Gary Gustafson 
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday, July 24
Happy MLB Opening Day – Part 2! We get our first large Main Slate on DraftKings with 11 games to sort through and some massive prize pools. Once again, DraftKings has a “Risk-Free” $3 three-entry max GPP where you get your money back guaranteed, and I would go ahead and reserve your spots in those promotional contests while you can!
For those of you new to Picks and Pivots, the goal of this MLB DFS article each and every day is to provide you a “First Look” overview of the slate where we use DraftKings pricing as a baseline to help us get started. Rather than simply write out the “top plays,” this article will focus on slate strategy and roster construction with a GPP mindset to help you get started on your initial builds. Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s slate!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Starting Pitcher Breakdown:
As we open up the first large slate of the MLB season, we have the #1 starters lined up across nearly every team on the board and with that are a few key takeaways before we jump into the plays.
First and foremost – your player pool. Having so many strong arms will lead you down a path where you will likely have a large player pool of pitching options but with that gives you the inverse issue of finding fewer key offenses you want to prioritize.
Secondly, the elite arms we have for this slate are skewed towards strikeout heavy options, including four of the top eleven K% arms last season and therefore the opportunity cost of missing at pitcher becomes significant as we have so many arms with high K ability so going with a “guy who can get me there” is likely a recipe for disaster – shoot for upside or don’t shoot.
After considering the context, then we head to pricing and what stands out to me is that despite all the unknowns for pitch counts as we ramp back up, DraftKings did not give us nearly the discount they did on the two game opening slate. Justin Verlander and Shane Bieber are both elite K options but are both priced over $10K so paying the premium for them right away may lead us looking for value that won’t necessarily be there on opening night as every team is rolling out their A squad.
All that leads me to a price range here in the $8K-$9K range on DK that screams K upside for an arguably better point per dollar return as we have pitchers like Aaron Nola, Lance Lynn, Frankie Montas and German Marquez all available.
However, there are two arms in this range that stand out to me the most – Jack Flaherty ($9K) and Chris Paddack ($8.6K).
Flaherty is every bit the elite strikeout arm we crave in MLB DFS and the fact he is the 6th highest priced arm on the slate gives us the ability to get ace level production at a discounted price. In the second half of last season, Flaherty sported a 33.9% K rate which was 5th best in the entire league and his 15% swinging-strike rate ranked 8th highest among all qualified SP’s in the second half of the year. Flaherty has shown he deserves to be considered as an elite DFS arm and at least on day one, he is not priced that way.
Where Flaherty’s splits weighed towards a second-half surge, Paddack was at his best in the first half with a 27% K rate that ranked among the top 20 in the league before the Padres opted to manage his innings. Paddack was not surprisingly, at his best pitching at home in San Diego as his K rate jumped to 28% and that is exactly where he will start the season against Arizona.
Our very own Adam Strangis, has been tracking the pitch counts through “Spring Training” for our members in Discord and both Flaherty and Paddack trend as strong Opening Day options that seem to be ramped up to a “full outing.” Flaherty threw 92 pitches in his last outing, while Paddack threw 87, and early in the year if we can find arms with a normal workload – we want to pounce.
The only argument I can really make against these arms is that their opponents, the Pirates and D-Backs, ranked bottom 10 in the league in K rate against RHP but I do think that the match-up is already factored into these DK prices.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Bats and Stacks:
One of the reasons that I love the mid-ranged arms in the $8-$9K range is that it allows me to grab the bats I covet and covet, I do.
With so many elite arms on this slate, our “gas cans” to pick on are much harder to come by but we absolutely have a few low-end arms that make sense to stack against.
I promise, I am going to try not to talk about the Los Angeles Dodgers every day, but as I mentioned on Opening Day – this was THE best offense in the league last year and all they did was add Mookie Betts and get the advantage of a DH now in their loaded/deep lineup. Not only is the talent level through the roof, but they also get the benefit of avoiding the ace level pitcher’s the rest of the league faces in the first few days of the season as they start with Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija.
Much like we did with Cueto on Thursday, let’s look at The Shark. Samardzija’s was a pitcher last year with some pretty clear splits – an arm that was able to limit ISO and induce mostly ground-balls (50%) to RHB but against LHB he surrendered a massive .221 ISO, a 47% FB rate and a 40% HC rate. In fact, Samardjiza ranked among the bottom 10 in baseball in FB% allowed and in generating soft contact.
You know what the Dodgers have a lot of? Really really ridiculously good left-handed batters. Do you know what they all do well against RHP? Make hard contact with crazy high ISO rates.
I know it may seem easy to write up the Dodgers as the best stack (because it is) but this is where context is key in Picks and Pivots as I believe it’s my job to show you how it all fits together.
If you start you build in the mid-range with arms like Flaherty/Paddack, that will leave you with over $4K per batter for the rest of your line-up. Now go ahead and click on the Dodgers depth chart in DK and start clicking in those big bats – Belly, Muncy, Joc, Seager and throw in Mookie just for fun.
You know what you have left? $3K per batter for the last 3 spots in your build. More than enough to fill out your roster!
So take a step back and think about what this means – you have two elite high K arms that are priced affordably to where you can once again stack the single best offense in baseball and thus on the slate.
With 10 other games on the slate, unlike Opening Night, I do think we will have far more routes to grabbing some value one-off’s and if we can find something like a min-priced catcher (a fan favorite) – we have the ability to make this build work with ease.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: The Wrap Up
If you have followed a long the first two days of the MLB DFS season, you are likely noticing a trend in how I view Picks and Pivots and my builds.
First and foremost, I want two high K arms and ideally two that allow me the ability to still afford a high-end stack.
Secondly, I want to find a way to go all-in on the best stack I can find while attacking the worst (or one of the worst) arms on the slate. It just so happens the Dodgers are that stack the first two days and I am sure they will likely grace this article more than you care to know but I am all about finding stacks with power and there is not a better one than LA coming into this season.
The key now is value – stalking it – waiting for those beautiful starting lineup confirmations and finding your way to value town and that my friends is what Discord is for. We wait, we adapt and we lock it in.
I will be back on Monday with more Picks and Pivots – enjoy these first two days of MLB my friends – time to win all that money!
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @2LockSports and be sure to sign up for a 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 as sports FINALLY return.
