Brian Tulloch 
Welcome to the Friday, May 28th 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 (well, kinda)
Welcome in to a 12 game Friday Night of MLB DFS – well, sorta.
Let’s cut to the chase – it is going to rain, alot and everywhere. The end.
While we have a 12 game slate in theory, there is a really good chance that the first 6 games on this slate are all washouts and all of a sudden this Main Slate is a 6 gamer that starts at 8:10 PM EST.
This is the approach I am going to take for the Main Slate at first glance – back load this into a 6 gamer that is weather free and outline a path for us that avoids the risk and gives us hopefully a head start on those who have to pivot later.
We can easily go this route and build lineups that have both high upside K arms and power stacks and it starts with a late pitching duo of Walker Buehler and Shohei Ohtani. Both Buehler and Ohtani have the traits we are looking for with arms on DraftKings – high swinging strike rates and high K outputs and tonight you have the ability to lock in both due to Ohtani’s mid-range pricing.
Going this route with a late-night focus leaves you roughly $4K per batter and with so many weather concerns on the slate early, there is one spot we do not have to worry about – and that is Chase Field where the temperature will be around 100 at game time and the roof is scheduled to be open!
LHP Madison Bumgarner will take the hill for Arizona and his metrics/match-up here are something I think we can exploit. Against RHB this season, MadBum has surrendered a .183 ISO with a near 50% FB rate and 45% HC rate and this Cardinals line-up is LOADED with right-handed power.
Can we please all take a moment to realize Paul Goldschmidt ($3.9K) is priced under $4K against a lefty in Chase Field? Like seriously? The Cardinals are going to load up on right-handed bats here as all of Tommy Edman, Nolan Arenado, Yadier Molina and Goldy have .225+ ISO marks against lefties over the last 2+ seasons.
The Cardinals will call up Johan Oviedo from AAA to start for them tonight – the proud owner of a 6 ERA, 5 xFIP and a .200+ ISO mark to both sides of the plate with a 13% walk rate that sits just under his 19% K rate.
The Arizona run back in a game stack here correlates really well with the Cardinals primary bats as the projected line-up for Arizona has four of their top five hitters with .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season including Josh Rojas, Carson Kelly, Ketel Marte and Eduardo Escobar.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
The reality is – this slate has a ton of risk – and it is all front-loaded with rain in nearly every early game. If you are like me on this Friday Night of Memorial Day weekend, you are looking forward to having a cold one and relaxing and refreshing weather feeds doesn’t seem like the best way to kick off my 3 day weekend.
Instead – why not play this as a back-loaded slate – locking in two high K arms with Buehler/Ohtani and game stack Chase Field with two hittable arms with the roof open in Chase Field and 100 degree temperatures at game time.
Sit back and enjoy my friends!
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.
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