Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Monday, June 28th 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 solid 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday, as we have strong top-end pitching, a clear top stack, and some potential lingering rain concerns in the Minnesota Twins/Chicago White Sox game that could impact how we attack tonight’s slate.
At first glance on this slate, there are two very clear over-arching themes – first, the Houston Astros are going to be heavy chalk with a 6+ IRT at home against the Orioles, and secondly, our pitching pool is incredibly thin and top-heavy.
As Adam laid out in Starting Rotation, there is a clear need to look up to Trevor Bauer & Freddy Peralta and Kenta Maeda looks like the default SP2 pairing against the White Sox.
Honestly, you can almost end the pitching pool right there and move on to the offenses.
Listen, we hit on some risky punts yesterday here in Picks and Pivots with Muller/Max (shown above) in the $4K range, but I am not going to force it today. The pitching pool today has far more landmines than options I want to actively roster and anytime that is the case, I would argue to let other’s make the mistake and we take the clear path to points.
The clear path in my mind is to go with Bauer OR Peralta and pair them with Maeda, which gives you the salary flexibility to anchor to the Astros stack.
The key then is how do you want the value stack(s) to make it all fit?
The Detroit Tigers against RHP Eli Morgan is an ideal way to not only get value but to do so by attacking an arm that checks all the boxes for pitching we want to attack. Morgan so far at the big league level has surrendered a 3.2 HR/9 rate, a 50% fly-ball rate and a 46% hard contact rate, and a bloated 10.32 ERA.
The Tigers bats are insanely cheap – as we have SIX bats at $2.6K or lower in the projected starting lineup and you get the added benefit of them being the road team and a guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats. Literally, 4-9 in the projected lineup is priced near-minimum salary, I am not sure the last time I have seen that much value in a lineup, especially against a pitcher that has struggled this much!
Now, you did not come here JUST for the clear path – you come to Picks and Pivots for the off-the-wall ideas and while this slate largely seems like one to play straight, we have to find ways to be different.
On some slates, like yesterday, pitching is where we pivot- today though, that is NOT the case, my pitchers are ONLY Bauer, Peralta, and Maeda – period. stop. The one thing to mention – this could become a two-horse pitcher pool real quickly if Maeda is rained out as his game is the clear weather concern. Now all of a sudden you are looking at a double ace approach and my recommendation today – build lineups this way just so you have a back-up plan if/when Maeda is rained out so you do not have to scramble later.
So if we are going to play popular arms, can we pivot off the popular stack with the Astros? Listen, the spot is great no doubt but baseball hitting is the most variant aspect of the sport and so what if we simply find another strong offense to attack?
My favorite pivot stack tonight is the Kansas City Royals against RHP Garrett Richards who has become one of the most hittable pitchers in baseball since the crackdown on sticky stuff has changed the course of the season.
Over his last three starts, Richards has only gone 11 innings, with 21 hits, 15 runs, a 54% hard contact rate and just an 8% swinging strike rate.
After giving up 5 runs and 2 HR’s in just 1.2 innings his last start versus the Rays, he vented to Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com, that he is essentially being asked to change how he pitches on the fly and the results have been – well, terrible.
Richards inability to get any control on his curveball has turned him into a fastball only arm and the results have shown – with 47, 55 and 65 percent hard contact rates trending over the last three games.
I think this is a spot we go all-in on Kansas City in GPP’s because the match-up simply screams upside in Fenway Park where it is hot, humid and the wind is blowing out at 15 MPH.
The Royals are going to go totally ignored, largely because of pricing – Salvador Perez, Whit Merrifield and Carlos Santana as an example will cost you $15.2K on DraftKings – that kind of average salary most are going to reserve for the big Astros bats. Yesterday, when the Blue Jays were the chalky stack, we saw the Royals are sub 5% ownership against Jordan Lyles, and today, I think we could see similar ownership as everyone flocks to the Astros 6+ IRT.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
This is a fascinating 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate because the player pool, specifically on the pitching side is SO condensed. If Kenta Maeda is ultimately rained out – you are looking at double ace type builds with Peralta/Bauer which is where the Tigers value will be key to unlocking the big bats we want.
Make no mistake the big bats are the selling point on this slate and while the Astros will be cash game staples, the Royals I think are where we make GPP headway against a pitcher that is flat our broken right now.
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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