Jared Levitt 
Welcome to the Saturday edition of Picks and Pivots. Tonight we have a really nice sized 10 game main slate of MLB DFS on Draftkings to navigate through.
It’s Jared and I’ll be filling in for Brian today. My goal today will be to layout a path to get at least one high level ace and a couple of offenses that are in great spots to crush tonight.
Let’s dig in to today’s slate!
Main Slate Breakdown
With tonight’s slate we have a couple of the top strike out pitchers in the league in Carlos Rodon ($10.1k) and Corbin Burnes ($10.6k). Both guys have been on fire of late with K rates 30% over the past month. Of the pitchers going tonight Rodon ranks first while Burnes ranks fourth. Wait, that means there are 2 other guys sandwiched in between them that also have a 30% K rate?
Yes, and one of them is someone I’m going to pair with either Rodon or Burnes. That guy is Logan Gilbert ($7.8k). In his last 20 innings of work Gilbert has been just brilliant. He’s sporting a 3.13 xFIP to go with a 34% K rate. He’s also really been able to limit his hard contact as his hard contact over the last month is a minuscule 18%. In Gilbert you are getting an ace level pitcher at an extreme discount.
I will be locking in Gilbert as my SP2 tonight and pairing him with either Rodon or Burnes. My lean right now is to go with a Rodon/Gilbert pairing as it leaves us with $4k to spend on our batters. Now that pitching is out of the way, let’s see where we can find some bats.
The first place I plan on looking to for offense is sure to make Brian happy. The Rays get a great match-up tonight against a pitcher that has really been struggling. In his last 3 games JC Mejia has given up 16 runs and 4 homers. I’m sure at some point Mejia will turn into a good pitcher and he even showed flashes of it in his last outing with 8 K’s, but right now he’s just a pitcher getting overwhelmed at the Major League level.
Mejia is a sinker ball pitcher which leads to a high number of ground balls. It’s been getting hit really hard though this year. Batters have a 52% hard hit rate and a .651 slugging % against his most used pitch. If we look at splits Mejia gives up a significantly higher ISO to lefties at .224.
Rays have the potential to throw out 5-6 lefties tonight which should signal doom for Mejia. My main target here is Austin Meadows ($4.2k) who has a .627 slugging % against sinkers this year. Brandon Lowe ($4.8k) and Ji-Man Choi ($4.1k) are also guys that have had success against sinkers with hard hit rates near or greater than 50% and wOBA’s close .400. Love the spot for the Rays tonight.
The other team that really stands out the most to me right now are the San Francisco Giants. They get a dream match-up tonight against a pitcher that has struggled all year and it’s only gotten worse of late.
Over the past month Will Crowe has been dreadful. He has a 5.85 xFIP that is pretty close to being in line with his ERA of 5.49 so we know what we’re getting is a pretty bad pitcher. During that same time period is he’s also given up 5 homers. He’s just giving up way too much hard contact and way too many fly balls.
His hard hit rate on the year is sitting at 41%. If you are giving up hard hits 40% of the time while only having a 20% K rate, you have almost no path to being a successful pitcher. In looking at his splits, he’s been pretty bad to both sides of the plate as the ISO is north of .200.
He gives up a slightly higher amount of fly balls to lefties so I’ll want to make sure I cram in a dirt cheap LaMonte Wade ($2.8k) who will most likely be leading off.
Two other guys that will be keys to my lineup are Yastrzemski ($3.8k) and Dickerson ($2.7k). Both guys are cheap and profile extremely well against the fastball and changeup mix they’ll see from Crowe. Other guys in this lineup that are cheap that will give you flexibility are Wilmer Flores ($3.8k) and Thario Estrada ($3.3k).
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
The Rays and Giants fit very well together tonight and they will be where my focus on offense will be. The Giants cheap pieces will help to grab both the Rays expensive and productive pieces but will also help to get one of the top pitchers. I like the idea tonight of pairing both Rodon and Gilbert together.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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