Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Friday 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 to 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!
Main Slate Breakdown
Welcome my friends into a huge 15 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate to kick-off our weekend and this one is going to be good – we have fantastic contest selection on DraftKings with big dollar tournaments and a plethora of NFL satellites we can shoot for on Sunday, so let’s dig in!
Pitching Picks
What stands out to me on this slate is just how strong the pitching pool is as I think I can make a strong case for a third of the arms as playable or at the very least, arms I do not want to pick on – and that right away gives me the ability to narrow my player pool focus both for my pitchers and for the stacks that stand out.
While the top-end arms like Zack Wheeler, Walker Buehler, Logan Webb, and Chris Sale are all interesting plays, I think there are some serious mispricing’s we can take advantage of. No, I am not talking about a wildly over-priced Corey Kluber (why is he $9K?) – I am talking about why is Dylan Cease only $9.1K?
If you guys have been following Picks and Pivots down the stretch here, you know I put a significant amount of stock in my recent form for pitchers when selecting who and how I want to pay up and I would argue the single best arm on this slate is Dylan Cease based on recent metrics.
Over the last month, Cease has a 32.5% K rate which ranks 8th in baseball, a 15% swinging-strike rate which ranks 8th and a 31% CSW rate which ranks 12th. We are talking about a top 10 strikeout arm in all of baseball and yet he is priced just 5th on this slate.
Now factor in he gets a match-up with the Texas Rangers team that is likely to throw 5-6 LHB at him and his 39.6% K rate against lefties the last month stands out as a ceiling indicator of how this game could go.
There is another arm on this slate that I think is laughably priced and it is one that I have been pushing for multiple starts here at PnP. What if I told you there was an arm with a top 30 K rate (24%) and a top 10 CSW rate (31%) who has struck out 6 batters per game in each of his last five trips to the mound while throwing 100 pitches every time – oh and he is just $5.3K.
Yep – it is Brady Singer ($5.3K) night once again.
Now, I know what you are thinking – Brian, you told us to play him last time and he promptly gave up 5 HR’s against the Twins. Sure did – and yet he still ended up with positive DFS points because he struck out 7 batters. Say it with me – K’s are King in MLB DFS.
Singer’s K upside has come against left-handed bats with a 29.6% K rate against lefties the last month and while the HR’s last game also came from the left side (well 4 of the 5 anyway) – I really think that was more of an aberration than a trend based on the fact he had given up just 1 HR the previous 6 starts total. The Mariners are projected to throw out 7 left-handed bats that have a 25% K rate against RHP the last month and I think this is another spot we can get Singer at single-digit ownership, especially after the last game.
While I get the boom or bust nature of this call – you simply do not get top-tier K upside as you have with Singer at this price point often and I tend to take full advantage of it in tournaments as a cheap SP2. This is the same match-up he had 3 starts ago, went 6 innings, struck out 5 and put up 17 DK points without getting a decision – there is 20+ DK point upside here for the same price as most top-end hitters – oh, by the way, the same ones you can afford en masse by punting with him.
Stacks on Stacks
By going high/low with our pitchers on DraftKings, it opens up essentially any path you want when building your stacks and with multiple teams sporting 5+ IRT’s at first glance, it will not be hard to find bats we want to pay for – but it will be difficult to find the ones to prioritize.
The first one that jumped out to me was the Chicago White Sox against LHP Taylor Hearn in Arlington where the White Sox get a hittable lefty on the road and guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats. Hearn’s profile as a low K, high hard contact rate (nearly 50% the last 30 days) against RHB is overlayed with a fully healthy White Sox lineup that is loaded with right-handed power is just setting up for a worst-case scenario.
The one unknown heading into today is whether Tim Anderson will be in the lineup as the White Sox have said he would not play back to back days immediately and considering he played Tuesday/Thursday – we need to see if Tony LaRussa sits him tonight.
Even without Anderson, this lineup is loaded with all of Luis Robert (.327 ISO), Jose Abreu (.311 ISO) and Yasmani Grandal (.400 ISO) all with high power metrics against LHP this season. Of all of them – Grandal is the bat I love the most as Hearn has gone heavy with his sinker usage nearly 50% of the time against RHB in recent starts and Grandal has a .308 ISO and 40% HC rate against that pitch type – yeah boys, HR incoming for Mr. Grandal. Book it.
The second team I love here tonight, and one that likely goes overlooked – is the San Diego Padres against RHP Miles Mikolas.
Mikolas has always been a reverse splits arm, giving up higher ISO marks to RHB and the way the Padres lineup is configured right now – they have decided to try Jurickson Profar ($2.1K) at the lead-off spot in front of Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr. That three-man stack is just perfect as a mini-stack tonight with the punt value Profar provides AND they are incredibly flexible due to Profar having 1B/2B eligibility and Tatis regaining his SS eligibility on DK in addition to being in the OF.
Last but never least – the Tampa Bay Rays and their left-handed bats against Casey Mize. Mize just faced this Rays team and only made it 48 pitches and 2 innings with 3 ER allowed before he was pulled as the Tigers continue to monitor his workload.
When he is in – the lefties are the priority due to .214 ISO and 62% HC rate allowed – and with Nelson Cruz confirmed to get today off, we are going to get some cheap OF value like Brett Phillips/Kevin Kiermeir as a result. The big dogs though are Brandon Lowe/Austin Meadows especially when you look at the pitch type.
Mize relies heavily on his slider to lefties and both Lowe/Meadows HAMMER this pitch type with Meadows sporting a .422 ISO/45% HC rate and Lowe with a .261 ISO and 41% HC rate.
Last game, in his one at-bat against Lowe – he went slider/sinker and Lowe whacked one 315 feet with a 105 MPH exit velocity to knock in Kevin Kiermier. He took a similar approach to Mr. Meadows who flew out 330 feet to left field. It is always dangerous to profile a pitcher we know won’t get deep into the game but this feels like a spot where the Rays could get sneaky again – put Brett Phillips at lead-off and go lefty-heavy right off the bat to attack Mize before he departs and the stack could pay immediate dividends.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
I love how this slate is setting up because I think the pitching combination we outlined herein MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, gives you so many different stacking variations with tons of salary to utilize. With the slate being this large, scores are going to be high – it is just how it is – and so shooting for those big power bats with HR upside is going to be key to a GPP takeodwn!
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!
