MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Saturday, April 10

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Welcome to the Saturday 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: Early Slate Breakdown

Play Jacob deGrom.

The end.

Fine! I will put more effort into it than that.

Listen, this 5 game early MLB DFS slate could get really dicey with weather concerns looming in Chicago and St. Louis that could make this a three-game slate if the rain has any say – but what we know is we have Jacob deGrom ($10.3K) as our SP1 pitching at home in Citi Field against the Marlins.

Jake is the best arm in baseball, the best arm on this short slate and there is simply no reason to fade him. The question really becomes who is our SP2 on DraftKings and I think pairing deGOAT with Michael Pineda ($8.6K) is the best pairing for both cash and GPP’s due to their combined K upside as they rank 1-2 on this slate in terms of swinging-strike rate since the start of 2020.

Taking this duo and doubling down by stacking the offenses that support them with the Mets and Twins is a route Picks and Pivots has gone to many times already this early season and while we have been burned, I am ready for them to make it up to me today (or be hurt again – either or).

The Twins face a left-hander in Yusei Kikuchi who has given up a .230 ISO mark to RHB since the start of 2019 and this Twins line-up is LOADED with power against southpaws. Nelson Cruz, Kyle Garlick, Mitch Garver and Miguel Sano all have .300+ ISO marks against LHP since 2019 and while guys like Cruz/Garver are pricey, the fact you can balance them out with a $2.4K Garlick makes this an easy stack to fit around deGrom today.

Now for the Mets bats. Listen – they have simply not produced early this season for us in DFS and we know they tend to go MIA on days that deGrom pitches. However, if you simply look at the metrics against LHP Trevor Rogers, a pitcher with a .271 ISO and 54% hard contact rate ro RHB – how do we not have interest in a Mets right-handed stack today?

Pete Alonso and JD Davis have .300 and .200 ISO marks against LHP respectively since 2019 and I would argue Francisco Lindor is a priority play at a wildly weak SS position.

I mentioned this the other day in our Discord, but the Mets/Twins correlate really nicely on DK as well as the stacks/positions play off each other really well. Lock in Garver at C, Alonso at 1B, Lindor at SS, and Cruz/Garlick in the OF and your core is off and running!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown

The Main Slate looks like it will have its share of dicey weather as well with the worst of it being in the Angels/Blue Jays game. The other dicey part of this slate is the pitching as we really do not have obvious lock-in aces and my guess is Chris Paddack becomes the chalk du jour against the Rangers after what Joe Musgrove did last night.

This leads me to a slate where I think the bats are a priority and I work my way back into my two arms on DK, with a focus on punts and I think we have two interesting ones in the Cincy/Arizona game in Jeff Hoffman and Riley Smith.

Hoffman is someone I wrote up his first turn against St. Louis and all he did was drop 24 DK points on the back of 6K’s and 1 ER allowed in 5 innings of work. Hoffman is actually a good pitcher who has had the back of his baseball card skewed by years of pitching in Coors Field but he has solid swing and miss stuff with a mid 20% K rate and he has tweaked his pitching attack to rely more on his slider now outside of Coors Field where it will break as intended.

Smith will get the spot start after a 90 pitch relief outing on April 3rd and while the Reds offense has been scorching to start the season this is still a line-up that has 5 hitters of the 8 projected with 25% or higher K rates since the start of last season against RHP.

On a slate where I do not see pitchers “winning it for you” – I think we take these two cheap arms with Larry Vanover behind the plate who is a massive pitcher’s umpire, calling 15% more K’s than the average umpire.

That allows us to pay for bats and boy oh boy do I hope we can use this Angels/Blue Jays game tonight because the bats are going to feast.

Steven Matz was brilliant in his first start but I am here to tell you as a Mets fan who has watched him, Matz is great when he faces lefty heavy teams and a HR derby bullpen arm when he has to face a right-handed heavy squad. The Angels are literally his worst possible match-up because they are SO right-handed heavy. Since the start of last season, Matz is giving up a .377 ISO to RHB and with Trout, Rendon and Upton in the heart of that line-up – oh boy, this could get ugly. This is the 5 man stack I would prioritize tonight and I love the idea of game stacking here.

We talked about this a bit in Discord yesterday but game stack in MLB DFS is a great GPP philosophy. If the Angels offense goes off tonight, you know what you are going to then see? The Angels will throw their secondary arms out of the pen after LHP Jose Quintana and it then becomes a spot where the Blue Jays bats can rack up DFS points against the worst opposing arms.

Marcus Semien and Vlad Guerrero Jr. are the two bats I would prioritize here because they have 50%+ hard contact rates against LHP since 2020 which sets them up well against the starter in Quintana so they can go early damage and then potentially get the late inning game stack life in a game I anticipate will be a GPP winning core spot tonight!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up

We have two wildly different slates today with a pitching dominant early slate and a pitching scarce main slate. In both cases we have weather to watch but I think we can navigate them both with strong builds with power and GPP upside!

Enjoy this slate – let’s get in our FREE Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and custom projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this MLB DFS season with some big wins!

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!