Gary Gustafson 
Welcome to the Wednesday, July 7th 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 kick-off bright and early with a 12:35 PM EST start time on a 5 game slate. Once again we have some early weather risks with thunderstorms expected in-game for the Braves/Pirates and Reds/Royals and after last night’s deGrom rain mess that wiped out 50% of the field, I wonder how many people are going to simply avoid using arms anywhere we have the slightest threat of storms.
If you look at this slate, I think we end up with some serious chalk and heavily concentrated ownership which likely means I play this slate more strategically than simply picking the best plays. With the Rays/Indians game being only 7 innings, it rules those hitters out of my player pool, and with a clear top tier of arms in Lynn, Gibson, and Gray – it likely means the pitching pool for most is concentrated to that grouping.
Of this trio, Sonny Gray ($8.3K) is my favorite spend-up as he has the elite swing and miss ability with a K rate near 31% this season which is the highest mark of any arm on this slate and we get him at a considerable price discount. Assuming he is able to get a slight increase on last game’s workload, 90+ pitches seems likely and at this price point, I think he is the best PP/$ play on the slate.
As far as SP2’s go – I am not in love with anyone, and so ownership will go a long way into how I decide to attack my pitching pairing as I am not willing to eat the chalk on any arm really outside of Gray.
The key on this early slate is to stack up bats and my favorite stack on this early slate is the White Sox against the Twins and RHP Michael Pineda. On the season, Pineda has given up a .225 ISO, 51% fly-ball rate, 37% HC rate and a 2 HR/9 to left-handed batters and the White Sox will likely trot out 6 lefties as the visiting team and a guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats.
While the lefties like Yoan Moncada, Leury Garcia and Brian Goodwin have the splits, do not overlook the right-handed batters as stacking options here. Pineda was only able to through 75 pitches in his minor league start after landing on the IL with forearm inflammation, we can attack hitters from both sides of the plate here knowing we likely get into the Minnesota pen early.
Lance Lynn is likely the chalk SP1, so I love the idea of playing leverage and attacking the Minnesota bats here. Listen, Lynn is a good arm but he has just a 22% K rate against LHB and the Twins are likely are trot out a lineup full of them.
The pitch profile says we want lefties that hit the cutter and fastball well and that is where Jorge Polanco and Max Kepler stand out as top plays in a mini-stack here as they both have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch types with 50%+ hard contact rates.
Going with a full-on game stack with the White Sox and Twins and anchoring to Sonny Gray as my SP1 is my initial outlook on this early slate and watching ownership will be key to making strategic pivots.
Main Slate Overview
Looking at the 9 games Main Slate we have some serious offensive firepower, a lone obvious ace in Zack Wheeler, and a 7 inning DH game for the Mets/Brewers without deGrom/Burnes (boo!)
The decision to lock in Zack Wheeler ($10.3K) as an SP1 is an easy one – both based on slate context and match-up and no team in baseball has struck out more the last month or more against RHP than the Chicago Cubs. Wheeler is the top K arm by a considerable margin and with the match-up as it is – I am not getting cute, he is my SP1.
The decision on SP2 really comes down to one thing – the bats I want – and more on that in a moment, but it means I am willing to take on risk and punt with my SP2.
Adam already called out the stone minimum Castellanos at $4K but let me give you another option – Robert Stock ($4.7K). Now Stock is a journeyman minor leaguer so there is nothing about his profile that is going to make you excited to go here but you have two things working for you in this instance.
First, this is a 7 inning back end of a doubleheader so you could get a very watered-down Brewers line-up that has to face Jacob deGrom in the afternoon and fly home after this game tonight with the Reds awaiting them for a series starting tomorrow. Stock is also stretched out, having thrown 80 pitches in his most recent minor league start which is a big advantage over someone like Castellanos who is not nearly as stretched as a starter.
Also – this dude seems like a wild follow on Twitter so, let’s something.
Now nobody woke up today excited to play Robert Stock but we are in this range because of 2 reasons – Matt Harvey is pitching against Toronto and Patrick Corbin is pitching against San Diego.
Now you understand why we were looking to save salary at SP2 right?
I am not sure there are two pitchers we want to attack more in MLB DFS than these two (OK other than Jon Lester) and I want as many combinations tonight of Zack Wheeler with Blue Jays and Padres bats.
The end.
The nice part about tonight is we have some potential value in San Diego with Webster Rivas ($2.1K) as a punt catcher and as odd as that sounds, it opens up so many paths to making this two-team stack work especially when bats like Vladdy, Tatis and Machado are staring at us.
Watch the line-ups for these two and see if we can parse out 1-2 value pieces like a Profar/Kim on San Diego or if we need, we can go to Danny Jansen is Rivas does not start. This is the path tonight and it is that simple – my bats will be solely from these two teams against two pitchers who give up massive hard contact and get no swings and misses and one we have lineups, it will be key to find the 1-2 punts to find the big bats we covet.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
These MLB DFS Picks and Pivots split slates can be tricky but I think we have some interesting GPP paths to attack and let’s hope no weather concerns make us pivot last minute.
On the early slate, use ownership and strategy to your advantage and be vocal in Discord today to kick around ideas. On the Main Slate – its Wheeler, Jays and Padres – end scene – the key is finding the value punts to make it work but there is a path with cheap SP2’s and some projected hitting value in our core lineups.
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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