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 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!
Early Slate Breakdown
Welcome into a split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Wednesday where we look to continue the MASSIVE hot streak the team at Win Daily is on, including an all-night sweat that led to big-time screenshots on Tuesday courtesy of the Rays offense as you can see above!
The 5 game Early Slate is a fascinating one for GPP play as we have a game in Coors Field with a 14 implied run total that will largely dictate builds and cash line positions one way or the other. You guys know the drill by now in Picks and Pivots on these short slates – we play strategy and ignore the “best plays” which well, means I will let everyone else stack up Coors Field in the hope they hit the exact pairing of players correctly in order to separate themselves from the herd.
The other aspect I always preach on these day-time MLB DFS slates is start times – it may seem silly, but it matters – and when you have two games that start at 12:35 PM EST (CIN/CHC) and 1:10 PM EST (CLE/MIN), a full 2+ hours ahead of the rest of the slate, there is a strong likelihood you have no lineup information on the second half of this slate before lock. Consider we also have rain concerns in Washinton that could impact Jose Berrios on the mound and there is a strong argument to be made for front-loading this slate in our builds.
The easy place to start is with Tyler Mahle ($9K) at home against the hapless Cubs who continue to pace the Majors right now in strikeouts per game and with Mahle coming off back to back 32 point DK efforts, this is going to be a chalky, albeit correct play, no matter what you do with the rest of your lineup.
The SP2 pairing with Mahle is really where the first decision point likely lies for most and with rain on the radar for Jose Berrios, my favorite pairing is Zach Plesac ($7.9K) against the Minnesota Twins.
Plesac is coming off his best start of the year, a 9 strikeout, 32 DK point outing against the Tigers, and this match-up against the Twins is one that I think can set up similarly for him due to the Twins right-handed heavy line-up. Plesac relies heavily on his best swing and miss pitch, the slider, when facing RHB, as he throws it 40% of the time and gets a 40%+ whiff rate on the pitch.
What stood out to me in the Detroit start was how Plesac attacked the lefties with a curveball nearly 20% of the time, a stark increase in that pitch type for him and one that allowed him to really mix his pitches effectively. If he can continue to get 75% of first-pitch strikes and then use the slider/curveball as put-away offerings, the ceiling is high once again for him today.
The one interesting early ownership trend that is interesting is Jose Berrios being the third-highest owned of the arms and I suspect that’s largely due to people wanting to load up on Coors bats and needing the money. If Berrios gets a lefty-heavy line-up, it would play into his 30% K rate against LHB the last 30 days and he could be a difference-making arm as a late “hammer” if the weather cooperates.
For the bats – I want to stay in this “early start” window and load up on the Reds/Indians as a pairing as they correlate exceptionally well on DK.
The Reds may get overlooked here with everyone salivating over the Coors Field Vegas totals but this is a team with a 6.4 IRT, in Great American Ball Park, against a 30-year-old journeyman in Adrian Sampson and well, I hope everyone stacks late and has to play catch up as the Reds go nuts!
Sampson is a low K arm who has given up 19 HR over 14 AAA starts this year after spending last year in the KBO where he pitched to a 5+ ERA. The Reds are just loaded up and down with power against RHP with a team ISO of .244 and a 50% HC rate over the last 30 days – so if you are in the Cincy line-up today, I have you at the top of my player pool.
The other spot that I like here is the Indians right-handed bats against LHP Lewis Thorpe of the Twins – specifically the pairing of Jose Ramirez and Franmil Reyes who both have .300+ ISO marks against LHP over the last 30 days with JRam sporting a massive 60% fly-ball rate and Franmil sporting a (checks notes) – 75% hard contact rate! On a slate where the pay-ups will be reserved for Coors – I love the idea of paying up for low-owed power bats like we can get here with the Indians duo.
Main Slate Breakdown
As we turn our attention to the 10 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate – well, let’s just say – this one is going to sound familiar.
After two nights of the Tampa Bay Rays leading us to massive nights at no ownership against the Orioles awful pitching, we can’t possibly see the masses ignore them again right? Maybe with a slate high 6 IRT and no Coors Field, they will finally get some attention – but I do not care.
RHP Spencer Watkins is next up on the death march and with a high hard contact rate and fly ball profile to go with a low K rate – this lines up for an all-in Rays stack once again! Over the last 30 days – the Rays projected line-up has a .252 ISO, 45% HC rate, 40% FB rate and 8 of the 9 batters are sporting .200+ ISO marks individually against RHP. If you are not stacking the Rays tonight, you are DFS-ing wrong.
The secondary stack to pair with the Rays can vary – but the correlation is key and mostly, when finding a team to use alongside Tampa, I want teams with strong SS/3B combos and that is where both the Red Sox and Braves come into play.
Adam already covered the Red Sox against Andrew Heaney so I won’t simply regurgitate the great spot they are in – instead let me give you a bit of insight on the Braves against LHP Jesus Luzardo.
Luzardo is a simple pitcher to attack – even more so the last 30 days, as he is getting walloped by right-handed batters to the tune of a .333 ISO and 48% HC rate. During that time he has changed his pitch mix too – relying heavily on his sinker nearly 40% of the time that is getting hit to a .385 ISO and 67% HC rate by right-handed batters.
Austin Riley is a sinker hitting MACHINE – as his .484 ISO and 58% HC rate attest to and with our recent stretch of calling HR’s – let me go ahead and predict the Austin Riley HR off a sinker tonight. Book it.
The other place we can attack Luzardo is with his change-up usage and this is where we can potentially get value if both Travis d’Arnaud and Guillermo Heredia are in the lineup. Over the last 30 days, Luzardo is throwing the change 30% of the time and is giving up a .263 ISO mark and considering both TDA and Heredia have 50%+ HC rates and 250+ ISO marks against it, they could pay off as cheap pieces around a core Rays stack.
Now, you can tell by the way I approached this slate, bats are the priority but honestly, I think there is enough value in the Rays/Braves that you can still get up to the top end arms especially if we utilize value OF’s like Heredia or Kiermeir/Phillips in a Rays stack.
As Adam broke down in starting rotation – we have elite K options tonight and I want to anchor to those types of arms with Freddy Peralta, Jack Flaherty and Shohei Ohtani at the top of my list. The last two nights, we have seen – paying for pitching is trending back to earlier MLB DFS outcomes where the high ceiling strikeout arms are anchoring builds and I want to continue that approach tonight as a single entry player.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Stepping back and looking at these two MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slates – we can see how the paths are going to carry the day and we need to be strategic about getting the big bats without taking risks at pitching and still taking the high ceiling K arms we have staring at us.
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!
