO mark to LHB with a near 50% fly ball rate and hard contact rate – meaning guys like Jose Ramirez, Eddie Rosario and Josh Naylor all get massive power potential with the splits in their favor.
I love the idea of going with a 5-3 stack of Blue Jays and Indians power bats tonight as we can capture a ton of HR equity with the splits favorability with enough salary savings to still pay for two elite K arms.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
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!
