Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Friday, May 14th 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 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!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown
Happy Friday my MLB DFS friends and family! I hope you all had a wonderful night on Thursday because, well as you can see above – I sure did. We outlined it yesterday in Picks and Pivots that the Rays were a low-owned stack with massive upside and boy did that move pay off!
It felt great to get a big GPP takedown last night but it was even better seeing all the Rays stack screenshots in our Win Daily Sports Discord as we had multiple huge winners and contest takedowns for our subscribers. You simply love to see it!
As we turn to tonight’s MLB DFS slate, what stands out to me at first glance is how top-heavy the pitching pool with a trio of aces up top with Tyler Glasnow, Max Scherzer and Clayton Kershaw.
Now if you are new to Win Daily Sports – I have a secret. We have the absolute best and most comprehensive pitching breakdown in the industry with Adam Strangis Starting Rotation and I implore you, nobody does a better job of going arm by arm to find you the best plays on the slate. Today – the best part is – it is 100% FREE to read. GO CHECK IT OUT.
What Adam articulates so well and it aligns with my thinking out of the gate is that we need to anchor to these high dollar arms tonight – both because of the elite high K upside you are getting but also because of the lack of value arms that make for logical pivots.
However, the one aspect that Adam did not mention that becomes a primary reason I think to go “double aces” is that the pricing on bats is simply far too cheap once again on DraftKings where you have so much salary flexibility to allow you to get these aces with EASE. All this value is going to make getting the big arms an easy path that I refuse to overlook.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Why are the Hitters So Cheap?
It feels absolutely insane to write this but one of the reasons we can get to the trio of aces so easily is that – *checks notes* – the hitters in Coors Field are just flat out mispriced.
We outlined this yesterday on the Rockies side and the same exact mispricing is there for us to take today as we have 3 Rockies batters projected in the starting line-up that cost $2.6K or lower in Elias Diaz, Josh Fuentes, and Connor Joe.
Connor Joe was $2K last night and proceeded to drop 20 DK points while Josh Fuentes saw his price rise just $100 from $2.3K last night despite a 26 DK point performance and his second straight HR game with 20+ DraftKings points.
The wild part about yesterday was – nobody played them! Joe was under 20% owned and Fuentes was virtually ignored under 5%. How many times do you get punt starting value in Colorado and just ignore it completely?
Now they will assuredly get an ownership boost today as the game log watchers kick themselves for missing it last night but the fact we have a 13 game slate should temper ownership a bit. I will gladly take the free squares as all three have the splits advantage against LHP Wade Miley who is making his first start post-no-hitter in Coors Field.
How often do we see guys struggle in the starts after a no-hitter, especially for a guy like Miley who threw 114 pitches, a 15% spike on his high watermark pitch count on the year, and now he has to navigate Coors? Take the three Rockies punts and pair them with a right-handed power bat like Trevor Story or Garret Hampson who lead the team with .200+ ISO marks against LHP this season.
If you look at Miley’s primary pitch types to RHB, he throws the cutter nearly 50% of the time and that is a pitch type that Hampson handles extremely well – to the tune of a .563 ISO mark with an averaged batted-ball distance of over 333 feet. The change-up, which he throws about 35% of the time – well Story has himself a .300 ISO mark with a 50% hard contact rate against that pitch type so pick your poison Mr. Miley.
Now on the flip side of this game, the Reds were massive chalk last night and despite scoring 8 runs, the field was largely let down as chalk plays like Nick Senzel and Mike Moustakas left the game early. Senzel left due to an injury that it sounds likely will keep him out a few days while the Reds have already confirmed that Moose Tacos will be back in the lineup this evening.
If Senzel were to miss this game, it would give us another potential starting punt with Shogo Akiyama ($2.2K) who replaced Senzel last night after his injury.
The fact we have a path to four starting players in this game with near minimum priced salaries just begs the question – why would we NOT use this value to give us the path to lock in two aces?
The best part is – not only can we get said Aces, but we can also stack up the big bats from this Coors game alongside them! The Reds bats like Mike Moustakas, Eugenio Suarez, Jesse Winker, Tyler Naquin, and Nick Castellanos all jump right back to the top of the player pool today with a match-up in the thin air against German Marquez.
Marquez is a talented arm but Coors is Coors and after seeing him struggle to the tune of 8 runs in just 0.2 IP against the Giants the last time he pitched at home – we know the floor is incredibly low for him and the ceiling for the Reds hitters is incredibly high.
Against LHB, Marquez is going to rely heavily on his curve, nearly a third of the time, and that is a pitch type that both Moustakas and Naquin hit with power, sporting .200+ ISO marks each and Naquin popping with a 52% hard contact rate and 70% fly-ball rate!
The other aspect to attack here is the Rockies bullpen, a pen that ranks among the worst in baseball the last 7 games with an ERA north of 7 and an xFIP/SIERA north of 5 – all three metrics which rank them among the bottom three in baseball.
MLB DFS is all about attacking staffs – not just the starting arms – it is why we spend so much time coaching people at Win Daily Sports on our Match-up Tool as we need to ensure we are attacking bad spots for arms in totality. Get the Reds bats early against Marquez and a brutal bullpen awaits behind them to help your hitters reach their ceiling!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – So Where Do We Land?
When you step back and really take in this slate, you need to look at the player pool in total and understand the roster paths that seem so very clear to me tonight.
With a trio of ace arms up top with Glasnow, Mad Max, and Kershaw – the question is not which arm to pay for, it is which two to pay for on DraftKings because we have so much hitting value that going double aces is a clear path to ceiling.
All that value from the Rockies right-handed bats and the potential for more on the Reds side gives you a unique scenario where we can game stack Coors Field and still get two of the top three arms in our MLB DFS lineups.
Sometimes, slates just become crystal clear in how we build our teams and tonight that path is jumping off the page!
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!
