Jared Levitt 
Welcome to Friday’s edition of Aces and Bases, where I’ll go through the top MLB DFS Aces and Stacks on DraftKings and Fanduel.
It’s Friday and that means we have a large slate of MLB DFS to navigate through. Tonight we’ll be blessed with an 11-game slate of MLB DFS. We’re getting to the point of the year where every game matters. Playoff positions will be up for grabs, as will be draft position. Teams have already made the decision of whether or not they are in it to win it or just going to mail it in the rest of the season.
Let’s dig in and make some money!
MLB DFS Aces – Main
Luis Castillo vs. Los Angeles Angels
The Los Angeles Angels ended up being buyers at this year’s deadline, but that doesn’t change the fact that they have zero chance of winning the World Series this year. They still have a flawed lineup and one that’s extremely inconsistent. You take Shohei Ohtani out of the lineup and they are nothing more than average at best lineup. Over the last week, this offense has done very little. They’re sporting a 34% K rate and have barely put up runs.
They’ll have the tough task of facing a pitcher that is really in a nice groove right now. Over the last month, Luis Castillo has an ERA under 2.5 and has a K rate of nearly 30%. That K rate is the highest of any pitcher on tonight’s slate. I really like Castillo’s chances of having a strong outing tonight.
Dean Kremer vs. New York Mets
If you watched any of the Mets/Royals series the last few days you can tell that the Mets have essentially mailed it in. They were shutout Wednesday and then were nearly shutout again yesterday if it had not been for Francisco Lindor’s ninth-inning 2-run blast. Billy Eppler made it clear that 2023 was over when he traded their most prized assets.
From here on out, we’ll be attacking the Mets with pitchers. Tonight, we’ll do it with the Hebrew Hammer Dean Kremer. Kremer has been really solid over the last month. In his 5 starts, he’s been in double digits 4 times. In 2 of those outings he was in the upper 20’s and low 30’s. With a matchup vs. a bad Mets offense, he should have a ceiling game tonight for just $7.2k on DK.
Hunter Brown vs. New York Yankees
Another team that I’ll be picking on nightly going forward will be the New York Yankees. They did nothing at the deadline to better their flawed lineup and they lost Anthony Rizzo to the IL yesterday with a concussion that happened 2 months ago. While some may say that Rizzo being out may be addition by subtraction with how he has swung a bat, he’s still a force in the middle of that Yankees lineup.
Brown does come with some risk as he’s been giving up a healthy amount of hard contact, but it’s the Yankees and they just aren’t very good. I will more than likely stick with Castillo and Kremer tonight, but using Brown can also be a successful strategy.
MLB DFS Stacks – Main
St. Louis Cardinals vs. Chris Flexen
After starting out his career pretty miserably, Chris Flexen was able to parlay a really solid showing in the KBO into a pretty nice contract from the Seattle Mariners. The first couple of years of the contract were pretty solid, until the wheels completely fell of this season. This season’s ERA of 8.08 is the highest of his career since 2018 with the Mets.
There’s almost nothing that Flexen has done well at this year. He made his first start for the Rockies a week ago and it could not have gone much worse as he allowed 5 ER in just over 3 innings of work. He’s bad and we’ll attack him with an underperforming Cardinals lineup. With Flexen I’m not going to be overly concerned with splits. He’s been horrendous vs. both sides of the plate this year.
The premier names in this Cardinals lineup are Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt. Do they each have upside? They do, but I’m more than likely fading them. Neither guy is really hitting the ball well right now and their prices don’t reflect it. Both guys are still in the mid $5k range and I’m just not sure I want to pay that for them.
I do however want to pay the $4.4k for Lars Nootbaar. Nootbaar is playing great right now. He’s arguably the best bat in this lineup right now. Over the last week, Nootbaar has 8 hits in 18 AB and 3 homers. He should be able to hand Chris Flexen with ease tonight. After Nootbaar, I’ll look to add guys like Tyler O’Neill, Jordan Walker, and Nolan Gorman. The Cardinals have been a huge disappointment this season, but all should be forgotten in a dream matchup tonight.
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Quinn Priester
The Milwaukee Brewers are hitting their stride again and I want to make sure I’m a part of it from a stacking perspective. They get a glorious matchup tonight vs. Quinn Priester. The young rookie has been a disaster at the Major League level so far. Through 3 starts, Priester has an ERA over 9 and has a BB/9 that is nearly identical to his K/99.
For those new to those metrics, they should be nowhere near each other. Priester is allowing a WHIP of 1.72, which means he’s putting on close to 2 runners on base per inning. Not ideal. With Priester, I won’t be overly concerned with splits. He’s been pretty atrocious against both lefties and righties.
I’ll start my Brewers stack with their star, Christian Yelich. Against righties this season, Yelich has a very strong wOBA of .400. He’s starting to hit the ball the other way recently and it’s helped his numbers tremendously. He’s having a nice rebound season. After Yelich, I want to make sure to get in my stack Sal Frelick.
The young OF has shown flashes of some serious upside this season. Just yesterday, Frelick had 33 DK points in the routing of the Pirates. I’m not saying the kid will replicate it, but he’s in a great spot to succeed tonight. After those 2, I’ll look to include Carlos Santana, William Contreras, and Willy ADamaes. While we’re at it, we can also throw in ex-Met Mark Canha to our player pool.
Other stacks I like tonight are the Orioles vs. David Peterson, Astros vs. Luis Severino, and the Rockies vs. Adam Wainwright.
MLB DFS Summary
Hitting will rule the day tonight. We have a ton of teams in really good spots tonight. Pitching we’ll need to tread lightly with. I don’t plan on straying from the Castillo/Kremer combo though.
Make sure to drop into Discord where we’re constantly talking about plays for every slate.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green.
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