Gary Gustafson 
Welcome back MLB DFS fans! Tonight, we have another solid slate on DraftKings with big prizes pools to take down so let’s get started with our top MLB DFS picks for today’s slate!
For those of you new to Picks and Pivots, the goal of this MLB DFS article each and every day is to provide you a “First Look” overview of the slate where we use DraftKings pricing as a baseline to help us get started. Rather than simply write out the “top plays,” this article will focus on slate strategy and roster construction with a GPP mindset to help you get started on your initial builds. Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s slate!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Starting Pitchers
First and foremost – welcome to the start of the MLB Playoffs! With this new expanded format we are going to have all day baseball each and every day for the foreseeable future and with it -comes larger playoff MLB DFS slates to play!
Today we get the first four games of the postseason in the American League with games from 2PM EST to 7 PM EST and that kind of spread out slate is going to mean we need to utilize late swap and be aware of how lineups coming after lock can impact our roster decisions.
The most difficult decision though may lay in how we attack pitching on these playoff slates as we not only have multiple aces to choose from as our pitching picks but it also means it becomes much harder to find the arms to target bats against.
In the first slate of postseason play, we have no shortage of high K arms with Shane Bieber, Gerrit Cole, Lucas Giolito, Blake Snell and Kenta Maeda all taking 30%+ K rates to the mound in Game 1. The simple reality for me is that this five-man core will likely be where my decision for two pitchers on DraftKings starts and ends, but prioritizing which is going to be the key.
The pricing is really soft for the pitching on DK but we still need to massage every dollar we can on this four-game slate, and that leads me to work backward with the cheapest option – Blake Snell ($7.8K).
Snell’s season long metrics, a 31% K rate and 15% SS rate essentially are mirror images of Gerrit Cole but we get him at a significant discount against the Blue Jays with the benefit of this game being in Tampa where Snell takes his game to another level.
In his career, Snell has a 4% higher K rate when pitching at home and the last two seasons he has racked up a 35% or higher K rate when pitching in Tampa with that marking an 8% jump on his road marks in 2020. The only knock on Snell here is that Toronto can basically go entirely right-handed but we saw Snell drop 24 DK points against them in his last start with 9 K’s in 5.2 innings of work so the upside remains high for a pitcher who has ace level stuff while being priced as an SP2.
Kenta Maeda ($8K) is an arm that I think could get overlooked here today with the bigger names around him and a match-up against Houston, but there is some serious GPP appeal if the ownership is low. Maeda has been a dominant strikeout arm this season against right-handed batters, sporting a 38.2% K rate and that matters when facing an Astros team with just 3 lefties in the projected line-up.
The counter to that – no team in baseball struck out at a lower rate against RHP than the Astros with just a 19% K rate this season against righties so you have the elite K metric against the hardest team in the league to strikeout.
Lucas Giolito ($8.3K) is perhaps my favorite arm on this slate as he has the elite K metrics (34% K rate and 17% SS rate) combined with a litany of things working in his favor as he faces a banged up Oakland team in a massive pitcher’s park. Giolito seems to be getting stronger as the season going on as his K rate and SS rate have both increased over the last 30 days and he steps to the mound throwing 100+ pitches in 8 of his last 10 games.
His K upside is immense and while he has not faced Oakland this season, he faced them once last year down the stretch where he racked up 13 K’s in 6 innings of work. Now 7 of those K’s came against Matt Chapman (injured) and Nick Martini so this may not be an apples to apples game log comparison but the the Oakland projected roster does have a 24.6% K rate against RHP this season.
Bieber and Cole are the late night hammers – the top two arms on the slate in terms of price and boy is it hard not to see $9K next to Shane Bieber’s name and just hit the lock button. I get it – its the Yankees – but at the same time you are talking about a pitcher with an absurd 41% K rate and 17% SS rate in 2020.
Cole is maybe the arm I have the least interest of these top arms – and it is largely due to his struggles with LHB this season, surrendering a .309 ISO mark with a near 60% RB rate which could spell serious trouble with the Indians rolling out 7 LHB in the projected lineup.
So what does it all mean – I find myself using Snell as an SP2 for pricing/salary relief and the SP1 decision then is coming down to Bieber/Giolito based on the roster construction and available salary left. I will say – checking the Win Daily optimizer – it is interesting at first glance to see Cole at over 50% ownership which is by far the highest and with Giolito/Snell both under 25%. Keep an eye on this as this could help us determine our pitching if we indeed have 2-3x ownership levels on certain arms.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Bats and Stacks
The stacks tonight become pretty obvious because it is basically the offenses NOT facing the 5 elite arms noted above – and that brings us to the Twins, White Sox and Rays.
The Twins are the first team we see today and that is actually important because their lineup is one with significant questions marks with the status of both Josh Donaldson and Byron Buxton up in the air. Attacking opposing SP Zack Greinke could be a profitable strategy on this slate as he has given up at least 3 runs now in 7 straight starts and his .221 ISO to RHB could spell trouble with the right-handed power the Twins have – assuming Donaldson and Buxton are healthy enough to play.
The White Sox play at 3PM and we have similar lineup questions – including will Eloy Jimenez be back in the line-up and will the White Sox bench the struggling E5 and go with a Grandal/McCann double C line-up?
The White Sox have been a DFS cheat code all season long against LHP and while Jesus Luzardo is talented, he still surrendered a .176 ISO and 41% HC rate to RHB this season. Of all the stacks on this slate, the White Sox have arguably the highest ceiling and they have proven time and time again in 2020 they can win you some serious money by stacking them.
The Rays lineup is a total mess and it becomes impossible to know what they will even throw out – but the one thing we do know is their opponent Matt Shoemaker, is easily the worst arm on the slate. Shoemaker is giving up a .233+ ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate this season and really the only “worry” is his high GB rate.
To counter that – we want Rays hitters with high FB rates against RHP which puts Yoshi Tsutsugo and his 51% FB rate at the top of the player pool, leading off for the Rays. Brandon Lowe is next with a 44% rate since 2019 and his 2B eligibility is huge as a correlation with the White Sox or Twins that lack the top-tier 2B option.
The one thing to be aware of – the likely plan for Toronto here is to open with Shoemaker and then turn it over to LHP Robbie Ray who has been similarly poor this season with .200+ ISO marks to both sides of the plate with RHB hitting him for a .285 mark with a massive 52% FB rate and HC rate. Hunter Renfroe and his .366 ISO against LHP and 60% FB rate could pair up for a mid-inning homer that pays off in a big-time way!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Wrap up
When it comes to playoff MLB DFS, finding the “obvious” plays – is not always so obvious. I think today though the player pool is so clear with a clear line of delination between pitchers to use and those to attack that it makes figuring out the arms and stacks an easy mapping.
The biggest thing for me is watching lineups and postseason rosters as we get them – the status of guys like Donaldson, Buxton and Jimenez will really determine how we prioritize the bats and I think we can then work backwards into the arms we use.
Stick around in Discord today and let’s talk some baseball!
Let’s get it tonight my friends!
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