Jared Levitt 
Welcome to the Saturday edition of Picks and Pivots. Tonight we have a 10 game day slate of MLB DFS on Draftkings to navigate through.
Main Slate Breakdown
It’s Jared and I’ll be filling in for Brian while he takes a much needed and well deserved vacation.
My focus today will be the 10 game slate tonight. The afternoon slate looks extremely risky with weather impacting 3 of the 5 games. Tonight’s slate has a handful of pitching options for us as well some really solid hitting spots for us.
The pitcher’s that I’ll be focusing my efforts on tonight will be centered around three guys. Joe Musgrove ($9.1k), Dylan Cease ($9k), and Luis Garcia ($9.9k). All three have been pitching well and are in great spots tonight. Let’s start with Musgrove who gets the softest match up of the group.
The Diamondbacks have not been good of late. Over the past week they have a 32% K rate with very limited power. Musgrove’s top two pitchers are his slider and curveball. If we look at the Diamondbacks projected lineup, this is a pitch mix they all struggle with. While Musgrove isn’t someone that’s going to blow us away with double digit K’s every night, he has some serious upside in this match up if both of these pitches are on point tonight.
Next up is Cease. Cease has been on fire over the last 30 days. He has a 35% K rate and a 31% CSW. He gets a match up tonight against a powerful lineup, but one that’s been striking out a good bit recently. Over the past week they have a 31% K rate.
The projected lineup that Cease will face tonight has a 27% K rate vs. righties this season. It’s never an overly easy task facing the Yankees, but Cease is in top form. He’s definitely going to be in my pool of pitchers tonight.
The final guy I’m looking at tonight is Luis Garcia. Over the past month Garcia has an elite 37% K rate. No pitcher on tonight’s slate has been striking batters out at a quicker pace. Garcia’s top strike out pitch is his cutter.
His cutter is going to allow him to neutralize the big bats in this lineup. Ohtani, Upton, and Walsh all have whiff rates over 23% to the pitch. If Garcia can neutralize those 3, it should be smooth sailing for him tonight.
Now that we have our double aces out of the way, where are we going to go of for offense? The first place I’m looking is in Texas with the Oakland Athletics facing gas can Jordan Lyles. Lyles is someone I always look to target because of the amount of fly balls he gives up.
Over his past 29 innings of work he’s given up 13 barrels! That’s almost one every other inning. That’s bad. With the Athletics the key that unlocks all is with Mitch Moreland ($2.3k). Moreland on the year has a .203 ISO against righties and is really heating up. In his last 3 games he has 5 hits with all of them being extra base hits.
The other key I’m going to use here to unlock the big guys will be Seth Brown ($2.6k). He’s also been swinging a hot bat recently with a .961 OPS over the past week. These two guys are going to help us in bringing in bats like Marte ($6k), Lowrie ($3.9k), and Canha ($4.3k).
My next focus of offense tonight will be the Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Taijuan Walker. Walker has seen a steep drop in performance month over month. He continues to give up hard hit after hard hit. Like Lyles, he has 13 barrels over the last month but in 8 less innings.
The bat here that I want to prioritize is Cody Bellinger ($4.4k) who is scorching hot. Over the past week he has 4 homers and a 1.281 OPS. He gets the platoon advantage tonight and with him being so locked in is a must play.
Other guys I’ll focus on here are Pollock ($4.3k) and Seager ($4.6k). The Dodgers have a shot at putting up a really big number tonight against Walker. As a Mets fan, it’s going to hurt using them but the match up is just too good to pass up.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Tonight I’ll be going back to double aces again. We’re going to have enough value between the Dodgers lineup and A’s lineup to fit in the bats we want from both teams. And both teams are primed to have solid days.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green!
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD 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!
