Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Friday, May 7th 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: Where to go at Pitcher?
Looking at this slate initially, we have tons of high dollar arms available to us when picking our MLB DFS picks at pitcher but honestly, none of these are ace level arms I feel like I simply have to have.
The best arm on the slate in my opinion is LHP Trevor Rogers ($8.8K) who has a 32% K rate and 14.6% SS rate since the start of 2020 which would rank him 2nd in both metrics of all the arms on this slate and yet he is priced as the 8th highest arm on DraftKings.
Rogers just faced this same Brewers team and struck out 7 in 6 scoreless innings for 28 DK points. The Brewers have the 5th highest K rate in baseball against LHP at 29.2% and the bottom of this order, hitters 4-8, all have 26% or higher K rates against southpaws and that is before we get to the pitcher batting 9th.
Rogers is an SP1 priced far too low and I am just going to take the free square here today in all formats.
Now the SP2 decision is much less clear but I think we have one obvious punt choice. What if I told you there was a pitcher with a 28% K rate, 4 % walk rate and a 50% GB rate to right-handed batters in 2021 and will face 6+ of them in the opposing line-up?
Would you not be interested in Win Daily fan-favorite Mike Foltynewicz ($6.8K)?
Folty has his warts for sure this year, especially with hard contact, but facing a Mariners projected line-up with a 26% K rate to RHP since 2020 and a team overall that ranks 8th in baseball with a 25.7% K rate against RHP in 2021- this is a team we can attack.
What really jumps out to me – the Mariners rank 2nd to last in all of baseball with just a 29% hard contact rate against RHP which means we have a high K team that generates mostly soft contact – an ideal spot in my mind to use a pitcher like Folty who has struggled with opposing hard hits.
I want to throw one other name out and listen, it’s gross – but hear me out. Brad Keller ($4.9K) against the White Sox. Yes, I told you it was gross.
However here is the thing about the White Sox as currently constructed – they are simply not that good against RHP – they rank bottom 5 in ISO and hard contact and have the highest GB rate in all of baseball at 53%.
Why does this matter? Well Keller is a ground ball machine with a 50% GB rate since 2020 which ranks as one of the top marks on today’s slate.
That is it – that is kind of the argument. Keller has minimal swing and miss stuff and those game logs show you a massive floor with two games of negative scores this season. Yeah he went full Ponce De Leon – TWO TIMES already in 2021.
However, the flip side is he has had solid games against the Tigers and Angels where in both cases he got 9 ground ball outs, racked up 4-5 K’s and got 15-20 DK points as result.
Listen, you are not going to feel good about it – but I could absolutely see a path where Keller goes 6 innings, gets the Sox to pound the ball into the ground, limits the damage and gets a few punchouts and gives you a solid return. At under $5K – he is literally cheaper than almost every bat you’ll end up using alongside him!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Bats and Stacks
Now – going with a Rogers/cheap SP2 du0 on DraftKings is going to leave us some serious salary for batters and well, we are going to want that tonight. My guess is the New York Yankees will be at the forefront tonight against LHP Patrick Corbin and rightfully so.
Corbin has been, well awful, and especially awful against RHB with a .361 ISO, 50% FB rate and a 45% HC rate all with a minuscule 15% K rate. Struggles with right-handed hitters and now has to go face a Yankees right-handed heavy line-up in Yankee Stadium? Yeah, this should end well.
Stack them up, lock in the red-hot Giancarlo Stanton and all his friends and move on – eat the chalk, because it is good chalk.
Finding a second stack is where I think we can get different and get the lower ownership to separate ourselves from the pack.
There is an arm tonight that I do not think people will pick on but I would argue we should. This pitcher has given up a .220 ISO to RHB since 2020 with a 50% fly ball rate and tonight will face arguably the most talented line-up in baseball that is loaded with right-handed pop.
Welcome to the Toronto Blue Jays against RHP Jose Urquidy!
Urquidy may not be an arm we target bats against often but if you dig into his pitch data, this seems like a massive trouble spot.
It is fascinating to me to see a pitcher so drastically change their approach this early into the season but take a look at the pitch type game logs for Urquidy from Fangraphs.
This push to use the change-up more though I think has been far more match-up based against lefty heavy teams, which when you face the almost entirely right-handed Blue Jays means we are more likely see him revert to a two pitch pitcher tonight with a fastball/slider.
The fastball at that velocity is a pitch that up and down the Jays can handle and when you dig into the slider, well there are some serious individual standouts with Randall Grichuck and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. both with massive ISO marks.
Gurriel ($3.1K) is my favorite one-off HR call here based on his ability to hammer the slider. He has 84 batted ball events on this pitch type to the tune of a .336 ISO with a 90 MPH+ EV and he puts the ball in the air 70% of the time.
Remember, Urquidy has a 53.3% FB rate this year to RHB so we cant guys that can get the ball in the air and Gurriel against the slider matches up incredibly well – calling my HR shot here!
All of Semien, Bichette and Vladdy have .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season and Semien especially profiles well with a 50%+ FB rate. This Toronto team correlates really well with the Yankees as well – as you can use their super star infield with the big Yankee bats in the OF for all the power you could ask for!
The one other spot I wanted to mention is the Minnesota Twins against LHP Tarik Skubal and the brutal Tigers bullpen. Now the risk here – is just rain – as we have rain risk all day and even into tonight but I would argue, this spot is better than the Yankees bats.
Skubal on the year has a 7+ xFIP, with a massive .426 ISO and 66% FB rate to right-handed batters and well, you do not need me to tell you what the Twins have in droves.
The Mitch Garver (Catcher) and Nelson Cruz (OF) pairing could be the perfect pivot off a Sanchez/Stanton/Judge chalk build if this game is able to play and the reality is – Skubal/Tigers pen is a better match-up than Corbin/Washington.
So let me make another call – Skubal has basically abandoned his change this year to righties and is using his slider more. You know what Nelson Cruz’s ISO against sliders from lefties is? Take a guess – I will wait.
Did you guess?
It is .706. Yes seven hundred and six. With a tidy little average distance of 340+ feet and a 55% hard contact rate. Seriously Skubal – throw him a slider just so we can see how far it goes.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
This MLB DFS slate is awesome and I love the paths that we have today when making our MLB DFS picks.
For me the core concept is locking in Trevor Rogers and two big bat stacks. The question really comes down to which SP2 and whether or not we can/should pivot off Yankees bats and load up more on Twins/Blue Jays.
Stay tuned to our Discord – come on in and ask questions and let our team help coach you! Happy Friday all!
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