Brian Tulloch 
Welcome to the Sundayedition 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: Main Slate Breakdown
Well, I was not expecting to have time to write or play MLB DFS here on Sunday but a rainout of my son’s soccer game is allowing me some Sunday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots and I am all for it!
As Adam so expertly laid out in today’s Starting Rotation – the pitching on this slate is really strong, especially in the mid-range – and so focusing here with K arms at reasonable price tags, will allow us the opportunity to spend up still for big bats.
I think both Adam and Jared in his FanDuel MLB Aces and Bases column nailed the pitching especially with a far too cheap Danny Duffy ($8K) who literally checks every single box we could ask for as he has elite K metrics, swinging strike metrics and faces the single best match-up for a LHP with the Detroit Tigers on tap.
The Tigers have the highest K rate this season against LHP with a 32.7% K rate and rank dead last in team ISO at .090. Each of the last four lefties to face the Tigers have gone for between 22 and 27 DK points with 6-9 K’s including Mike Minor, Tyler Anderson, Cole Irvin and Sean Manaea. NOw tack on the fact that Duffy gets a massive pitcher’s umpire behind the plate in Chris Conroy, who calls 14% more K’s than the average HP umpire – and all signs point to a big game for Duffy.
The other lefty with a ceiling spot on tap is Eduardo Rodriguez ($8.2K) as he takes on a Seattle line-up with a 27.1% K rate against LHP since 2019 and as a team they rank as the 7th highest K rate in 20201 against LHP with a 28.3% rate.
Not only do they K a lot, but they make a lot of weak contact, ranking 4th in baseball with a 22.6% soft contact rate while simultaneously ranking bottom 5 in hard contact rate at just 25.6%. We have seen talented arms like Julio Urias (40 DK and 11 K’s) and Carlos Rodon (29 DK and 9 K’s) hit ceiling games against the Seattle team and I am going right back to it here with E-Rod.
This Duffy/E-Rod pairing is going to allow us to spend up for the big bats today which likely starts for many with the Boston Red Sox as the top stack of the day against LHP Nick Mergevicius.
However, there is another stack against a lefty I want – and I want in a big way.
Yes, kids – it is Patrick Corbin’s turn in the rotation and he faces, wait for it – the New York Mets.
After Corbin’s disaster start against Arizona, we went right after it against with St. Louis and Corbin trolled us with a strong start, but there are some underlying data points here which lead me to think it was a Lester-like mirage.
Corbin has a 100% left on base rate, just a .250 BABIP and did not walk a single batter after walking 7 in his first 6 innings of work. Corbin also saw a nearly 40% swing mark outside the strike zone which was a 10% improvement on the first two starts and much of this was a reliance on his slider which he threw 42% of the time against the Cardinals.
The thing is – the slider is a pitch that this Mets team can handle – especially from the right side. JD Davis has a .406 ISOwith a 52% hard contact rate and a average distance of 349 feet on 23 batted balls – aka if Corbin throws JD a slider, homeboy is hitting that thing to tire shops on Flushing Ave.
James McCann has a .333 ISO mark and 33% HC rate with a team-high 71% contact rate against that pitch type. Peter Alonso and Francisco Lindor – both have 40% plus hard contact rates against the pitch type with Alonso have an 80% fly ball rate against it.
The first two starts, Corbins slider graded out as his absolute worst pitch and even with the improvement last game, it still ranks among the bottom 10 in all of baseball this season.
This up and down trend is not unique either for Corbin – as this pitch type ranked as his most volatile last year and when he did not have the command on his slider – those games graded out as his worst with 5 runs to Baltimore, 3 runs (on 10 hits) to the Mets and his worst start against Miami where he gave up 14 hits, 2 HR’s and 7 runs to the Marlins.
My point here – is that the blow up potential for Corbin is VERY real and there is nothing about that last start that makes me think he solved anything. In fact his reliance on that volatile pitch walking into today against the Mets, may make him use it even more and this Mets line-up can hit it and hit it hard.
Stack or die baby.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
Loving this Sunday MLB DFS slate today with the strong mid-range pitching and what it still allows us to do for our bats. I think today going with a Duffy/E-Rod SP core and stacking the Red Sox/Mets bats is the path to GPP upside and I look forward to talking it up in Discord with you all today!
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!
