Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Tuesday, May 25th 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: Main Slate Breakdown
Happy Tuesday and welcome in to a monster 13 game MLB DFS slate where we are absolutely LOADED with top-end arms – some that are priced as such and others that seemingly got an unwarranted discount.
The overarching theme for me tonight is – we cannot get cute at pitcher because the opportunity cost is far too high to miss. You are going to need to nail both arms tonight because we have so many good options and so many high strikeout options that some combination/duo is going to hit for ceiling and we need to anchor to that mentality.
Tonight we have six arms with 30% + K rates and 8 arms with 13% or higher swinging strike rates since the start of 2020 so we know right off the bat that we have multiple arms with 30+ DK point potential and that swing and miss ability is going to be A) what we want to build around and B) will make finding stacks we want to attack that much harder.
In my mind, there is a tier of three elite arms up top with Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Corbin Burnes that from every and all metrics perspective stands out as anchor arms with their swing and miss ability, and what is fascinating to me on DraftKings is how the pricing is spread out. With deGrom at nearly $12K, Mad Max at $10.7K, and Burnes at a nice $9.1K discount – you have a path to mix and match these stud arms with totally different stacks & price points of hitters.
deGrom is the best pitcher on the planet and the only real “knock” on him tonight is the potential for a pitch count against the Rockies. Burnes meanwhile has a tough on paper match-up against the Padres but considering he struck out 10 “San Diego-ans” or maybe it is San Diegons – in his last start against the Padres, the concern may not be warranted.
The in between them is good ole Mad Max – kind of a forgotten ace in MLB DFS because hes not a new and sexy play like Burnes us to many and hes not putting up video game numbers like deGOAT which may leave him under-owned tonight.
The fact is, his 35.7% K rate and 16% SS rate remain elite marks and his 37.4% K rate against right-handed hitters stands out when you consider he will likely face a Reds lineup with just 3 left-handed bats.
Tonight is the perfect night in my mind to take a “double aces” approach with the key being that we can still get the high upside stacks around them – and well, I was shocked to find just how easy it all was!
The offense that immediately jumped off the page to me today was the New York Yankees against LHP Steven Matz. If you have been around Picks and Pivots this season, you know I have been beating the regression drum on Mr. Matz and this match-up is basically a nightmare spot for him.
Since his hot start to the year, Matz has fallen back to Earth HARD with a near 7 ERA over his last 6 starts with a 2.73 HR/9 rate and a single digit swinging strike rate with his biggest issues coming against RHB which could be a bit of an issue when you consider the Yankees will have 9 right-handed batters waiting for him in the Bronx.
Matz is relying nearly 45% of the time on his sinker to righties but this Yankee team profiles so well on this pitch type, that he may be in serious trouble. 6 of the 9 Yankee RHB have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type including DJ, Voit, Judge, Gleyber, Sanchez and Higashioka.
His secondary offering, the change-up, which he throws 30% of the time has similar profile troubles as 5 of the Yankee righties have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type with DJ, Judge, Urshela, Frazier, and Higashioka doing the damage.
The fact that the majority of the New York line-up can hammer 75% of the pitch repertoire of Matz spells disaster for him in this spot and my goal is to stack 5 Yankees here tonight at the core of my builds.
Now you may be sitting there and wondering how can you stack the Yankees offense, the one with the highest Vegas total on the slate, and still get two aces? Well, frankly its not hard.
You can lock in BOTH deGrom and Mad Max and stack the heart of the Yankee order with Aaron Judge, Gio Ursehla, Gleyber Torres, and Gary Sanchez with either Frazier or Andujar in the OF and you still have $2.3-$2.4K for a cheap mini stack around them.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
When you step back and think about this slate – you want to anchor to two key concepts. First and foremost is getting ceiling games from your arms but you want to do that in concert with the second principle which is anchoring to a 5 man stack that can win you a slate with power.
The pricing on the Yankee bats outside of Aaron Judge is laughably low and the fact you can live in this mid-range with guys like Urshela, Gleyber and/or Frazier/Andujar allows you the ability to not compromise – get your aces and the top stack all in the same build.
Finding that cheap three-man stack to build around these teams is going to be key but the one team at first glance that makes this work is the Cleveland Indians against LHP Tarik Skubal and the putrid Tigers pen. Skybal is giving up a .355 ISO to RHB this season and this Indians line-up have pop and value especially with $2K Owen Miller (2B) now in the line-up. Miller is one of the Indians top prospects acquired in the Mike Clevinger deal and was batting well over .400 at AAA before his call-up this week.
Locking in two of the top K arms in deGrom, Max or Corbin, and pairing them with a high-powered Yankee stack and the Indians value is a recipe for GPP success on this massive slate!
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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