Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Monday, May 24th 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 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: Main Slate Pitching
Welcome into a six-game MLB DFS slate here on Monday where it looks like we have a clear weather slate with one exception as you can see below, some solid pitching paths and come elite stacks that are priced affordably to anchor our MLB DFS picks to!
From a pitching perspective, we have four “ace level” arms in terms of name value/pricing but I question whether I need to pay the premium for any of them here tonight.
Brandon Woodruff ($10.6K) is the clear SP1 choice and likely cash game anchor with the K metrics to support it – as his 30.5% K rate and 13.2% SS rate give you the ceiling that no other arm tonight really offers. The issue is that the San Diego Padres line-up he faced tonight is a low strikeout lineup, with just an 18% K rate against right-handed pitching in their projected line-up.
Woodruff however faced this San Diego team back in April, striking out 7 on his way to 27 DK points, and depending on if Manny Machado is able to return to the lineup tonight due to injury, would end up facing likely that same starting 8 here tonight so the path is very clear and in cash games, he becomes a likely core play.
Blake Snell ($8.9K) on the other side of this game offers similar K heavy metrics- with a 33% K rate and 13% SS rate and gets arguably the better match-up against a Milwaukee team with a 25%+ K rate in the projected line-up and overall strikes out at a near 28% rate against LHP this season.
Snell has struggled with command this season but the last two games he has seemingly turned a corner with a 41% K rate compared to just a 9% walk rate and if you look at his pitch mix, there could be a reason for the turn around.
Last game in particular, Snell made a serious change in his pitch mix even from the game before against the same Rockies team, throwing just 13% sliders which was a massive drop from the 33% the previous game.
Snell has made the decision multiple times this year to lean far less on the slider and increase his curve and change-up use. In fact Snell has now had 4 games in which he threw the slider under 20% and in those games his K:BB ratios have been 11:1, 7:2, 7:2 and 8:2.
The pitch is an obvious high swing and miss weapon for Snell with a 50% whiff rate but he seems to have over used it at times and lacked the feel/command for it. If Snell can continue to pound the zone and limit the walks – we are now seeing an ace level arm ‘ pitch count was up to 97 last game and was able to make it through 6 innings.
If you look down in the SP2 range tonight, the name that jumps out to me is Frankie Montas ($6.2K) in Oakland against the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners are a high K team we can attack with right-handed pitching as they strike out at a 26% clip with is the 7th highest mark in baseball this year.
The projected line-up tonight for Seattle has a whopping 5 batters with 30% or higher K rates against RHP since the start of last season and this is a spot where I think the floor/ceiling combination for Montas relative to his price is a no-brainer.
Montas is at by far his lowest price of the season, a full $1,000 drop from his last three starts where he averaged 18 DK points per game, going 5-6 innings each time out and put up over 5 K’s per outing.
The one other “cheap” arm tonight that I think is in play either as a pivot off Montas or a possible “double punt” with Frankie is LHP David Peterson of the Mets at home against the visiting Rockies.
This is more of a match-up play than anything as the Rockies on the road are a DFS sticking point. On the season the Rockies are the third highest K team, 2nd lowest hard contact team and lowest ISO mark of any road team hitting wise.
Now you get them flying out of Coors into New York after playing on Sunday and I think this is a spot where Peterson pays off his too cheap price tag. Peterson has flashed his ceiling multiple times this year with 8, 9 and 10 K outings against Philly (twice) and Tampa Bay just two games ago and he gets arguably the weakest hitting road team in the sport now tonight in his home park.
My pitching pool tonight is likely limited to Woodruff, Snell, Peterson and Montas and I think mixing and matching any of those four is ideal for cash and GPP!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Stack The Bats
There are some simple team flow charts when it comes to MLB DFS hitting and the White Sox are one of the teams where the opposing arm makes all the difference. When the Chicago White Sox face a left-hander – you stack them up and down and twice on Sundays.
LHP Kwang Hyun Kim has been solid for St. Louis but this is still a lefty with minimal swing and miss stuff and one who has surrendered a 42% hard contact rate to RHB this season.
Since the start of last season, the White Sox have a core group of bats that simply hammer LHP with Tim Anderson (.333 ISO), Jose Abreu (.345), and Yermin Mercedes (.222) & Andrew Vaughn (.267) who have stepped up this year.
Kim relies on his slider to RHB and well, the Chicago bats would be happy to see him throw it as all 4 bats noted above have .250+ ISO marks against that pitch type from lefties.
The White Sox are a team I expect becomes a popular stack, so we want to find a contrarian mini-stack that correlates well with them and I think we can find that with the Oakland A’s against LHP Yusei Kikuchi.
Kikuchi is a solid pitcher but one who has given up power this year with a .200 ISO mark to RHB and much like the White Sox, this Oakland team up and down hammers LHP.
This season, the top 5 in this A’s lineup is just crushing southpaws with Chad Pinder (.625 ISO), Matt Olson (.322), Ramon Laureano (.296), Matt Chapman (.237) and Mark Canha (.237).
Kikuchi throws his cutter over a third of the time to righties – and well, the metrics say he probably should not. All of Chapman, Canha, Pinder and Stephen Piscotty have .250+ ISO marks against that pitch type!
Now add in the fact Kikuchi was bumped a day due to illness and is there the chance he simply does not have it tonight and the A’s can jump on him as the low owned late night hammer? Stack it up my friends!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
This six game MLB DFS slate tonight looks like a strong one and I think we will end up with multiple viable GPP paths as a result of a deep short slate pitching pool.
The key in my opinion is building around high upside power stacks like the White Sox and Athletics while still being able to capture high K upside in our arms and I think that path exists with some of the match-ups we have specifically for Snell, Peterson and Montas tonight!
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!
