Gary Gustafson 
Welcome back MLB DFS fans! Tonight, we have another solid slate on DraftKings with big prizes pools to take down so let’s get started with our top MLB DFS picks for today’s slate!
For those of you new to Picks and Pivots, the goal of this MLB DFS article each and every day is to provide you a “First Look” overview of the slate where we use DraftKings pricing as a baseline to help us get started. Rather than simply write out the “top plays,” this article will focus on slate strategy and roster construction with a GPP mindset to help you get started on your initial builds. Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s slate!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Starting Pitchers
Pitching remains the most important decision you will make on a nightly basis in MLB DFS as it becomes the one spot you can attack with confidence where the variance that makes hitting, well hit or miss, is not nearly as prevalent.
Today’s slate offers us multiple high-end and high dollar SP’s and I will make the argument once again to focus our player pool on that core.
Shane Bieber ($11K) is the clear SP1, on this slate and arguably in all of baseball this season, as his 42.4% K rate and 17.7% swinging strike rate will attest to. In 8 starts this season, he has double-digit K’s in 5 of them and has gone 6 innings/100 pitches essentially every single time to the mound. Bieber checks all the boxes today with a home start against a K heavy (25% against RHP this season) Brewers lineup and is the clear SP1 to pay up for.
Jacob deGrom ($10.5K) is the second highest priced arm on this slate, but I think when the dust settles he will be nothing more than a contrarian pivot off Bieber rather than a popular spend up – but more on that in a second.
The match-up against the Phillies is not one that will blow you away from a DFS perspective as the projected lineup has under a 20% K rate against RHP and while deGrom’s metrics are worth the spend up (36% K rate and 20% SS rate), I am not sure people will pay for the match-up.
The counter argument – it is a day game in NY and if you are uninitiated – well, day game deGrom is a thing – like a historically great thing. deGrom has made 58 career day game starts and his ERA is just 1.57 – which is the best mark in the last century of baseball. CENTURY PEOPLE.
One of the main reasons I think deGOAT gets overlooked today is that Tyler Glasnow ($8.7K) feels stupidly underpriced and will likely be the chalk SP2 alongside Biebs.
The fact you can get an arm with a 39.6% K rate, at home against a Marlins team with a 25% K rate against RHP this season – feels like an easy path to take especially considering Glasnow has minimally struck out 8 batters per game in each of his last four outings.
To me, this slate pitcher pool can start and end with these three aces – two of which are priced as such and one which feels about $2K too cheap!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Bats and Stacks
Every day is the same story – lock in your known commodities at pitcher and then find the spots to attack with bats and hope variance is on your side as your stacks start swinging.
Let’s start with the obvious top spot – Matt Harvey is pitching and he faces the White Sox. Yowser. There is a reason the Sox have a 6+ IRT.
Over the last two seasons, the issue for the former Dark Knight has been lefties primarily, with a .270 ISO mark but let’s not pretend like RHB aren’t smacking him around to the tune of a .215 ISO mark.
The White Sox are primarily right-handed but we do have elite bats from the left side we can start with including both Yasmani Grandal and Yoan Moncada and we can tack on a nice salary saver in the OF with Nomar Mazara.
Let’s make this simple – Harvey has a 6% swinging strike rate, is giving up over an 80% contact rate and with a tidy little 62% hard contact rate. If you are on the White Sox – you are in play for DFS purposes. Stack as many as you can fit – it is just that simple.
In order to pay for pitching AND stack the White Sox, you need value and Sunday’s in MLB are typically an easy day to find that as teams give their regulars a breather.
The Tampa Bay Rays offer some significant salary relief in their projected line-up, especially up top with 1-2 punch of Manuel Margot and Randy Arozarena who get the platoon advantage against LHP Trevor Rogers. I bring this up all the time in Picks and Pivots but it is important to correlate positions on DK and with the White Sox being more of an IF type stack, being able to fill in some OF spots on your roster with cheap Rays is a great way to attack this two team stack.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Wrap up
Starting out today – I think the clear path is to go Bieber/Glasnow with as many White Sox as you can afford. The pivot would be to go Bieber/deGrom – going double aces and looking to get deGrom underowned as leverage on the field.
Keep an eye on lineups for punt value- and make sure you are in Discord as this is something our community looks to help talk through leading up to lock!
Stick around in Discord today and let’s talk some baseball!
Let’s get it tonight my friends!
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