Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Sunday, June 27th 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!
Main Slate Breakdown – Pitching
When opening up this Sunday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, we are met with a 12 game slate that has some serious top end pitching on it and I think that anchoring to at least one high end K arm will be necessary on this slate.
Max Scherzer ($10.7K) looks like the ideal pay up today pitching against the Marlins in Miami as his 36% K rate will match-up against a Miami projected line-up that has a 24% K rate and a .150 ISO mark against RHP since the start of last season.
The last time Mad Max faced Miami, he went 9 innings, with 9 K’s and 39 DK points but keep in mind the entire top of the Marlins order (Jazz, Aguilar and Marte) did not play that game.
One of the reasons I think we can and should anchor to a “known” quantity as an SP1 is that we have a plethora of cheap, albeit risky SP2’s we can sort through in the value range.
The one name that jumps out to me is $4K Pirates right-hander Max Kranick who makes his major league debut today against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Yeah – that’s right – we are taking it to the MAX with a Double Max Stack!
Kranick is a bit of a mystery as injuries derailed his minor league career initially but a change in approach has allowed him to make it to the majors with consistent velocity being added and now topping out at 98 MPH and has upward trajectory.
Kranick used the pandemic to really change his approach and this included changing his arm angle to throw harder up in the zone to play off his curveball that break down and out of the zone. This is a great article from Baseball America that outlined his pitch change working with former major leaguer Vic Black and with this new pitch approach, we could see a player who was a top 100 prospect out of high school finally make a big league impact.
In this video you can see this short arm angle that Kranick has gone to and I think that the limited tape on him could play to his advantage the first time through the bigs. If he can use this short arm angle with his velocity to play off his breaker, it could produce some serious swing and misses as batters try to pick up the ball from a pitcher who has reinvented himself. At $4K on DK – he could be a massive GPP pay off especially with all the bats we want!
If you want another option in this range- take a look at LHP Kyle Muller ($4.7K) who made his big league debut against the Mets and showcased a high velocity heater and nasty breaking stuff.
Main Slate Breakdown – Hitting
The main storyline on this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is how much offense we have and it all starts with a near 7 run total for the Blue Jays against Jorge Lopez and the Orioles.
One of the reasons I spent time on the $4K punt arms is because the Jays offense is SUPER expensive and finding a way to get to them is going to be key on this slate. Going with a Max/Muller double punt build gives you all the bats, specifically all the Jays you could possibly want.
The thing is – as good as the Jays offense is, it is not like this is the only good hitting spot on the slate, in fact we have 7 total teams as of this writing with 5+ IRT’s.
The Yankees will be in Fenway Park today with warm & humid temperatures, the wind blowing out 15-20 MPH and LHP Eduardo Rodriguez on the mound who has struggled mightily to the tune of a 6+ ERA this season with 5+ runs allowed now in 4 of his last 10 starts.
The Yankees bats are set up perfectly for this match-up with their right-handed heavy lineup and while the big bats like Judge, Stanton and Voit are pricey, you can balance it out with cheaper options like Torres, Ursehla, Andujar and Frazier who offer you some serious salary relief.
My favorite tournament offense today is the Kansas City Royals against RHP Jordan Lyles – arguably the worst arm on this slate. Lyles sits among the worst arms in baseball this year against right-handed hitting line-ups as his 2.59 HR/9 rate is second-worst in the bigs and his 39.7% hard contact sits bottom five.
Lyles relies on a slider nearly 40% of the time to RHB and this is a pitch type that all of Salvador Perez, Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier all hit with 200+ ISO marks and 50% hard contact rates.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
This MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is interesting because I think there is the potential for some serious chalk with the Blue Jays offense sporting such a massive total and it allows us to find some pivot paths that still give us high ceiling offenses.
Going high/low at pitching is really the key because we need to open up salary to find the big bats and using a mid-range stack the Royals at low ownership against Jordan Lyles is an ideal way to pivot off the field and the same core team stacks.
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.
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