Matt Vecchio 
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 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!
Early Slate Breakdown
Welcome into a split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Saturday where we start our day with a 9 game slate that kicks off at 1 PM EST but has 4 of the games starting at 4 PM EST or later. I bring this up any time we have these day-time slates because it is very likely that half the slate will not have lineups out by lock so I would correlate your stacks with start times and either front load your builds or backload them for maximum flexibility.
Much like we saw on Friday night, we have a loaded pitching pool at the top-end, and with so many strong high strikeout arms available to us, I think the opportunity cost is once again far too high to get cute and move away from the obvious. That means anchoring to the Picks and Pivots “Double Ace” life and going with both Max Scherzer and Gerrit Cole.
Mad Max ($10.9K) gets the scuffling New York Mets in LA and after seeing fellow ace Walker Buehler drop 18 K’s on New York the last two starts, Mad Max should have the potential for a ceiling here after his last start against the Mets was far more floor with “just” 7 K’s in a 6 inning beatdown. Cole ($10.4K) came back from a bout with COVID and proceeded to drop 9 K’s and 30+ DK points on the Angels using just 90 pitches so assuming an increase in pitch count, it is hard to argue the ceiling is not even greater here today against the Twins.
Now, telling you to play the top two priced arms is not exactly groundbreaking but context is key and the context today is the bats are simply too cheap which means I can get two elite stacks around these aces FAR too easily.
If we are talking elite stacks you best believe we are leading with the best offense in all the land – yeah homey, it is a double ace and Tampa Bay Ray day!
The Rays get a home match-up against LHP Dallas Keuchel and the right-handed batters for Tampa should be salivating over facing a lefty with a .287 ISO and 50% HC rate allowed the last 30 days.
I got a text last night from Adam Strangis who was busy writing today’s Starting Rotation and it simply said “Wait until you see Zunino and Arozarena’s profile against the sinker.”
My man gets me.
Keuchel throws the sinker 37% of the time to RHB the last 30 days it is being hit to the tune a .220 ISO and when you see what Randy Arozarena and Mike Zunino do to the sinker – well, I think we found some serious home run calls. Zunino has a .321 ISO which seems insane until you see Arozarena and his – wait for it – .579 ISO and 80% hard contact rate. Seriously – just enjoy the Randy Arozarena HR alert on your phone knowing it was never in doubt.
The Rays ability to flip a line-up now and attack lefties with the acquisition of Nelson Cruz in the middle changes everything – they become an easy team to stack now against southpaws and the pricing is simply too cheap for all the righties here today.
Speaking of far too cheap – what did the New York Yankees due to the DK pricing team to get such disrespect? Six of the nine projected Yankees bats are under $4K today so while yes Kenta Maeda is a good pitcher, it’s not like they are facing Tom Seaver today DraftKings.
Over the last 30 days, Maeda has given up a .190 ISO to left-handed batters and .222 ISO to right-handed batters with lefties generating over 40% hard contact and with a 2 HR/9 rate on the road to both sides of the plate this year, the Yankees are an elite HR stack in Bronx for FAR too cheap today!
One play that jumps out to me today is LHB Rougned Odor as Maeda has really ratcheted up his splitter usage to lefties over the last 30 days to nearly 50% which is a far jump from his 30% season-long metrics. Odor against the splitter has a .235 ISO and 46% HC rate and looks primed for a $3K bomb in the heart of this Yankee stack.
As I mentioned in the open – we want to correlate the timing of our stacks and with the Rays/Yankees being the first games on the slate, we will have a confirmed lineup and the ability to drive confirmed correlation prior to lock. Double aces – Yanks/Rays – done.
Main Slate Breakdown
The four-game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate looks to be a condensed version of the early slate and even the Friday Night slate in that we have a top-heavy pitching pool that I believe we need to anchor to.
Eduardo Rodriguez ($9.3K) gets the best match-up of any of the SP1’s against Texas and with his 36% K rate the last 30 days, he comes into this game in elite form and is an absolute must-have building block for me tonight.
The decision of who to pair him with though is where things get interesting with Aaron Nola and Joe Musgrove facing each other in San Diego – clearly the two best options but I wonder if the default build is to pair E-Rod with a punt arm so people can load up the big Braves bats again versus Matt Harvey.
Nola’s 29% K rate the last month outpaces Musgroves 25% rate but is hard to argue that Musgrove’s match-up is “safer.” I talk about this all the time, but on small slates, ownership helps guide my strategy far more than simply picking best plays so if either of these “pivot” SP1’s off E-Rod are going to give me leverage on the field – I am going to anchor to a double ace build again.
One of the reasons I can do that, is much like last night, Coors Field is flat out mid-priced and so why not go the same route that led us to cash with ease on Friday Night?
Take a look at the projected line-ups in this game- Christian Walker ($2.7K), Drew Ellis ($2.6K), Asdrubal Cabrera ($3.1K), Sam Hillard ($2.3K), Connor Joe ($3.6K) – did DK forget this game was in Coors?
I still cannot believe this game stack was single-digit owned in GPP’s on Friday Night and while it certainly won’t happen on a four-game slate – the fact the Braves and Red Sox have 6+ IRT’s could continue to siphon ownership away and once again we can employ a cheap Coors stack to our advantage.
Say it with me – on short slates, we play strategy and not optimal plays.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Nothing better than a full day of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots and today the slates are set up really nicely to continue with a building type that has delivered every single day this week- double aces and cheap power stacks.
Keep an eye on Discord and our projections/ownership in the optimizers as ownership will be a key decision point as we head toward Main. Let’s keep killing 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.
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!
