Jared Levitt 
Happy Saturday Y’all! We finally made it to the weekend and I don’t know about you, but I needed it! Tonight we have a nice-sized 9-game slate of MLB DFS. This is a slate that’s going to be extremely tricky in terms of pitchers. The best pitcher in Paul Skenes faces the Los Angeles Dodgers. It’s about as tough of a matchup as there is. After him, it’s really just a bunch of blah pitchers. That will mean we’ll have plenty of options for bats though.
Let’s Dig in and make some money!
MLB DFS Aces – Main
Corbin Burnes ($9.3k on DK) vs. Tampa Bay Rays
Corbin Burnes is one of those pitchers these days who is just better in real life than he is as a DFS pitcher. Since 2020, it’s been a downward trend for his strikeouts year after year. This year his K/9 is at the lowest point of his career at 8.27. That said, he’s still having one of the better years of his career as his ERA is sitting at a strong 2.63 and after he wins tonight he’ll set a career-high in wins at 13.
I’m willing to overlook his lack of strikeouts for a few reasons. There are just a few pitchers on this slate that have a ton of K upside tonight. He has a relatively safe floor. And finally, he gets a great matchup vs. a Tampa Bay Rays team that just doesn’t have a good offense these days. Over the last week, they’ve scored just 19 runs while striking out 29% of the time. His floor should be higher than normal and his ceiling should also be in this matchup. He’s my SP1 tonight.
Sean Manaea ($8.2k on DK) vs. Seattle Mariners
While the additions of Justin Turner and Aroz will certainly make this lineup better, it’s still a high-strikeout team that gives any pitcher upside. This is especially true when a lefty is on the hill. Over the last 30 days, the projected lineup for the Mariners has a nearly 26% K rate vs. southpaws. Nearly half the lineup has a K rate greater than 30% vs. lefties over the last month as well. There are a ton of strikeouts to be Manaea tonight and thankfully he’s coming into this one in peak form.
He’s been brilliant over his last 2 starts and that should continue this evening. He’s coming off back-to-back starts with double-digits K’s and giving up 0 runs. If he comes even remotely close to that level of production tonight, we’ll be sitting pretty with a very cheap pitcher. He’s going to be my SP2 this evening.
I’m out on Paul Skenes tonight. Yes, he’s been mostly matchup-proof this season but he’s the most expensive pitcher on this slate with arguably the worst matchup. This matchup severely lowers his ceiling. The last time he faced the Dodgers he ended up with “just” 21 DK points. I’d rather get that from Corbin Burnes who’s $1k cheaper.
Other pitchers I may have interest in tonight will be Aaron Nola vs. Zona, Logan Gilbert vs. the Mets, and maybe River Ryan if you want to get fancy. This is a slate that’s really barren with pitchers in good spots. I more than likely won’t be straying from Burnes/Manaea.
MLB DFS Stacks – Main
Chicago Cubs vs. Chris Flexen
I hope y’all were able to play the Cubs at single-digit ownership last night. It went better than I could have expected as they tagged Garrett Crochet nicely. Their ownership should be much higher tonight as the matchup is a smidge more obvious with them taking on Chris Flexen. Flexen is terrible. Not sure there’s any other way to say it. Over the last month, Flexen has an ERA that’s pushing 8 and an xFIP that’s over 6.
He continues to be helpful in terms of stacking. In his last 7 starts, teams have put up over 6 runs in each of them against him and the White Sox bullpen. I’m going to prioritize the lefties in this matchup as they have a .556 slugging % vs. him this season. Righties will still be in play though for me.
I’m starting this stack off with Cody Bellinger. He doesn’t always come through for us, but he did last night. He finished the night going 3 for 4 and his first homer in a couple of weeks. I would not be surprised to see a repeat performance again tonight with a matchup vs. a low strike out pitcher.
After Bellinger, I’m going to Pete Crow–Armstrong and Michael Busch. They are 2 of the hotter hitters on this team right now. PCA is in the midst of a 7-game hitting streak and should have that continue tonight. He’s also a strong value at just $2.7k on DK. This entire lineup is in play and plugging in pieces all over will be a good strategy with the wind expected to be blowing out tonight.
Milwaukee Brewers vs. Nick Martinez
This is more of a play on how well the Brewers are playing right now than it is on Nick Martinez. Martinez has actually been pitching pretty well of late, with just a .56 ERA over the last month. His xFIP is nearly 3 runs higher so we can expect some regression from him. He’s mostly been a reliever this year as he’s only started 6 games but has appeared in 32. With him mostly working out of the pen this season, we can’t expect him to go more than 4-5 innings and that will mean we’ll get a healthy amount of the bullpen tonight.
This is a below-average bullpen that has a nearly 5 ERA over the last couple of weeks. This should certainly help in our cause of using the Brewer tonight. And this is a Brewers team that is rolling right now. Over the last week, they’ve scored 49 runs. That is by far the most out of all the teams in action tonight.
The first bat I want here will be Jackson Chourio. He’s been hot at the plate, with 12 hits in his last 28 AB. While the majority of his hits have been singles, he’s also homered twice and has scored 7 runs. He should be able to fill up the stat sheet for us this evening.
I’m also a huge Willy Adames fan tonight. He’s normally one that is better vs. righties than lefties. He has an OPS of .850 this season vs. righties, compared to just .612 vs. lefties. 19 of his 21 homers this season have been against righties. Other bats I’ll look to get in here will be William Contreras, Rhys Hoskins, Garrett Mitchel, and Brice Turang.
Other stacks I like tonight will be Atlanta vs. Dakota Hudson, Twins vs. Gavin Williams, White Sox vs. Justin Steele, and Guardians vs. SWR.
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