Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Wednesday 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: Early Slate Breakdown
We get ourselves a nice little split slate MLB DFS Wednesday with a 5 game Early Slate to make our MLB DFS Picks with a game in Coors Field as the starting point that has some weather risk we have to monitor!
What is fascinating about this slate is that 5 of the 10 teams in action have 4 or lower implied run totals (IRT’s) and while Coors Field stands out as a clear outlier, it will also be in the 30’s all game.
Let’s just get Coors Field out of the way as the elephant in the room – I am not going out of my way to play this super chalky game, however, the pricing on the Astros is just laughable on DK – Myles Straw at $2.7K as a lead-off hitter in Coors – he is going to be like a BILLION percent owned. These guys are going to be cash game staples but intriguing GPP fades on a short slate.
LHP Austin Gomber is not an arm we would go out of our way to stack against as he limits hard contact, limits ISO to opposing batters, and has a high GB rate. As I asked people last night with the Astros chalk – if this game was not in Coors, would you be playing them?
Now the one piece of chalk I will happily eat on this slate is Max Scherzer ($10.7K) who brings an 18% SS rate and a 35% K rate to the mound tonight. K’s are kind for your SP1 on DraftKings and I am simply not getting cute on a short slate and fading Mad Max here.
Finding the SP2 on this slate is the tougher challenge and I am turning to Win Daily Sports favorite – Mike Foltynewicz ($6.6K) against the Angels.
Folty has had some up and down outings to start but there are a few things that stand out to me. First, his velocity across each pitch type has increased from Opening Day which is fastball averaging nearly 95 MPH last start, topping out at 97 MPH against Baltimore where he had a season high 14% SS rate.
Folty was locating the fastball far better as well, with a 30% CSW rate all while getting more swings and misses on his slider – at nearly 40%. The things with Folty is he has always been a reverse splits arm, with a K rate 6% higher against RHB and the reason for that is largely the slider which is his highest swing and miss offering.
The Angels are likely to have their usual right-handed heavy line-up here tonight with 5 of the 9 batters from the right side. The splits for Folty are really what you can anchor to here – even in this first 3 games – he has a 38% K rate to RHB and just a 9% to LHB with a 20% drop in hard contact rate when you flip from lefties to righties.
It is FoltySZN – and I am here for it.
The stack that I am prioritizing today is the San Diego Padres – and it is for a few reasons. First and foremost, from a pure talent perspective this lineup which is now healthy is the best lineup on the early slate and I do not think it is all that close.
While RHP Adrian Houser is not necessarily bad, you are talking about a low K arm, with minimal swing and miss ability against a Padres line-up that 1-6 has every hitter with a .225 ISO or higher against RHP since the start of last season.
The Padres will alternate L/R in the line-up and those lefties have a massive advantage against Houser and his .211 ISO but when you can stack the splits advantages around the right-handed stars like Tatis/Machado – oh and by the way, still easily afford Mad Max at SP1. Why are we getting cute?
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Main Slate Breakdown
Oh hey there – welcome to the 7 game Main Slate where the pitching is bad and the weather is even worse. What sounds more fun than a slate where Aaron Civale and Tyler Mahle are the top priced arms and we have 5 games with temperatures 40 degree or below with serious rain issues in Boston to boot!
I know, I feel the excitement too.
Let’s be honest, this pitching slate is a hold your noise and hope kind of deal – and so to act like I love any arm here tonight would be lying to you. This is the kind of slate where I work backwards and find the hitters I want and see what fits for arms.
That said – the Yankees/Braves game is likely where I go hunting for the offense tonight with 56 degree temperatures, the wind blowing out to RF in Yankee Stadium at 12 MPH and the Braves getting the benefit of a DH.
The Yankees are throwing out Corey Kluber again today and listen, the guy just does not have it at this point. He is giving up a TON of hard contact and against left-handed batters has literally given up 0% soft contact – like none, not a one.
Having Ehire Adrianza at lead-off for $2.1K for Atlanta, assuming Acuna is out again, makes this a cheap stack in totality as you can easily pair him with the pricey bats of Freeman, Ozuna, Albies and TdA and make yourself a nice little 5 man Bravos stack!
Now I know the Yankees have not been good to start the year and I am sure Adam will scream blasphemy – but this is a talent argument on a short slate. The hitting conditions in Yankee Stadium will likely be the best on the slate and while Anderson is a talented arm, but the Yankees bats handle high-velocity fastballs well and they all but two batters have .200+ ISO marks against the change-up from RHP which is Ian’s primary pitch type off the fastball.
To me, this is a fun game stack that you can build on talent alone and have a HR Derby looking squad. Let’s face it – it is that kind of build that is going to win you this slate tonight – so work backwards with bats and then fit in your value arms from Adam’s Starting Rotation.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up
We have a two slate MLB DFS day and honestly finding the MLB DFS Picks to build around is not as easy as you may think – which is ideal for GPP’s.
Both MLB DFS slates today are littered with poor conditions, generally poor arms and uncertain paths – and it is those kinds of slates where you can make big time GPP noise in my opinion!
Enjoy this slate – let’s get in our FREE Discord today and chat it up while we dig through our cheat sheets and custom projections here at Win Daily to set up the start of this MLB DFS season with some big wins!
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!
