Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to Friday’s edition of Aces and Bases, where I’ll be going through the top MLB DFS Aces and Stacks on DraftKings and Fanduel.
On this beautiful Friday, the MLB has blessed us with a massive 13-game slate of MLB DFS. With it being such a large slate of games, it means we’ll have plenty of options both on the mound and at bat. We’ll also want to make sure to not get overwhelmed with the amount of players in the pool tonight. When slates get this big, it’s easy to start to get confused and make bad choices. Let’s not do that tonight.
Let’s dig and make some money!
MLB DFS Aces – Main
Spencer Strider vs. Toronto Blue Jays
The conundrum we’ll have tonight will be do we use the Strider vs. a very good Blue Jays lineup. There’s no denying that Strider has more upside in terms of strikeouts than anyone on the hill tonight. Over his last 29 innings of work, he’s amassed 49 K’s. You don’t need a calculator to know that is well more than 1 per inning. His K/9 of 15.21 is significantly higher than anyone else tonight.
But so his is the price tag of $12.2k. Luckily for us, it’s an extremely large slate and we’ll more than likely be able to find plenty of value to be able to afford him. Even with the risk of facing off against the Blue Jays, I plan on making him my SP1 tonight.
Martin Perez vs. Oakland Athletics
Another way to counteract the cost of Strider tonight is to drop down to a different tier of pitching. Perez gets us that. Yes, he’s coming off an absolutely horrible outing vs. the Angels. It was an outing that saw him give up 7 ER in just 3 innings of work. If we look past that outing, we have a pitcher that’s been in double-digit DK points in all but that one start this season.
He has a limited ceiling because he doesn’t strike many out, but with it being the free-swinging A’s tonight, he may have some extra upside in the left arm of his.
Tyler Anderson vs. Cleveland Guardians
If you really want to get frisky tonight look to Tyler Anderson of the Angels. He’s not good, I don’t want to confuse you. But the Guardians have been really bad this year, especially against lefties. The projected lineup tonight has a sub .300 wOBA vs. lefties on the year and a K rate over 25%. There are much worse spots for a $5.5k pitcher.
Anderson is also coming off 2 solid starts. Over those 2 starts, he’s combined to strike out 13 in 11 innings. That’s a good ratio to have. He’s risky because he’s so inconsistent, but I like his chances against a disappointing Guardians team.
MLB DFS Stacks – Main
Houston Astros vs. Michael Kopech
We’ll want to keep an eye on the weather on this one, but if it plays with no issues the Astros have a great shot at putting up a lot of runs tonight. Kopech hasn’t been good. Over the last month, Kopech has been getting rocked. 10 barrels allowed in 27 innings of work and a nearly 42% hard-hit rate. Couple that with a 78% contact rate and we have ourselves an opportunity to attack a pitcher that may very well get rocked.
I always start my Astros stack with one of the best hitters in the league, Yordan Alvarez. Alvarez had a solid last week, going 8 for 22 with 2 bombs and 7 RBI. He’ll look to keep that going in this plus matchup against Kopech.
I also want to add both Jeremy Pena and Kyle Tucker to this stack. Both of those guys are also swinging hot sticks. Other pieces that can be important here will be Alex Bregman and Jose Abreu.
Texas Rangers vs. Ken Waldichuk
You had to know I was going to go here. Anytime the A’s play, I stack against them. Well at least for the most part. The Rangers get a nice matchup vs. Ken Waldichuk tonight. All of Waldichuk’s advanced metrics are bad. He has a high contact rate, low chase rate, low swinging strike rate, lots of fly balls, lots of barrels, and a decent amount of homers. More often than not, the A’s give up a lot of runs and they’ll do so tonight.
When it comes to stacking against the A’s, everyone is in play. I’ll start with guys hitting the ball well. That group includes Marcus Semien, Leody Taveras, and Jonah Heim. All three guys have double-digit hits over the last week. Semien is the preferred bat here as he has a pair of homers over the last week.
Taveras however brings speed into play. When he gets on, he’s always able to steal a base for us. Other bats I like here will be Nate Lowe, Ezequial Duran, and Adolis Garcia.
Other stacks I’m going to look at today will be the Phillies vs. Austin Gomber in Colorado (just know game 1 is typically low scoring), Milwaukee vs. the Royals, and the Nats vs. Tylor Megill.
MLB DFS Summary
There are a lot of games tonight and that means the player pool will be massive. Be smart, get rid of the players that will just weigh your lineup down.
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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