Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Monday, June 21st 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 into a 6 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday Night slate where we have some top-tier arms, multiple big offensive totals, some rain in Baltimore and the wind blowing in at Wrigley! Personally, I love these smaller slates because we get to dig in to each game and option in the player pool at a more granular level than we would on a traditional larger slate.
Narrowing our Pitching Pool
The pitching pool on this small slate has a very clear line of delineation for me tonight and as such, I will likely be living in the higher dollar price point as a result of the bargain arms being far more bust than boom. It all begins with Yu Darvish ($10.2K), the only arm on the slate over $10K at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers for the third time this season.
Darvish in his previous two outings against the Dodgers was dominant, racking up 29.4 and 30.4 DraftKings points with nearly identical lines of 7 innings pitched 1 ER allowed, and 9 punchouts.
Right now this Dodgers line-up is overly right-handed heavy with only 3 of the 8 projected hitters being from the left side, which works perfectly into the splits for the Padres right-hander as his 32% K rate against RHB is 5% higher than that of his mark to LHB.
The other top-tier strikeout arm that I love tonight is Frankie Montas ($9.4K) against the Texas Rangers. Montas has even more extreme splits with a 30% K rate against LHB versus just an 18% rate against RHB so the more traditional “splits” he gets with this Texas line-up, the better. With a Rangers projected starting 9 that has 4 lefties in it and overall a team with a 27% K rate versus RHP this season, the path for Montas to have a ceiling game is clear.
Now, we have strikeout arms up top today which provide pivots but the match-ups have far more paths to red flags than I see for either Darvish or Montas.
Tyler Mahle ($9.8K) has the strikeout upside based on his 28% K rate this season but a match-up a right-handed heavy Twins line-up does not seem overly appealing. Mahle’s splits are far more traditional, with a 32% K rate against LHB and just a 24% K rate against RHB, of which he is expected to face six!
Julio Urias ($9.1K) has similar splits with just a 26% K rate against RHB this season versus a 31% mark versus lefties and will have to navigate through a right-handed heavy Padres line-up with 5 of the 8 batters hitting from the right side.
Lastly, Adbert Alzolay ($8.9K) takes on the Indians in Wrigley Field with the wind blowing in and while his K splits are relatively even, the batted ball profile is most certainly not. Against RHB this season, Alzolay has surrendered just a .125 ISO, a near 50% ground ball rate and a sub 30% hard contact rate. However, flip it to the left side and the .273 ISO and 46% hard contact rate spell trouble especially when you consider that this Cleveland line-up will likely have 6 of the 8 batters hitting from the left side.
Now, would it surprise me if arms like Mahle, Urias or Alzolay were able to match or exceed Darvish/Montas tonight? Of course not, it is baseball and the match-ups/line-ups could change as we get closer to lock which softens our stance. However, at first glance, I would argue the match-ups for Darvish/Montas have a far more clear path to success and on a short slate, I am simply unwilling to take “risks” with my arms when we have the ability to anchor to known outcomes.
Bats and Stacks and Stacks and Bats
One of the reasons, I think we can live in the top-tier of arms tonight on DraftKings is that we have “soft-enough” pricing to anchor to the bats we want, without having to pay down for arms.
One of the first stacks that jump out to me are the Cincinnati Reds against LHP JA Happ in Minnesota. Happ’s splits this season are really clear with a .263 ISO against RHB with a near 50% fly-ball rate and a 40% HC rate which has led to a 1.8 HR/9 rate r right-handed hitters in 2021.
This Reds team is loaded from the right side, with 7 of the 9 batters expected to bat from the right side and we have a good mix of high/low salary plays.
Nick Castellanos is the premier play with a .370 ISO mark this season against southpaws and a massive 65% hard contact rate but do not overlook Tyler Stephenson who has a .351 ISO mark and a 55% HC rate of his own. The best part about Stephenson is that he has C and 1 B eligibility on DK, so while you may want to use him at catcher, putting him at 1B and using a dual catcher build on DK could be a way to make your lineups look different for tournaments on a small slate.
The other stack that seems like it could go nuclear today is the Houston Astros against LHP Keegan Akin. Akin is coming off a dreadful start against the Indians where he gave up 8 ER in just 5 innings and his 43% fly-ball rate and 45% hard contact rate to right-handed batters this season seems troublesome with how right-handed heavy Houston can get.
Jose Altuve, Chas McCormick, Yuli Gurriel and Martin Maldonado all have .200+ ISO marks from the right side since the start of last season and when you look at the batted ball profile of this line-up, every single hitter has a 40%+ hard contact rate against lefties this year with the exception of Myles Straw.
The one option that really unlocks essentially anything you want is the red-hot Abraham Toro ($2.1K) who was called up with Alex Bregman sidelined and went 7 for 11 with a HR and 5 RBI’s over the weekend. Now it means leaving Eugenio Suarez out of your Reds stack, since he is only 3B eligible, but his salary flexibility may make him a core piece to unlock the ceiling across the rest of your lineup.
Also guys – PLEASE, do not overlook the left-handed batters for the Astros here tonight, as you know with a L/L spot to start they will go over-looked but this is where you can really make waves. Think about it this way – if and when the Astros knock out Akin, where do they go next – a right-handed heavy Baltimore pen and that is when the guys like Alvarez, Brantley and maybe even Kyle Tucker who is due back any day – can do serious damage as low-owned parts of the stack.
The Reds and Astros correlate really well together on DraftKings and this two-team stacking approach gives us the ability to lock in with two high-powered offenses, both on the road and that means 9 innings of guaranteed at-bats!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
With some really strong tournament options tonight on DraftKings, this is a great slate to go heavy with our MLB DFS Picks and Pivots plays and I think the path is incredibly clear.
Going with two aces, anchoring to Darvish and Montas, in elite match-ups, and doing so around a Reds/Astros two-team stack is where my core mindset sits to begin the day and I think it leaves us a path to massive ceiling potential!
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.
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