Brian Tulloch 
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!
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 Labor Day edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have 7 games on the slate kicking off at 1:05 PM EST and some really intriguing GPP builds with strong pitching and fairly priced stacks.
At first glance, the name value of the pitching pool at the top end is really strong and while the recent form is not at the elite levels we have seen for our high-priced pitchers lately, I think anchoring to these higher-priced arms is the way to go initially. The fact that only Zack Wheeler ($10.1K) is priced above $10K on DraftKings, I think gives us a path to easily anchor to two aces here today without having to sacrifice at all on our bats.
Brandon Woodruff ($9.8K) is the arm that stands out to me at first glance with his 30% K rate over the last month that has been buoyed by a 36.5% K rate to left-handed batters and considering that the Phillies will likely have 5 of their 8 batters from the left side, this sets up for another nice ceiling spot for Woodruff.
Sonny Gray ($9K) may not have the recent form, but he has arguably the best match-up against a Cubs team that leads baseball in K rate over both the last month and the last two weeks and has been a consistent key to unlocking ceiling games from opposing arms. We have seen arms like Mitch and Brad Keller, strike out 8 batters each on their way to 25+ DK point outings with Carlos Hernandez and Dylan Cease both topping 30 DK points against the Cubbies in the last two weeks. The flip side concern with Gray is the recent form is rather pedestrian – a 22% K rate and just a 9% swinging strike rate so the real question is – are you going match-up or recent form?
If we are focused on recent form, Tarik Skubal ($7.8K) may be the best bang for the buck as he has a 30.9% K rate, 31.9% CSW rate and 12.4% SS rate over the last month, dominating right-handed batters with a 32% K rate. The opposing Pirates are likely to have 6 batters of their 8 from the right side, with those projected RHB having a 24% K rate against LHP the last month and overall Pittsburgh’s K rate the last month ranks top 10 in all of baseball.
In general – the pricing for pitching today on DK feels like every arm is just too cheap for what they are and the fact you can go with Skubal as your SP2, really allows you to pay for a higher dollar SP1 like Woodruff or Gray without issue.
The offense that stands out above all others today is the New York Mets against LHP Patrick Corbin. I have to think after their offensive outbursts the last few days that they gain serious ownership today but the underlying metrics really support going all in here and hoping that the field overthinks it.
Over the last month, Corbin is giving up a massive .361 ISO and 56% hard contact rate to batters from the right side and the pitch data gets really scary really quickly the more we dive in. Corbin throws basically two pitchers to RHB – a slider which he throws 46% of the time and has gotten hit to the tune of a .429 ISO and 68% HC rate and then his sinker which he throws 41% of the time and opposing hitters have hammered for a .296 ISO and 52% HC rate.
If we look at the slider, the big right-handed bats of Javier Baez (.364 ISO and 46% HC) and Pete Alonso (.256 ISO and 46% HC rate) stand out as elite plays. Against the sinker, Baez has an even better .543 ISO and 48% HC rate while the Polar Bear has a staggering .919 ISO and 58% HC rate.
Pete Alonso is going deep today. Book it. Lock it. Screenshot it. The man is going YARD today against Corbin.
Taking it a step further, the sinker data brings guys like Jonathan Villar and Kevin Pillar into play who are not only red-hot but also both have .250+ ISO marks against this pitch type.
This is where the game script becomes important as well – we do not simply need to load up on RHB that hit the pitch type well, because if you are stacking the Mets you are assuming they get to Corbin early and often and get into the Nats pen so you can play game script where now someone like Michael Conforto and/or Jeff McNeil get the advantage of the split later in the game and get you low owned difference-making performances.
Here is my take – the Mets may be popular today – but rightfully so and I think you need to plant your flag and go all-in today with them. If you only go 3 or even 4 deep in a stack, you are going to have a lot of overlap so make a point to go 5 deep with your New York stack and get the highest level of correlation/upside for GPP play.
The other chalky spot, at least I think, is going to be in Kansas City where the Royals get the benefit of facing the Orioles in Camden Yards. The Royals and Mets correlate perfectly on DK and it all starts with Salvador Perez ($6K) at catcher who gets the face a lefty with a near 7 ERA in AAA and the putrid Baltimore pen after that. $6K seems like a lot – it may not be enough – and frankly, I think he will end up one of the highest-owned bats on the slate.
The nice part about KC is that after Salvy, the stack is cheap and you can get RHB like Edward Oliveres, Hunter Dozier and Michael Taylor for $2.6K-$3K price points that help you balance the cost of Perez and the big time Mets bats.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Today’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is one that seems super clear to me at first glance – and while my gut is that it ends up being chalky, we tend to be wrong more often than not trying to predict ownership. So at least initially, I am going to take the path that the metrics tell me and if we have to pivot because of unruly ownership – we cross that bridge when we come to it!
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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