Brian Tulloch 
Welcome back MLB DFS fans! Tonight, we have another solid slate on DraftKings with big prizes pools to take down so let’s get started with our top MLB DFS picks for today’s slate!
For those of you new to Picks and Pivots, the goal of this MLB DFS article each and every day is to provide you a “First Look” overview of the slate where we use DraftKings pricing as a baseline to help us get started. Rather than simply write out the “top plays,” this article will focus on slate strategy and roster construction with a GPP mindset to help you get started on your initial builds. Without further ado, let’s dive into today’s slate!
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Tuesday Slate Breakdown:
Monday’s first two game LCS slate basically anchored to two things – your pitchers needed to rack up K’s and you needed your batters to capture the handful of HR’s that were hit – a pretty consistent postseason MLB DFS winning trend. The winning build in the $50K to first GPP on DraftKings used McCullers/Fried with a 5/3 Braves/Astros stack to take down the big win and that kind of roster construction is helpful to learn from as we play the last few days of the MLB season.
When looking at the four pitching options on the slate – it almost becomes a game of elimination before you even get into match-ups and metrics as the duo of Jose Urquidy and Ryan Yarbrough look to be far more risk than upside.
Urquidy gets a critical start in Game 3 with Houston down 2-0, having only made it 4.1 innings in both postseason starts and failing to top 80 pitches in either outing. Now Urquidy does get the best K match-up on the board against a Rays team with a 28.7% K rate against RHP but with just a 15% K rate of his own this season – you are playing the opponent more than the pitcher if you are chasing K’s.
Yarbrough has had a bit more of a leash in the regular season, throwing 10 pitches in his last start against Baltimore on September 20th. The issue is that the Rays lefty threw just 65 pitches in his only postseason outing in 2020 and now gets the worst K match-up you could ask for as Houston K’s at just a 16% rate against LHP and Yarbrough himself has only a 17.6% K rate to begin with.
Postseason MLB DFS is all about getting K’s from your SP’s and neither of these arms crack 20% K rate this year – and when you tack on the fact they have concerns about their length (that’s what she said) – it is hard to see the upside in taking either arm from this game.
Well the news that Clayton Kershaw is being scratched throws things upside down a bit – but maybe, not really. While Tony Gonsolin is not the elite arm of Kershaw, this is still an arm with a 25% K rate and 14% SS rate and he had a dominant 30% K rate against RHB in 2020 which is key considering the Braves likely have 6 righties here tonight.
Now, playing Gonsolin alongside Ian Anderson against the two best offenses in baseball isn’t ideal but we see it time and time again in postseason DFS – K’s are king, so even if Gonsolin/Anderson give up runs – they have a path to absorb it by striking out batters – a path the Rays/Astros arms don’t have.
One thing that could play into their favor tonight – the umpire. Will Little is the Game 2 home plate umpire, who has seen nearly 60% of his games hit the under this season and his 19 K’s per game ranks among the top 10 most generous K umpires in 2020. At this point – on a two game slate, any small edge we can get we need to take.
All this points to locking in Gonsolin/Anderson as the top K options and game stacking the Rays/Astros. Staying with the 5/3 stack approach – I would lean towards the Rays side in this game due to one big reason – the Rays bullpen – which is simply electric.
Urquidy has been reverse splits in his short career, giving up 1.63 HR/9 to RHB with a .204 ISO which puts postseason star Randy Arozorena and his .344 ISO right at the top of my wish list today.
With Urquidy relying heavily on his fastball around 93 MPH and slider to RHB, the pitch data suggest another big day for Mike Zunino who has a .326 ISO against that fastball velocity and a .280 ISO against the slider to righties.
The Houston side to me becomes the easier mini stack to hone in on – the Core 4 of Springer/Altuve/Correa and Bregman – who all have .200+ ISO marks against LHP since the start of 2019.
If you are looking for a one-off – look no further than a $2.1K free square in Christian Pache who is projected to draw the start for injured Adam Duvall – using him open up a WORLD of options for you in any build you want on DK.
Picks and Pivots: Wrap up
Strikeouts and homers – that is what you are looking for today my friends. Take the “knowns” with the K arms we have available to us and then it becomes a HR guessing game – but with Urquidy’s struggles against righties – I would load up on guys like Arozorena, Margot and Zunino and try and run it back with the core Astros bats and hope you can get 3-4 HR’s in this game to push you up the leaderboards.
Time to dig in – let’s get it today!
Let’s get it tonight my friends!
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