Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Thursday, May 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 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: Early Slate Breakdown
Welcome in to another day of split slate all day MLB DFS where we kick off at 12:10 PM EST with a 5 game slate that includes a 7 inning double-header between the Mets and Rockies.
Unfortunately when we have these shortened double-headers it means that at least for hitters, one game gets taken out of our player pool since we put ourselves behind the 8 ball if we use hitters that have just 6-7 innings of at bats compared to those that play a full game.
Now, the good thing is that at least the early slate pitching is straightforward as Adam Strangis broke down in his Starting Rotation today. I agree that the best path is to anchor to Shane Bieber and Pablo Lopez as both arms are in high K spots and the lack of similar high strikeout arms makes this a spot where I think we narrow our player pool for arms and look to get different with our bats.
The reality is – the bats on this early slate are not overly appealing, and Vegas kind of backs this up with only 3 teams even breaking a 4 IRT today. As such, I think we will have the chance to take shots with our bats today and focus on highly correlated stack with power that still allow us to pay for the two top arms.
For me – it starts with the Milwaukee Brewers against LHP Ryan Weathers. Weathers overall numbers look solid but his numbers against right-handed batters really give us a look into how to attack him as he is giving up a .180 ISO mark with a 45% fly-ball rate and a sky-high 54.7% hard contact rate since the start of last season.
The Brewers can get really right-handed heavy when they need to with Lorenzo Cain, Avisail Garcia, Keston Hiura, Willy Adames, and Manny Pina all expected to start today. While the right-handed bats are the priority and how you start your stack, I would not shy away from Christian Yelich ($5K) in a L/L match-up as he has a .288 ISO against LHP since the start of last season and my guess is people avpid him with the lefty on the hill and the slow re-start since returning from injury.
The other stack that has my eye is the Cleveland Indians against Matthew Boyd as this an instance where the larger sample size gives me a reason to take a shot on Boyd with a right-handed Indians line-up.
This year Boyd has been much better against RHB with a .114 ISO allowed while still giving up a 40% HC rate but those numbers are a stark difference from last year where he allowed a .304 ISO to RHB. Now Boyd has made a change to his pitch mix this year, using his change-up to RHB nearly 30% of the time which is a 10% increase on his approach last year and considering that pitch is generating just a .080 ISO – it seems to be working.
Boyd’s last two starts have been his worst – allowing 10 runs to the Cubs and Royals and in those he has become more reliant on his fastball/slider which is more indicative of his 2020 struggles.
So which pitcher is it? Is this one that can rely on the change-up to keep RHB off balance and making soft contact or can this be a spot where we jump on the Indians bats before the underlying metrics spike towards full-blown regression? Any time I see an SP with an ERA near 3 but an xFIP and SIERA that are 4.5-5, it tells me that the blowup is coming and this could be the slate we take advantage of it with the Indians RHB.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Main Slate
The six-game Main Slate has another 7 inning double-header game with the Nats/Reds and some serious rain concern in Chicago with the White Sox and Orioles we are going to need to monitor. That weather is incredibly significant because to me this slate is going to be determined by whether or not I can roll out the White Sox right-handed stack against LHP Bruce Zimmerman.
Zimmerman has allowed a .233 ISO and 40%+ HC rate to RHB this season and well, the White Sox are arguably the best stack in baseball against an LHP. Stacking up Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson and Yermin Mercedes is expensive but you can balance it out somewhat with Andrew Vaughn ($2.5K) remaining far too cheap in the OF with his power against southpaws.
The other decision point here is what on Earth we do with Shohei Ohtani on the mound tonight. Last start with Ohtani’s fastball velocity down 5 MPH, we saw the K rate plummet, the walks went back up to over 10% and the concern is very real tonight against a dangerous Oakland line-up.
Oakland has power up and down the lineup with 4 projected batters in the line-up sporting .200+ ISO marks against this season and if Ohtani is not right, this is the kind of line-up that could make him pay.
I think you can make the argument both ways here – both for using Ohtani with his high swing and miss ability but I also think stacking Oakland is viable if we think the Angels superstar has something fundamentally wrong that we can take advantage of.
You will notice, I have spent my time initially on the bats and that is by design – mostly because I think the arms on this slate are underwhelming and over-priced. Now, if the White Sox bats all of a sudden are not options due to rain, then sure – we may have the luxury to pay up for pitching but if the Chicago stack is all clear, I will likely look to save money with my arms.
My man Adam did a great job with his pitching breakdown but one arm I wanted to bring up was a $4K punt in LHP Kolby Allard. Allard’s metrics are strong out of the pen this year with a 27% K rate and 12% SS rate and a match-up with the Mariners is one that lefties can exploit as we have seen “stars” such as Tarik Skubal drop 9 K’s and 26 DK points against this Mariners team and true ace level arms like Julio Urias and John Means drop 40-50 DK point ceiling games.
Now Allard is not Urias or Means and maybe hes not even Skubal, but that’s a result of his pitch count concerns which I would argue are largely priced in here. If Allard can go 50 pitches, which he has done multiple times this season, I think he has a path to racking up K’s and providing you double-digit pitching points and all that does is allows you to stack the White Sox and A’s offenses and let your offenses carry you with a cheap SP2!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
I love any time we get split slate MLB DFS action and today’s slate’s are frankly not all that obvious which makes them ideal for GPP play. My biggest advice today – take the clear paths where they present themselves and then don’t be afraid to get different.
On the early slate, pitching is super clear with Bieber/Lopez while the hitting stacks on the main slate with the White Sox righties are the priority – after that, you have the ability to diverge and be strategic in how you attack tournament play!
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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