Brian Tulloch 
Welcome to the Tuesday, July 6th 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 15 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where we have some serious ace level arms, some potential rain concerns, and another wind game in Wrigley Field that will likely garner considerable interest once again!
What stands out to me on this slate is how strong the top-tier pitching is – as we have the three best strikeout arms in baseball over the last month all on the slate. Literally – 1,2 and 3 in K rate over the last month with Jacob deGrom (45%), Aaron Nola (36%) and Carlos Rodon (35%).
We talk about it all the time in Picks and Pivots, but K’s are king, and any time we can get high ceiling strikeout studs, my inclination (despite our recent success in punting) is to go double ace builds.
With deGOAT locked into perpetual SP1 status, my preferred pairing is to land him with Carlos Rodon who may get the perfect match-up with a recent run of Twins injuries. The two big right-handed bats in Josh Donaldson and Nelson Cruz were unable to play last night with hamstring and neck injuries and it sounds like both remain very questionable to play tonight, which would be a massive boost to Rodon who just faced this team and struck out 9 batters.
Now anchoring to a double ace build means we need to get creative with our batters and I think there are two teams we can anchor to make it all work.
First off is a team I expect to be chalky – the Philadelphia Phillies against RHP Jake Arrieta.
Now with the temperatures still in the mid 80’s and the wind blowing out at 10 MPH, it may not be as good as last night’s game environment where 7 HR’s were hit, but it is still strong and the Philly pricing is just far too cheap.
Yes – Bryce Harper and Rhys Hoskins are $5K+ investments but that is it – every single other player on this team is in the $3K price range which is exactly where you want to be with a double ace build.
Arrieta has been bad this season and equally bad to hitters from both sides of the plate with a .200 ISO and 40% HC rate allowed to RHB and a .225 ISO and 42% HC rate to LHB so attacking with a full-on stack makes sense.
Let’s be clear – Harper is the primary target and the bat that profiles the best especially against the sinker which is Arrieta’s bread and butter. The Phillies slugger has a massive .346 ISO, 54% HC rate with extreme fly ball tendencies, and a 330-foot average distance traveled. Lock button HR status tonight.
You can pair Harper seemingly with any/all options – honestly, the only guy I likely leave out of my stack is Rhys Hoskins and that is more because of the bloated $5.4K price tag than anything else. The lefties like Odubel Herrera or Didi Gregorious work well in the mid $3K range and while I do like paying down at Catcher most nights, we are getting a nice price discount on JT Realmuto ($3.7K) tonight.
Now going double aces and paying up for a stack like the Phillies means finding true value as a secondary stack and this is where the Baltimore Orioles come into play against LHP Steven Matz.
Matz came off the COVID list and made his first start since being ill, lasting just 2.2 innings with 4 ER’s with only 48 pitches thrown. Matz has been an arm we have picked on all year because he is still giving up HR’s and power to right-handed batters with a 1.4 HR/9 rate on the season.
If you thought Philly was cheap, wait until you see the Baltimore pricing with only one bat (Trey Mancini) over $4K and 5 projected batters sitting under $3K on DraftKings.
You want to target the bats that hit the sinker well, Matz’s primary pitch type to RHB, and well multiple Orioles fit this bill with all of Mancini, Ryan Mountcastle, Anthony Santander, and Austin Hays sporting 200+ ISO marks and 40-50% hard contact rates.
Mountcastle (.600 ISO) and Santander (.425 ISO) both stand out as elite bargain plays with the pitch profile clearly in their benefit but you can also drop down and use some of the true punt value like Pedro Severino at catcher or Pat Valaika/Domingo Leyba at 2B if Maikel Franco remains sidelined. Thankfully this is one of the first games to play so getting this line-up early and knowing the value that exists, will give us better ideas of how we correlate them with the higher-priced Phillies in Wrigley.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
If you step back and look at this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, the pitching is where I think the priority lies, and going double ace is my preferred route here this evening.
Thankfully we have some clear value bats tonight and under-priced stacks that allow us the opportunity to take this roster path without having to sacrifice upside.
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!
