Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Tuesday 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!
Congrats to our Win Daily Sports MLB Expert Rocker on a massive MLB DFS win on Saturday Night!
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: Pitching Picks
In looking at this 8 game MLB DFS slate, there is a really clear pecking order when it comes to arms that I think will determine how folks opt to build as we have a clear foursome of aces with Yu Darvish, Clayton Kershaw, Tyler Glasnow and Lucas Giolito.
If you opt to drop down we have two electric arms in Wrigley with Freddy Peralta and Adbert Alzolay who I think could win this slate as your pitching pairing OR be the pitchers that get lit up with the wind blowing out in Wrigley. Peralta had a 39% K rate last year and a massive 15.8% swinging strike rate – BOTH marks would rank tops on this slate – more than any of the aces noted above. Alzolay meanwhile had a 33% K rate of his own and after watching Trevor Williams rack up 6 K’s and a 17.6% swinging strike rate last night against the Brewers offense – the ceiling is MASSIVE for the Cubs right-hander tonight.
The only risk I see is the Wrigley weather/wind and the fact these arms have erratic tendencies and can get wild. It is boom or bust but man, the boom potential is there.
Let’s talk some strategy here.
You all know by now, I am a huge fan of going double aces in MLB DFS and this slate sets up really well to do just that. We have seen early on in this MLB DFS season that the arms are ahead of the bats and we have seen lofty K totals racked up on a nightly basis so anchoring to two studs is an ideal path this evening.
My man Adam Strangis did a phenomenal job of breaking down the arms in today’s Starting Rotation and you need to make sure you read it – he nails the breakdown for the top tier and mid-tier and honestly, I did not want to simply regurgitate his analysis in a much more rudimentary way.
Now, if I am playing it straight – I think we need to be living in the range Adam outlined but it dawned on me last night after watching a few days of games and watching Jacob deGrom get pulled after just 77 pitches last night, the early season has been showing more and more that the “Aces” are not being pushed like we would see later in the year. Conversely, we are seeing “lesser arms” take advantage of the early season pitching advantage to put up big games and so it made me wonder – can we actually punt more early in the season and use the “bad arms” now before the bats catch up?
If we look at winning GPP builds the last few days – you will notice outside of the Berrios/Burnes dueling no-hitter night, many of the winning builds have opted to go cheap with SP’s. Last night, the winning $100K line-up had May/Rodon, on Sunday it was Pineda/Eflin, on Friday it was Kikuchi/Lopez.
So early in the MLB season, are the lesser talented arms simply taking advantage of the fact that hitters are struggling to catch up out of the gate? Could we attack the cheap arms tonight when the likelihood is most pay up?
So I am going to PIVOT off what I expected today and instead of going double aces – can we go double punts?
There are two arms that I think have large field GPP appeal tonight and it has far more to do with the opponents than the pitcher themselves.
Tanner Roark ($6.8K) will face a K-heavy Rangers team that has seen Steven Matz (32) and Mike Minor (17) both put up strong games however it is worth noting that RHP that have faced the Rangers (Keller & Singer) have been hit hard. The Rangers projected line-up is likely to have 7 LHB in it and this was actually in Roark’s favor last season as he had a 25% K rate against LHB last year which was 10% higher than his mark to RHB.
Roark worked in the offseason to lose weight and focus on regaining velocity on his sinker, and he racked up 14 K’s in 10 spring training innings with a renewed focus. Could that approach continue to pay dividends here against the Rangers tonight? I have to say, I am intrigued.
Martin Perez ($6.7K) gets perhaps the best on paper match-up tonight against a Tampa Bay team that had a 29% K rate against LHP in 2020. Over the last two seasons, the Rays projected line-up tonight has a 27.2% K rate against LHP and early to start this year they have been quite adept at making mid-level RHP look good.
To start the year, we have seen Nick Pivetta (19.7 DK points), Pablo Lopez (16.9) and Sandy Alcantara (24.5) put up strong games against a Rays team that has been K happy and contact-less as each of these arms noted above gave up just 2 hits per game.
Let me be VERY clear – the best arms are the top tier arms tonight, there is no doubt about that and in cash games or in single entry, you need to play that route. However, the early season returns have shown that cheaper arms have been a path to unexpected ceilings and have been at the top of winning GPP line-ups repeatedly so I want to make sure we at least examine this route – maybe it is not tonight, but it is something we think through as we move forward.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Stacks to Attack
Did you stack the New York Mets with me last night? Did you tilt as Lindor was robbed of a screaming double or as bombs from Jeff McNeil and Pete Alonso got knocked down in the wind and caught at the wall?
Guess what – I am going right back to the well tonight against RHP Chase Anderson.
Anderson is a reverse splits fly-ball pitcher, giving up a .260 ISO to RHB the last two seasons while not exactly being stingy to the lefties with a .190 mark. The wind is expected to be far less significant in Philadelphia tonight and I think the Mets were showing last night as the game went on, they were squaring up the ball and hitting into some bad luck.
If you look at the heart of the Mets order (2-6) with Fransicso Lindor, Michael Conforto, Pete Alonso, Dom Smith and Jeff McNeil – all five of these batters have .230+ ISO marks against RHP since 2019. Anderson was an HR derby-style arm last year, giving up 3 HR/9 in 2020, and his 40% HC rate allowed sets up for a beat down tonight. Have a short memory and go right back to the Mets tonight.
I have a feeling that Freddy Peralta will be a popular mid-range arm as his near 40% K rate last season is going to jump off the page but “fast ball Freddy” who throws the pitch nearly 80% of the time with fly-ball tendencies with the wind blowing out in Wrigley Field, could end up being a disaster.
1-7 in this Cubs projected line-up has a .200+ ISO mark against RHP since 2019 and if you dig deep into the pitch profiles, I think we can call some HR shots (Rocker style) with the Cubs tonight.
Ian Happ, Anthony Rizzo and Joc Pederson all have .230+ ISO marks against this fastball velocity from right-handers with an average distance traveled over 320 feet. Wilson Contreras absolutely hammers the curveball which has become Peralta’s prime secondary option to RHB, with a .500 ISO and 46% HC rate. No matter how you cut up this Cubs line-up, you can seemingly find a bat that profiles well.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
Today is a great MLB DFS GPP slate and one I think we can find multiple ways to target as we have elite K arms up top and a game in Coors Field that will draw its usual attention.
The goal of Picks and Pivots is ALWAYS to make you think differently through how you build your MLB DFS lineups. This article today is NOT a “playbook” on the top plays for tonight but I wanted to outline a path we can use tonight or even in a future slate based on early season trends.
The reality is – a double ace build with a Mets stack is likely where I land, but I wanted to at least bring up the punt pitcher route and what it has provided and could continue to provide as aces get stretched out early in the year.
Enjoy this slate – let’s get in our FREE Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and custom projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this MLB DFS season with some big wins!
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!
