Joel Bartilotta 
Welcome to the Monday edition of Picks and Pivots. Tonight we have a much smaller than normal 5 game slate of MLB DFS on Draftkings to navigate through.
Main Slate Breakdown
It’s Jared and I’ll be filling in Brian over the next 2 weeks when I’m not writing Aces and Bases as he takes a much needed and well deserved vacation.
For such a small slate tonight, we have a pretty nice selection of pitchers to choose from. Something that we’ll need to keep an eye on tonight is the weather in the Chicago. The top pitching option on the night is Freddie Peralta ($10.5k) and as it stands right now, that game looks dicey with thunder storms throughout the night.
The match up for Peralta really speaks for itself tonight. He’s going up against a team that is striking out at an absurd rate right now. Over the past week the Cubs are striking out more than 35% of the time. With Peralta having elite strike out ability the rain is really the only thing that could potentially stop him tonight. If the games plays tonight, Peralta is my SP1. He’s going to be chalk but he’s chalk that we probably need to eat tonight.
SP2 is where it gets interesting tonight. There are really 3 different options that we can to. Luis Castillo ($10k) has been pitching lights out over the past month. Of the pitchers on the hill tonight, he trails only Peralta over the last month in K rate.
The one area of concern with Castillo is that he continues to walk a few too many batters. He has been better of late with the walks so my hope is that he’s figured that part of the game out, but still something we need to be concerned with.
The match up tonight is a solid one for Castillo. He’s facing a lineup that should only have 2 lefties in it with Zimmer and Ramirez. His K rate jumps to 28% against righties so there’s definitely some upside for Castillo tonight. Our next two options are the cheap options.
We have Jameson Taillon ($7.8k) and Joe Musgrove ($8.5k). My lean here is Musgrove as he gets the softer match up of the two. He’s facing a Marlins team that is coming out of Coors. While in Coors they had 2 games where they scored 4 runs or less. To do that in Coors says a lot about your offense.
Musgrove also has the better advanced metrics of the two. His K rate over the past 30 days is higher, his CSW is higher, his hard hit rate is lower and his xFIP is significantly lower. Metrics plus the softer match up has me locked in to Musgrove over Taillon tonight.
That said, Taillon has been very solid of late and is facing off against a team that doesn’t pair well with him. Taillon throws his fastball almost 50% of the time and it’s a pitch that Merrifield and Perez struggle with. If those 2 guys can be isolated, the Royals lineup is very weak.
Pitching wise we have a few different paths to go down. A lot of it comes down to the weather. If the weather in Chicago clears up, a case could be made to go double aces. However, if the weather causes the Brewers game to get cancelled I may end up fading Castillo and going with Taillon and Musgrove and loading up on bats.
For me tonight, the top stack seems pretty clear as the Chicago White Sox will face an opener in Beau Burrows who will then most likely turn it over to Charlie Barnes. Both guys have been giving up a ton of hard contact and it’s going to tough to fade the White Sox.
I’ll focus mostly on Barnes because Burrows should only go an inning or 2. Barnes is mostly a sinker ball pitcher. White Sox have a few guys on the team that really have a history of doing well against sinkers.
Luis Robert ($3.4k) is expected to be activated for the game tonight and he’s someone I want to target if he makes the lineup. One, he’s cheap and two he has great numbers against sinkers. Although it’s a small sample size he has .727 slugging % and .567 wOBA against them this year.
Andrew Vaughn ($3.1k) is another guy this year that has had success with a .545 slugging %. These 2 guys are key as they’ll open up salary for the likes of Yoan Moncada ($4.9k) and Jose Abreu ($6k).
The next place is where we get a little risky. I started Lucas Giolito last week and he absolutely burned me. I missed the cash line by a point thanks to Gio’s negative outing. Gio isn’t a bad pitcher, but he’s prone to bad outings which is holding him back form being a top pitching in the league.
He doesn’t get a very good match up tonight as the Twins are pretty good against Gio’s top two pitches. The Twins are one of the better teams in the league against the fastball. We’re going to need some savings and the guy I’m starting with is Luis Arraez ($3k).
On the year he has a .536 slugging % and .452 wOBA against fastballs and he’ll have the platoon advantage tonight. Other guys here I’ll also want to use are Jorge Polanco ($3.4k) and Miguel Sano ($3.4k). Using the Twins tonight will be far from a safe play. They have the chance to put up a goose egg. But if they go off, they should be under owned and set us apart from the masses.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Pitching tonight will be focused on the likes of Peralta, Musgrove, Castillo, and Taillon. We can either go double aces, 1 ace plus 1 mid, or go both mids. All seem to be viable paths tonight. I’ll be centering my stacks around the White Sox as they have a great match up.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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