Gary Gustafson 
Welcome back MLB DFS fans! Tonight, we have another solid slate on DraftKings with big prizes pools to take down so let’s get started with our top MLB DFS picks for today’s slate!
For those of you new to Picks and Pivots, the goal of this MLB DFS article each and every day is to provide you a “First Look” overview of the slate where we use DraftKings pricing as a baseline to help us get started. Rather than simply write out the “top plays,” this article will focus on slate strategy and roster construction with a GPP mindset to help you get started on your initial builds. Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s slate!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Starting Pitchers
Thursday’s slate ended up being a wild one as a late Cubs-Marlins PPD threw the entire slate out of whack and while many teams took care of business in elimination games – we are left with just two games on Friday’s MLB DFS slate which include the Marlins/Cubs make-up and Game 3 of the Cardinals/Padres.
Much like we did yesterday, the slate starts and ends with locking in Yu Darvish at just $9K on DK against the Marlins who will be without Starling Marte. We talked about this yesterday but Darvish simply dominates right-handed heavy teams with a 39.8% K rate on the season and the Marlins line-up posted yesterday for Game 2 has 6 RHB in it. Darvish is the lock and load play on the two-game slate.
The SP2 question then likely comes down to either Jack Flaherty or Sixto Sanchez with the Padres using a bullpen game for Game 3 it appears.
During the Game 1 broadcast of the Cubs/Marlins, they talked about the Cubs struggles at Wrigley this season and it made me look into it a bit more – and wow, it was far worse than I realized.
The Cubs were dead last in runs scored at home, batting a major league-worst .213 all while putting up a 25.9% K rate (4th highest) with bottom 5 marks in team wOBA and ISO. Chicago could only scrape together 1 run on an Ian Happ home run (cheat sheet HR call by the way) – and that was in a game with 20+ MPH winds blowing out. Today we have 50-degree temperatures with the wind blowing slightly in/across.
Sixto generated a 57.9% ground ball rate this season which ranked 7th best in baseball among pitchers with at least 30 IP and that could pay huge dividends against a Cubs team that had a 45% GB rate at home in 2020 – a top 5 mark in all baseball. The Cubs projected line-up has a 46% GB rate against RHP this season which is 12% higher than their fly ball rate – playing perfectly into Sixto’s strengths.
A little pitcher’s playoff duel in Wrigley seems like it is on tap for us this afternoon.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Bats and Stacks
One of the reasons I think we need to go Sixto over Flaherty is that the Padres line-up is the most explosive on the slate and getting exposure to that feels like a must. It also likely is the chalky path so Flaherty COULD be good leverage for GPP’s but I am going to play it straight here on a two game slate.
Now the best way to attack Flaherty is with lefties – as he is sporting a .220 ISO to LHB versus a .060 to RHB – meaning Trent Grisham, Eric Hosmer/Mitch Moreland and Jake Cronenworth all have the splits in their advantage. However, this is the playoffs – so while splits are interesting, the truth is that any sort of hiccup from a starter in a decisive game could have them pulled and the match-up you rostered hitters against could be gone before you know it.
Look back at yesterday – Adam Wainwright gave up 2 ER in 3.1 innings and got the quick hook – so try not to overweight the starting pitcher matchups when picking your bats. The Padres start and end with Manny Machado/Fernando Tatis Jr. regardless of splits and we know that no matter what – those two bats are not coming out of the line-up in a winner take all Game 3.
Before you click in someone like Moreland thinking you get the splits against Flaherty – look at yesterday’s game flow – as he was subbed out in the 5th inning once Wainwright left the game and Austin Gomber came in. To me, finding the guys with the minimal PH risk is KEY in playoff MLB DFS and we need to think through those paths when building our lineups.
So how do I rank the Padres bats – it clearly starts with Machado/Tatis, that much is obvious. After that – I would go with Wil Myers as my third man in after his 2 HR game in Game 2 but this is less about Myers and more about the lack of other options – or should I say risk – in the other options.
Tommy Pham was subbed out late with a hand injury yesterday, the same one he missed a month for, and while he may be able to play through it – understand there is risk in using him here as he could get subbed out at any minute.
Hosmer/Moreland are “fine” options but why not pivot off them and get exposure to the other side of this game for a few $100 more in Paul Goldschmidt?
Goldy has homered in each of the first two games in this series and with the Padres likely to roll out a bullpen game today, he is arguably the safest play on the St. Louis side here today. The rest of the Cardinals offer you some nice correlation pieces around the Padres – none that I feel like I need to have – but it becomes more about which options work around the San Diego core.
Lastly, we need to find some one-off – that one HR call that makes us different – and I think I got one today in LHB Matt Joyce ($2.1K) against Yu Darvish.
Now typically we do not want to take batters against our arms but on a two game slate where Darvish is going to be near universally owned, I think it becomes a sharp pivot off the field’s approach to simply stack all non Marlins bats. If Darvish gives up a home run – guess what – you will slide down along with 60-70% of the field and it will seem like nothing in your cash position – however if you have that guy who homered against him – well – you get to move off the field really quickly.
Darvish throws his cutter over 40% of the time to LHB and Joyce is the one bat in this Marlins line-up that can take advantage with a .250 ISO mark against that pitch type.
Darvish did not give up a single HR on the road this year, surrendering 5 in Wrigley with 4 of those 5 coming from lefties so if you are going to take a calculated risk – throw out a lefty from the Marlins and hope you snap a solo shot that could push you past the field. While fellow lefty Corey Dickerson does not profile as well as against the Darvish pitch types, it is worth noting that he is 5 for 13 with a HR and .385 ISO mark in his career against Darvish. A little BvP bomb?
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Wrap up
We have a two-game slate here today so it becomes far more about game theory and thinking through game flow than simply “taking the best arms and stacks.” We saw in last night’s two-game slate on DK – the winning builds went Kershaw/Woodruff with the STL/SD game stack and I could see the Darvish/Sixto path with the same game stack being the most popular route here again.
I think it is the right path to take but you need to find your ways to be different. So how are you going to do that? Can we use a Dickerson/Joyce one off against Darvish and hope that we get a low-owned solo blast to give us a leg up on the field?
Let’s get it tonight my friends!
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