Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Friday, July 2nd edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!
If you are new to MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, the goal of this article is not simply to list out the “best plays” but rather to walk through the context of the slate and help you identify the best arms and stacks to build around for MLB DFS tournament play. We will use DraftKings pricing as our anchor and help you get a head start on your winning builds!
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Main Slate Breakdown
Welcome in my friends to a 14 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Friday FREEBIE special where we have a ton of games highlighted by some periphery rain risk, some ace level arms and another game in Coors Field!
Any time we have a slate of this size, my first piece of advice is to work quickly to minimize your player pool and try and consolidate where your focus is as an MLB DFS player. All too often in Discord here at Win Daily Sports, players come in on large slates and start with “but how about this arm or this stack or this player.”
The reality is – there are TONS of paths that are viable but trying to chase after every single one is going to leave you confused and grasping to build lineups right up until lock. Now it also means there are significantly more probable winning builds which makes taking down a GPP on a slate of this size that much harder, but drowning out the noise and being focused on your builds is step number 1.
It all starts with pitchers and the most important aspect of MLB DFS in my humble opinion is anchoring to high strikeout arms. Last night was such a perfect example where even though Jacob deGrom struggled at the start of the game and gave up some *gasp* actual runs – he quickly went back to being deGOAT and struck out 14 batters and it is that ability to withstand hits/runs with K upside that makes anchoring to high K arms the most important part of your lineup building process.
Over the last month, being able to navigate through the sticky stuff has made anchoring to those arms that much more challenging, but we have enough data now to start to see which arms have maintained the high K upside and it is those we need to be focused on.
If you look at the last 30 days across Major League Baseball, there are only two pitchers on tonight’s slate that have the elite K metrics we covet with 30% or higher strikeout rates and 15% or higher swinging strikes rates.
What I love is that both of these arms are prominently featured in Adam Strangis Starting Rotation today – the single best MLB DFS Pitching Breakdown and today it is 100% FREE – please, I implore you to read this – it is the most comprehensive pitching breakdown you will find at any site.
The first is likely not a surprise with Max Scherzer ($10.5K) who continues to operate as SP1 on every single slate he is on with a 31.6% K rate and 17.4% swinging strike rate over the last 30 days. While the fly ball rate and hard contact rates remain elevated on Mad Max, there is certainly risk that a healthy Dodgers line-up is able to knock in 2-3 runs against him – but this to me is much like the spot we saw with deGrom last night.
Were the Braves the ideal line-up to pay a premium to attack? No. Are the Dodgers? No.
The thing is, you are not paying the freight to attack those lineups, you are paying for the lone arm over $10K because of the double-digit K ability and in a DFS sport where K’s are King – I want to build around that upside whenever I can get it.
One of the reason it is so easy to “pay the premium” is because of that second arm I mentioned before, the only other one on tonight’s slate with a 30%+ K rate and 15%+ SS rate the last month.
Welcome to my SP2 spot Logan Gilbert ($6.6K).
Over the last 30 days, Gilbert’s 30.3% K rate and 16% SS rate put him in an elite company and this is a spot where you are getting SP1 strikeout metrics for a SP2 bargain price.
The match-up for Gilbert against a K-heavy Rangers team with a 25%+ K rate against RHP this season just adds to the intrigue for the Mariners top prospect and as Adam broke down in Starting Rotation, the pitch mitch changes for Gilbert indicate this K upside is here to stay.
Being able to go high/low here on DraftKings with your pitching choices not only lets you anchor to high upside strikeout arms but it also opens up the door to essentially any of the top hitting stacks of the night with $4.1K per batter for the rest of your build.
The first stop on this hitting tour for me has to be the Kansas City Royals against JA Happ.
If you have been part of the Win Daily Sports family, you know JA Happ day is a national holiday around these parts as our FanDuel expert Jared Levitt has been banging the drum for stacking against the Twins lefty every single slate!
Against right-handed batters this season Happ ranks among the worst in baseball with a 2.1 HR/9 rate, a 50% fly ball rate and a massive .267 ISO mark. The Royals are likely to trot out 8 right-handed batters tonight and this spells trouble for the veteran lefty!
Any Royals stack starts with the C/2B duo of Salvador Perez and Whit Merrifield as you get to build around two elite bats at premium positions. Perez has a monster .367 ISO against LHP since the start of last season and if you dig into the pitch type, you start to see why Perez has owned this match-up historically (7 for 14 with 4 HR’s and a .857 ISO mark).
Happ relies on a low 90’s fastball nearly 60% of the time to RHB, a pitch type that Perez has a .300 ISO, 55% HC rate and wait for it – an average distance traveled of 456 feet.
No read that again.
FOUR. HUNDRED. FIFTY. SIX. FEET. AVERAGE.
Imagine not thinking Salvy is homering tonight. Lock button.
Past the obvious, I want to look for right-handed batters with power and fly ball tendencies. Hunter Dozier is arguably the third-best play in this Royals stack as his 50% fly-ball rate against LHP leads this Royals team in 2021 and he has a similar power profile against every single offering from Happ.
Against the low-velocity fastball, a .227 ISO and 60% HC rate, and against the slider he has a .300 ISO and 52% HC rate which accounts for 75% of the pitch type profile against Happ that Dozier hammers.
The last time Happ faced this Royals line-up – he gave up 3 HR’s – two to Perez and one to Dozier. When the profile matches up with BvP, you can start to see there is a reason!
Well, it is a day that ends in Y and so you know that means it is time for us to stack the Tampa Bay Rays!
The Rays have an intriguing boom or bust match-up tonight against Jays right-hander Alek Manoah who will return after serving his five game suspension. Manoah has the kind of profile that could either dominate the Rays or serve up multiple HR’s – which is exactly why I love this spot for GPP’s.
Manoah has served up a 2.1 HR/9 rate thus far in his rookie year despite his high K output and his 40%+ fly ball rate and 45% hard contact are the metrics we are really looking to attack.
Manoah has had two games this year where the HR ball has bit him hard with 4 HR’s allowed to the Orioles and 3 HR’s to the Marlins but in the other games he has dominated and as I pointed out before his last start, it has been slider that has determined much of his success.
Against the Orioles last start the slider was used 34% of the time and as his highest swing and miss pitch, it was interesting to see that he saw an uptick in velocity on it – throwing it a season high 83+MPH.
Now the Rays are a team that we know can strike out, but they also have multiple bats with low K rates and high ISO marks against the slider including Joey Wendle and Ji Man Choi have just 25% whiff rates while sporting .200+ ISO marks.
Get ready for the 2Lock Picks and Pivots party – you knew it was coming.
You know who hammers the slider? Take a guess.
Oh Captain my Captain!
That’s right – Picks and Pivots cover boy Austin Meadows! How does a .456 ISO with just a 15% ground ball rate and 20% whiff rate sound? I cannot wait for the HR notification tonight that Austin Meadows homered on a slider from Manoah. It probably comes right after a Salvador Perez HR too. It is going to be glorious.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
On a huge MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate like we have here, we are going to have a ton of options and ownership will be a huge determining factor on how much we pivot off this first look but I would expect Coors Field will soak up enough ownership we can find our ways to be different.
I hope you all enjoyed the last few days of FREE Picks and Pivots and please make sure you grab our July 4th promo as we will be going back behind the paywall for the summer! Believe me – after you get Austin Meadows sub 5% owned HR’s tonight, you’ll be able to cover the cost of $44.44 for two months.
Good luck tonight all! Let’s keep that hot streak rolling! Come join the Win Daily Sports Team – grab a Gold Membership and take advantage of all the tools, articles, and expert coaching we can give you to make you a consistent winner in DFS.
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @2LockSports and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
