Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Monday 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!
Congrats to our Win Daily Sports MLB Expert Rocker on a massive MLB DFS win on Saturday Night!
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: Pitching Picks
We kick off this 7 game MLB DFS slate on Monday Night with the easiest decision we will make all day – click that little “plus” button next to Jacob deGrom ($10.7K) and move on to the day’s tougher decisions.
deGrom has been the most dominant and consistent arm in baseball over the last three seasons and from a DFS perspective, he is everything we look for with a 39% K rate and 21% swinging strike rate that gives him a massive ceiling every time he takes the mound. On this seven game slate, he is the clear cut SP1 by a country mile and on a site like DraftKings where you need to roster two SP’s, well you simply take the free square here with deGOAT and move on to your SP2 decision.
This decision is far less simple but there is one SP2 I think stands out among the rest of the weak field in Carlos Rodon ($6.8K) against the Seattle Mariners. Over the last two seasons, Rodon has a 26.5% K rate married up with a Seattle line-up that over the same time against left-handed pitching has a staggering 29.5K rate as a team!
This is a spot where the match-up and the splits are what seemingly drive the perfect marriage. The Mariners really do not have the ability either to go too right-handed heavy which is the key against a lefty like Rodon as they have four LHB in the projected line-up which will allow Rodon to lean heavily on his slider, which he throws nearly 50% of the time to left-handed hitters with a 73% whiff rate.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Stacks to Attack
Going high-low with our two pitchers allows us to really get some strong stacks around Jacob deGrom tonight in our MLB DFS builds and I think we can stay right in New York with the Mets against Matt Moore and the Phillies.
Now I am a die-hard Mets fan so this may be biased and I also am well aware the Mets NEVER score runs for deGrom, but this spot against Moore is one where I am not leading with fan bias and instead am anchoring to metrics.
Moore returns from a season in Japan and has won a spot in the back-end of the Phillie rotation but if we go back to his last full year in the majors in 2018, this was a pitcher with a sub 20% K rate, giving up nearly a 50% hard contact rate and 1.7 HR/9 with almost equal splits to hitters from both sides of the plate. So while Moore did sport a 28% K rate in Japan, using a slightly different cutter, I am going to anchor to the MLB larger data set here until proven otherwise.
That leads me to the Mets bats and their new 1-2 punch in the middle of the order in Pete Alonso ($4.8K) and Francisco Lindor ($4.8K). Over the last two seasons, Alonso has mashed LHP to the tune of a .309 ISO and that cutter that Moore is relying more on – well Alonso has a tidy little .356 ISO mark against that pitch types from lefties so go ahead and throw it Mr.Moore.
Lindor is fresh off his $300+million dollar deal and while his power numbers dipped last season against lefties, his contact rate remains a team high at 85% against LHP since 2019 with an average distance of 310 feet and nearly 50% of those balls hit with an exit velocity of 95 MPH or more. In a ballpark like Philly, this could be an easy multi-hit day for Lindor in front of the power of Pete Alonso.
I mentioned Moore struggled equally to left-handed batters in his career so do not be afraid to mix and match guys like Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, Michael Conforto and Dom Smith around the big two. Nimmo and Smith both have .200+ ISO marks against left-handed pitching since 2019 and make for strong low-owned additions to a Mets stack due to the L/L match-up that most will avoid and in this case – the metrics say we should do the exact opposite.
The more traditional splits work in the Mets favor as well as they have a pair of lefty mashers (even though some in this industry say that is not a thing) – in James McCann and JD Davis. Both hitters sport a .205+ ISO mark against LHP since 2019 and both have .200+ ISO marks against low-velocity fastballs and cutters – the two primary pitches for Moore. In summary – stack the Mets in any which way you want – EVERY batter is in play.
Let’s see – checks slate- sees the Chicago White Sox versus a lefty. Smiles.
Now while Justus Sheffield has been adept at limiting power to RHB in his short career, the White Sox are a different animal when it comes to attacking lefties as they can simply flip a line-up entirely to the right side with power throughout.
Sheffield relies nearly 50% of the time on his sinker to generate a 50% GB rate which is how he keeps the power numbers down. The issue is that guys like Tim Anderson ($5.1K) and Jose Abreu ($5.8K) both mash that pitch type to the tune of a .250 combined ISO marks. Now Anderson left Sunday’s game with a hamstring injury so this White Sox lineup may look a little different on Monday with Luery Garcia ($3.6K) potentially stepping into that spot with 2B/OF eligibility on DraftKings.
The White Sox will continue to roll out a cheap punt in Andrew Vaughn ($2.5K) versus left-handed pitching and C/DH Yermin Mercedes ($3K) continues a red-hot start, going 9-14 to start the year and gives you added flexibility and salary relief in a White Sox stack.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
This slate to me is simple in many ways due to the fact that our MLB DFS lineups in large part come pre-loaded with Jacob deGrom as our SP1. The real difference then becomes in how you build around him with a SP2 and powerful stacks.
I think going with the Mets/White Sox bats against hittable LHP gives you significant power upside along deGrom can anchor single entry and large field GPP builds.
Enjoy this slate – let’s get in our FREE Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and custom projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this MLB DFS season with some big wins!
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!
