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!
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
Welcome into a 14 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Tuesday slate where we have an incredibly strong pitch slate once again with a ton of big bats, lots of first look value stacks, and the only rain risk looking like some delay potential in Wrigley Field between the Rockies and Cubs.
When stepping back and looking at this slate, there were a few things that stood out to me and they just so happen to work in concert. First, we have another top-heavy and deep pitching player pool which is a trend we have seen the last week that has seen winning builds anchor to top arms on a nightly basis. Secondly, we have a TON of hitting value with 10-11 teams with 3 or more $2K punt bats in their projected line-up which makes the path to pay up for pitching one that makes far too much sense this evening.
Pitching Picks
Corbin Burnes ($10.6K) is the highest priced ace and the one with the most significant demonstrated ceiling of any arm on this slate as he has eclipsed 30+ DK points in 7 of his 21 starts this season and has 3 starts this year in which he dropped 40+ DK points, including a July match-up with the very same Reds team he faces tonight.
If you look at the metrics for Burnes, his ceiling comes from right-handed batters as he sports a 39.7% K rate to RHB versus “just” a 32% rate to left-handed batters. Over the last 30 days, his overall K rate has dropped as a result of his strikeouts to LHB dropping to just 24% which could present an argument against him considering the Reds are likely to throw out 4 left-handed hitters tonight.
On the flip side – he still will have 5 right-handed batters including the pitcher to get to his ceiling and Burnes has actually shown some material home/road splits this season in terms of his K rate – with a 2% increase overall at home and a 41% K rate against RHB in Milwaukee. Assuming the line-up stays more righty focused from the Reds, Burnes to me is the highest ceiling SP1 we have available to us.
The next arm that stands out to me is Jack Flaherty ($9.6K) who is sporting a 30% K rate of his own over the last month with 13 K’s over those 12 innings of work and back to back 23-26 DK points outings. A match-up with the Tigers, who are striking out at a top 10 rate in baseball the last two weeks and rank as the second-highest K opponent for RHP on the season – well, sets us up for a ceiling spot here for the Cardinals righty. The Tigers lose the DH and will have 5 right-handed batters in the projected line-up which sets up ideally for Flaherty and his 31% K rate to RHB this season.
Lastly, assuming the rain cooperates – is the default “pitcher versus Cubs” spot – which today will be Rockies RHP German Marquez ($8.2K). After watching ground ball arms like Carlos Hernandez and Antonio Senzatela combine for 14 K’s against this Cubs lineup the last two starts – it is not hard to see a path for ceiling from Marquez who has far more swing and miss ability than the arms we have seen drop 20+ DK points on a consistent basis against the highest K lineup in baseball the last two weeks and/or month.
Marquez has racked up a 35% K rate the last month to RHB and the Cubs are projected to roll out 4-5 tonight – assuming the rain does not mess with him (40% chance throughout) – Marquez looks like a mid-range ace with a ceiling that could far outpace his price point.
Top Bats and Stacks
As we pivot to the MLB DFS Picks and Pivots bats – I mentioned there is a TON of value on the hitting side of things tonight which makes me really intrigued by the high-dollar stacks you can still pair with a “double-ace” type build.
You guys know the drill by now – the best slate on the board is going to be the Tampa Bay Rays again tonight. Yes, every single night this tends to be the case and every single night the MLB DFS community ignores them – but not us.
The Rays head to Philadelphia tonight where although they lose the DH, they will get a massive ballpark boost in Citizen’s Bank Park and we get the added bonus of being the road team and 9 guaranteed innings of at-bats. We need to watch the Rays roster moves leading up to this game as it is expected they will put Ji-Man Choi on the IL and activate Nelson Cruz which sounds like bad news for LHP opposing starter Ranger Suarez.
The Phillies continue to stretch Suarez out as a starter, ramping up to a season-high 86 pitches last time out which was the good news- the bad news, he walked 4 and gave up 8 hits in just 4 innings of work.
The profile on Suarez is that he is an extreme ground ball arm with a low swing and miss rate who relies on his sinker 50% of the time to hitters and if you have paid attention to Picks and Pivots this year, you know the Rays against sinker ball arms is a spot I LOVE to target.
The two heavy hitters against the sinker are Randy Arozarena, who has a team-high .579 ISO and 80% HC rate against the pitch type, and Mike Zunino who has a .321 ISO mark of his own. It does not stop there either – all of Nelson Cruz, Yandy Diaz and Manuel Margot have 50%% hard contact rates against this pitch type.
The second aspect of this stack I love is that Suarez we know will not go deep which means we can attack a Phillies bullpen that is bottom 10 in all of baseball since the All-Star Break. So playing a game script here – you have the sinker mashers knock Suarez out early and then you get a full 9 innings in Citizen’s Bank Park against a Phillies pen that over the last 14 days has a 5+ ERA, a 1.5 HR/9 rate, double-digit walk rate and an elevated 45% fly-ball rate – all marks that sit in the top 10 in baseball.
With the Rays having “just” a 5 IRT, sitting just below the top teams – this could be a spot like we had on Sunday where we get the full Rays stack for essentially no ownership and you know as well as I do – that is a recipe for GPP success this season.
Going double aces and a Rays stack means finding value but again – that is NOT an issue on this slate. In fact, we have multiple spots that I think we can target and it was great to see our Discord firing off before 7AM EST today with many of these teams as targets.
The Orioles against RHP Dylan Bundy are loaded with value and face a struggling righty with a 54% HC rate allowed and a near 6 xFIP the last 30 days. The Nationals against LHP Jesus Luzardo as the right-handed value bats look like ideal punt plays considering Luzardo’s struggles the last month with RHB – noting a .235 ISO and 46% HC rate allowed.
There is one additional one that really piques my interest that I only really stumbled upon because I was actually looking initially at the arm- and that is the Royals against RHP Luis Garcia.
Garcia has been one of the best K arms in baseball the last month with a 30.2% K rate that ranks in the top 10 among pitchers with 20+ innings but it has come with an extreme boom or bust makeup with a corresponding 49.3% hard contact rate and a .200+ ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate.
Garcia has had the ability to rack up K’s but it is coming with a price with 5 HR’s allowed and 16 runs given up in his last 5 starts including 3 runs allowed and an HR allowed to the same Royals team he faces tonight. Kansas City is another dirt-cheap team with 7 of their 9 batters at $3K or below and their punt bats have a ton of position flexibility on DK which makes mixing and matching them as a mini-stack a great GPP path alongside the Rays tonight.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Tonight’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate sets up exactly how we like it here at PnP – we have a clear double-ace build with the top stack in baseball and tons of mini-stack value options to make the paths to ceiling come without sacrifice.
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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