Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Friday, May 21st 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 – we have ourselves a monster 15 game slate here this evening and the best part is that the weather looks all clear so we can hopefully play this all straight up.
As my man Adam Strangis laid out in Starting Rotation today, this is a really strong pitching slate and it starts up top with a pair of aces that I think will determine our builds. Trevor Bauer ($11.9K) and Tyler Glasnow ($11.2K) are the clear top dogs on this slate, both ranking among the top 10 K arms in baseball this season as Glasnow’s 38.6% K rate ranks 4th and Bauer’s 35.5% rate ranks 7th.
The simple difference in opponent today is what makes this interesting as Bauer gets a road start in the cavernous park in San Francisco while Glasnow heads to Dunedin to face the loaded Blue Jays lineup.
That is it – that is really the only difference – but that opposing lineup is what is going to make Bauer the SP1 chalk and Glasnow an SP1 pivot.
If you have read Picks and Pivots before you know where this is going – so, I will ask – why not just use both?
Glasnow is the best pure K arm on this slate, with the 4th highest K rate and swinging strike rate in all of baseball and the 2nd highest CSW rate in the bigs.
The match-up may seem daunting but there is a path to success here for Glasnow, and one that frankly has been there for a while. As this view from Statmuse shows, there has been a relatively consistent 15-20 DK point output from RHP’s against the Jays in the last few weeks and when you look at the arms, they are far less talented than Mr. Glasnow.
If we opt to utilize a “double ace” approach, it still leaves us with $3.3K per batter for the rest of our build and there are some really strong mid-range stacks that I think make this path viable.
Note – there is a sneaky SP2 target I like for MME GPP play tonight we are talking about in Discord. Join us and get in on the fun!
The first is the Chicago White Sox against LHP Jordan Montgomery in Yankee stadium. Montgomery biggest struggles are with right-handed bats and the White Sox are best deployed as a stack against left-handed pitching which makes this the perfect marriage.
Montgomery on the season is allowing a .225 ISO and 43% HC rate to RHB with just under 2 HR/9 allowed and that power upside is what you are chasing with the White Sox hitters tonight.
Since the start of last season, the numbers against LHP for the key bats in this line-up are off the charts with Tim Anderson (.351 ISO), Andrew Vaughn (.308 ISO), Yermin Mercedes (.242 ISO), and Yasmani Grandal (.225 ISO) all with strong power numbers.
The power numbers may not stand out for Yoan Moncada, but the pitch profile most certainly does as he has a .316 ISO against the change-up and a .444 ISO against the cutter which is 50% of the pitch mix that Montgomery will throw to right-handed batters.
Now stacking the White Sox is going to be costly as you will need to invest the majority of your remaining salary cap in their infield bats and it will require some cheap OF stacks to make it all work.
Well, this is where the New York Mets OF comes into play. Now, nobody wakes up and says – I cannot wait to stack Cameron Maybin, Khalil Lee and Johneshwy Fargas – but attacking Jordan Holloway tonight is a path to success in my mind.
Of all the starting pitchers on this slate, Holloway ranks 2nd to last in SIERA at 5.55 which is a full THREE runs higher than his ERA which tells you regression is coming! His near 6 xFIP, anf 40%+ fly ball rate and hard contact rate also tell you this is an arm to attack and behind him is a Miami bullpen that ranks bottom 10 in baseball the last 7 games with a 5.5 ERA.
Being able to grab a full OF stack for near minimum price is a unique way to correlate with a double ace/ 5 man White Sox stack this evening!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
On a 15 game MLB DFS slate with Coors Field on it, we have a seemingly endless number of paths to explore when making our MLB DFS picks.
However, any time we can get two of the best strikeout arms in baseball and pair them together in our lineups while still anchoring to a high powered offense, well you know where my GPP mindset goes!
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!
