Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Thursday 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 another split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Thursday where we start off with a 3 game afternoon slate that should allow us some intriguing GPP strategy to pivot off the field.
With the Angels/Orioles sporting an 11+ game total, my guess is that this becomes the chalk spot for offense as the high implied total and recency bias from last night pushes ownership it’s way.
We also saw this yesterday, when a chalk stack fails, it changes the dynamic of a slate, and yesterday the Cardinals were the most heavily owned stack and we watched Tarik Skubal totally dominate them and suppress the ceiling of everyone who went St. Louis heavy. I am always fine fading the chalk offenses on a small slate with the understanding that hitting is the most variable aspect of this DFS sport.
UPDATE – DraftKings has added Shohei Ohtani ($6K) to the player pool and this totally changes how I see them now. Initially I was fine fading them because their best hitter wasn’t playable but I do think they become a viable mini-stack with Ohtani a core piece with how much value we have.
The Baltimore Orioles side of this game is far more appealing stack in my opinion with Jaime Barria on the mound, who has given up 8 runs and 13 hits over just 5 innings across his last two starts. Barria in the last 30 days has given up a .200+ ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate and a massive 56.3% HC rate. The Orioles are going to hit HR’s today and picking the right bats is key.
We want Orioles hitters that hit the slider well, as Barria throws it nearly 50% of the time to both sides of the plate and with a .286 ISO and 50% HC rate against that pitch type – well, it is safe to say that 50% of the time Barria is throwing batting practice.
The Orioles outfielders have the best-batted ball profile against the slider from righties with Cedric Mullins ($4.4K) leading the team in hard contact rate at 44% and his 200+ ISO and 50% HC rate overall against RHP the last 30 days is the top mark on the team. Pairing him with guys like Austin Hays, Anthony Santander and/or DJ Stewart is a great way to attack the Orioles stack once we have confirmed lineups.
My favorite stack on the board is one I write with trepidation – not because of any strong analytical reason, but because our Reds expert in Discord, Jimmy, always says you don’t play the Reds on a day game.
Sorry, Jimmy but here I am stacking the Reds against LHP Brett Anderson.
If we look strictly at pitch profile, Anderson is an arm that relies nearly 45% of the time on his sinker – a pitch which righties have hit to the tune of a .223 ISO and 52% HC rate this season and an average distance of over 320 feet which is amazing considering he still has a 60% GB rate. Translation – if the hitters can get the pitch elevated – it goes a long way!
So if we are going this route we want to find right-handed batters who hit the sinker well and do so with power – lucky for us, that is basically the entire Reds lineup.
Nick Castellanos leads the team with a .333 ISO and massive 64% HC rate against this pitch type but all of Tyler Stephenson, Kyle Farmer, Eugenio Suarez and Aristedes Aquino have similar .200+ ISO marks against the sinker from lefties. Overall – both Suarez and Aquino have fly-ball tendencies against lefties and that is critical in this case as we want to avoid batters who will play into Anderson’s high ground ball rate. The Reds lineup to me has the most upside potential and it is the spot I plan on planting my flag with on this early slate.
One of the benefits of going with the Reds/Orioles bats is that we have ALL the salary we want to pay for pitching and that means going with a pairing of Carlos Rodon and Sonny Gray. Yes, the match-ups may not be ideal but these are the two highest K arms on the slate and strikeouts are what sets ceilings in MLB DFS every single time.
Gray is going to face a watered-down Brewers lineup with Eduardo Escobar hurt and if Willy Adames remains sidelined, the match boost is even greater in my opinion. Gray is likely to face 5 lefties plus Brett Anderson, which sets up for ceiling with his 28.3% K rate to LHB the last month with a 52% GB rate and a lowely .044 ISO mark allowed.
Rodon meanwhile makes his first start back off the IL and while the match-up against the Blue Jays is a scary one, so is fading a near 40% K rate arm on a three-game MLB DFS slate. The White Sox have already said they will manage Rodon’s workload but if you read the reports (this is a great article) this sounds like a management program that will allow extra days between starts to get the “best version of him” when he takes the mound. If we get Rodon at even 90% of what he can be – his ceiling is unmatched on this slate and I want all of it!
Keep an eye on lineups- we should have everything we need before lock with the games only being 2 hours apart but be flexible and don’t be afraid to leave salary on the table on this slate- it becomes a great way to set you apart.
Main Slate Breakdown
The 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate is one where right off the bat you have to plant your flag – you want pitching or do you want offense, because frankly, it is hard to prioritize both.
One of the main reasons you have to make this choice upfront is that we have top-tier aces like Max Scherzer and Chris Sale but we also have a Boston Red Sox team in Fenway against John Gant and a Twins bullpen day. Put simply – you need to pick the right side of the line to take your stand because you could be left behind in the dust quickly.
To me – I think prioritizing the Red Sox bats wins out over the aces on this slate with Mad Max against a tough Padres lineup and Sale still working his way back from injury – but that means two things – finding cheap arms and a cheap secondary stack.
Just so happens – you can get both in the same game with the Yankees/Athletics with Jameson Taillon on the mound.
Taillon is an arm we have picked on with lefties in the Bronx this year and so tonight against a right-handed heavy team pitching on the road in Oakland, we can flip how we attack this and anchor to Taillon under $8K on DraftKings.
Taillon over the last month has a 30.8% K rate against RHB and Oakland tonight is likely to throw out 6 right-handed hitters and there are a few bats in this lineup that are striking out at a massive rate in Matt Chapman and Seth Brown (L) – both ar 43% rates against RHP the last month. If we get a right-handed heavy line-up and one of the 3 lefties happens to be Brown, this could be a 30+ DK ceiling point spot for the Yankees righty.
Speaking of Yankees – why exactly are they so cheap? Like Anthony Rizzo ($3.4K), Luke Voit ($3.1K) – even Gary Sanchez at $4K. James Kaprelian has really struggled the last month, with a 6+xFIP, just a 15% K rate and a 45% fly-ball rate to match with a .200+ISO mark against RHB.
I bring up the Yankees C/1B bats because I want to find teams with cheaper options that correlate well with the aforementioned Red Sox – and that is the one area the Boston bats are weak – so using Sanchez and Rizzo/Voit to work around the core Boston stack give you some serious pop from a mini-stack.
Going Boston/NYY bats, even with Taillon still forces you to get creative and this is where Brad Keller ($5.2K) comes in. Keller is cheaper than most of the bats we are looking at tonight and considering he is coming off back to back starts against the Cubs/Cardinals where he struck out 8 batters both outings and racked up 22 and 28 DK points, why exactly are we not using this free square against the Seattle Mariners tonight?
Keller is a pitcher we have talked about in Picks and Pivots before, one who has worked to change his pitching approach and relies almost exclusively on a fastball/slider approach that with it – has brought added swing and miss ceiling.
Keller is throwing this slider 40% to 50% of the time to both sides of the plate and that uptick in usage especially to lefties has made a massive difference. We saw this in early July against the Indians and Twins where he struck out 9 and 7 batters, using the slider 50% of the time and getting 12 K’s of his 16 with that approach.
The Mariners are likely to roll out 7 left-handed batters tonight and Keller has a 28.6% K rate against lefties the last month. From a pure K perspective and metrics standpoint, Keller is far too cheap and I think he is the key to unlocking a Red Sox heavy build tonight.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
We get two solid slates of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots today and I think there are clear stands we need to take on both when we factor in how the builds present themselves.
I am off until Monday but the team here at Win Daily Sports has your back and believe me when I tell you, they have something special brewing for Friday.
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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