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 some rain concerns in Philly/Washington, a 7 inning doubleheader game between the Marlins/Mets and a whole lot of top-end arms to sort through!
When looking at this slate, much like we saw last night and has been a trend in recent MLB DFS play, the ace level starting pitchers are becoming key anchors each and every night as a result of their considerable K upside. Last night as an example, going the double ace approach as we outlined here in Picks and Pivots with Corbin Burnes and Robbie Ray gave you a path to the two highest-scoring arms on the slate while still allowing you to take shots on the big bats due to all the value punts we had available.
Tonight – I think we need to approach this slate with that same mindset as we have even more top-tier arms with high K upside but the one difference is we can do so at various price points which makes mixing and matching builds an ideal approach.
Starting Pitching Picks
At the top tonight, we have three arms to pay up for in Walker Buehler ($10.5K), Lance McCullers ($10.1K) and Brandon Woodruff ($9.4K).
Buehler has been a model of consistency no matter the match-up with four straight starts between 25-30 DK points with 8-10 K’s per outing against the Padres, Angels and Mets (twice). Over the last month, it has been his ability to strike out right-handed batters that have buoyed his K output with a 34.4% K rate against RHB and tonight Atlanta projects to throw out 5 from the right side plus the pitcher which adds considerable juice to Buehler’s K ceiling.
Where Buehler has been a model of consistency, McCullers has been far more volatile but the match-up against the Mariners and his underlying metrics reminds me a lot of what we attacked with Burnes last night where the game logs were not indicative of the spot/recent trends.
McCullers ranks 3rd in all of baseball the last months in CSW rate with a 33.1% mark and the Mariners are a team no matter how we slice it – has been an elite match-up for opposing SP’s in recent weeks as they rank 10th in baseball over the last month with a 24.1% K rate and have ballooned to 4th over the last two weeks with a 25.5% K rate. McCullers was in this spot just a few starts ago, where he struck out 8 batters on his way to 25 DK points and had a similar 20+ DK point and 8 K outing against Seattle at the end of July.
Woodruff gets that same spot we attacked with Mr. Burnes last night against the Giants in San Francisco and is coming off a 10K, 35 DK point outing against the Reds where he flaunted his own ceiling. Much like we talked about with Buehler, the splits seem to favor Woodruff in this match-up and he has a 36.6% K rate against LHB the last month, and the Giants are projected to throw out 6 lefties plus a pitcher in a massive pitcher’s park.
Past this top-tier – there is two elite level K arms that are not priced as such in Lucas Giolito ($8.8K) and Blake Snell ($7.7K).
Over the last month, Giolito ranks 1st in all of baseball with a 17.5% swinging-strike rate and sits in the top 10 in CSW with a 30.8% rate over the last 30 days. Pittsburgh sits in the middle of the pack as a K match-up recently but from a run prevention standpoint, this is a great spot for Lucas as the Pirates rank in the bottom 5 in team ISO the last two weeks.
Oddly enough, the best pure K metric arm on the slate may actually be the cheapest of the lot with Snell at $7.7K on DK. Snell leads all of baseball the last month with a 37.8% K rate and is 7th in swinging-strike rate at 15% and has two double-digit K games over his last four outings that have resulted in 33.5 DK and 42.8 DK points, the last one being against the same Arizona team he faces today.
The pitching pool is DEEP tonight – more so than we have had in some time, and on night’s like tonight, I will narrow my exposure solely to this group of high ceiling arms that allow me to target strikeout upside at various price points. With so many good K arms, tonight is not a night to get cute and play guys that “could get there” – I want arms with 25-30+ DK point performances to anchor my builds in all formats and will live and die with this 5 man player pool.
Stacks on Stacks
While so much of my initial focus is on how deep the high-end pitching is tonight, there are an equal number of big-time totals for the offenses when choosing our MLB DFS Picks and Pivots stacks including the Blue Jays with a 6+ IRT against the Orioles.
Now, I know this is going to shock you but today – today we Ray.
That’s right, the Tampa Bay Rays look to be in an incredibly strong spot at home against what is likely to be some sort of patchwork Boston Red Sox starter/reliever parade in what some have assumed will either be a Garret Richards opener deal or they may call-up Brad Peacock to start the game.
With the Red Sox in a midst of a COVID team outbreak, the lineup and pitching staff is in shambles and that short-handed nature means you are likely to get a lot of advantageous match-ups for the best lineup in baseball since the All-Star Break.
Every and any Rays hitter is in play. Every one.
This team has everything we want from an MLB DFS perspective and their price points and position flexibility allow us to go so many routes – you can pay up for the studs like Austin Meadows or punt down to a Kevin Kiermeir – the team has been my favorite to stack all year and the addition of Nelson Cruz has made them so deep.
If Peacock is confirmed the starter, we are talking about a 34-year-old journeyman with a near 8 ERA in AAA, who in his career has struggled with the home run balls to lefties with big time HR/FB splits, and this Rays team is just going to come in waves with power.
My secondary stack tonight that jumps out tonight is well, the same one that did last night – the New York Yankees. Going double aces and a core Rays stacks is basically the same route we did with the Padres last night and it required solid mid-range value to work around them – exactly what the Yankees have tonight against RHP Jamie Barria.
Over the last month, Barria is throwing batting practice with a .200 ISO and 43% HC rate to LHB and a massive .289 ISO and 59.4% HC rate to RHB.
This Yankee line-up is just simply too cheap – with both Anthony Rizzo and Luke Voit under $4K, same with DJ at $3.9K at 2B and you can extend that to Rougned Odor at $3.2K and punt play of the day $2K Andrew Velazquez.
Barria has an over-reliance on the slider – a pitch he throws roughly 50% of the time to hitters on both sides of the plate and over the last month lefties have a .273 ISO mark with 44% HC against it while RHB has .235 ISO and 54% HC rate.
We need to identify the batters that hit the slider well and we have a bunch with Anthony Rizzo, Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, Giancarlo Stanton and Joey Gallo all sporting .200+ ISO marks and 40%+ HC rates.
The Yankees/Rays correlation from a position and pricing perspective works perfectly with a double ace build and my plan to use this strategy at the core of my early build process.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Tonight’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate looks like a great one – with a pretty clear path for GPP and single-entry type builds as we have multiple elite K arms which is where your focus should be as you start your build. Mixing and matching the stacks and using the cheap punts/bottom of the orders for both the Rays/Yankees allows you maximum flexibility and the option to shoot for the ceiling.
Let’s ride today!
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.
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!
