Jared Levitt 
Welcome to the Saturday edition of Picks and Pivots. Tonight we have a nice sized 11 game main slate of MLB DFS on Draftkings to navigate through.
Main Slate Breakdown
It’s Jared and I’ll be filling in Brian over the next 2 weeks when I’m not writing Aces and Bases as he takes a much needed and well deserved vacation.
Tonight’s slate brings us a whole slew of options on the mound ranging from the top all the way to middle range. We have 4 pitchers at or near $10k tonight and I’m going to be honest, outside of Julio Urias ($10.5k) I don’t like any of them.
Garcia ($10.3k) rarely goes long and if I’m paying top dollar for a pitcher I want to see them go deep to maximize their salary. Yu Darvish ($10.1k) has really struggled over the past month. I’m not paying that much for a pitcher that hasn’t reached 20 DK points in a month and a half.
Brandon Woodruff ($9.9k) has a tough match up. Burnes, who has greater K upside, only struck out 5 Giants last night. Giants aren’t a team I like attacking with pitching, especially at almost $10k. The two guys that have my focus tonight are Charlie Morton ($9.4k) against the Washington Nationals and Eli Morgan ($7.4k) against the Detroit Tigers.
Lets start with Morton. We want to chase ceilings in GPP’s with our pitchers. With Morton, I’m going to do that, but I also know that Morton gives us a pretty high floor. Over the past 2.5 months Morton has scored less than 15 DK points just twice.
I like that safety net, especially with how volatile pitching is these days. Over the past month Morton has been very solid. He has a 28% K rate with just a 3.64 xFIP. Look for him to continue his solid ways tonight.
I should preface this with saying that Eli Morgan is far from a safe pick. He’s my high risk/high reward pitcher tonight. In GPP’s we don’t play it safe and we definitely aren’t here. Eli Morgan has been pitching much better of late.
In his last 3 outings he faced 3 very tough teams in the Athletics, Astros, and Blue Jays and came away unscathed. He actually had his best outing of his career against the Blue Jays with 9 strike outs in 6 innings of work. Morgan gives us K upside.
On the year he has a 26% K rate but over the past month has really turned up a notch with a near 31% K rate. He’s facing a Tigers lineup tonight that has been struggling of late. Over the past week no team has struck out more than them. Far from safe, but a ton of upside for Morgan tonight.
One of the reasons I went with pitchers I did was because I want a piece of the Reds lineups tonight and they are expensive. The Reds have scored 17 runs so far in this series against the Pirates and with a match up tonight against Mitch Keller I don’t expect them to slow down.
Keller has not had a good campaign this year. His xFIP is sitting above 5.37 with just a 21% K rate. Keller’s splits are pretty neutral as he gives up power to both sides. I do want to focus on the lefties though as he strikes them out less and gives up a bit more hard contact.
Winker ($6.3k) and Votto ($6.1k) have both crushed righties this year with ISO’s over .300. They are expensive, but are set up to have a field day today against Keller. Rookie of the year candidate India ($5k) and Farmer ($4.2k) are also guys I want to get from this stack. They are both locked in at the plate and will surely be part of any offense the Reds have tonight.
So we have a ton of expensive hitters so far, how can we afford them? Enter the Cleveland Indians. Over the past 30 days Tyler Alexander has an xFIP approaching 7. He’s giving up a ton of hard contact at 43% and his fly ball rate is nearing 60%.
With Alexander we really want to grab some righties as that’s where his struggles are. He’s given up a .374 wOBA and .242 ISO to righties this year. That’s not good. While Rosario ($4.3k) is great, he’s going to be tough to fit in with some of the Reds we’ve taken. I’m focused on Myles Straw ($2.3k), Harold Ramirez ($2.5k), and Austin Hedges ($2.3k). They all have the platoon advantage and provide us a ton of salary relief that we’ll need tonight to fit in the explosive Reds lineup.
The final spot I’m looking to for offense tonight is in Coors with the Colorado Rockies. Jesus Luzardo’s biggest weakness is batters from the right side of the plate. His wOBA balloons up to .385 against them and DK did not price up the righties in this match up. Rodgers ($3.8k), Cron ($4.1k), and Diaz ($4k) are all mispriced for the environment and match up.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Tonight’s pitching has a bunch of land mines at the top tonight. I’m going to shy away from there and live with guys like Charlie Morton and Eli Morgan. Offense I’ll be looking to go with a hot Reds lineup and then sprinkle in some cheap Indians and Rockies.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
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