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 in for a split slate Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots and if you are an NFL DFS player looking for some mid-week sweat – well this is the day to jump in and rock some baseball with the Win Daily Sports family and build that bankroll so you can have big days like our subs did in Week 1 (see above for awesome-ness).
We start off with a 4 game Early Slate that very honestly, for a short slate has some really strong plays and some key strategic decisions we have to make.
First and foremost – it all starts with pitching and we have two bonafide studs up top with Robbie Ray ($10.4K) and Brandon Woodruff ($9.5K). We have talked about Ray’s second-half resurgence at length here the last few turns through the rotation and his dominance over the past 30 days is evident by a 41% K rate and 18% SS rate that rank 2nd in all of baseball. This is a pitcher that has topped 30 DK points and put up double-digit K’s in 4 of the last 5 trips to the mound and on a short slate, this is the kind of ace-level arm that can set a cash line as an SP1.
Woodruff may not have the K arsenal that Ray does, but with a 30% K rate on the season and a match-up with the Tigers, it would seem he has the far clearer path from a match-up basis than Ray who has to take on the Tampa Bay Rays All-Star squad.
The reality is, and we talk about this all the time, K’s are King in MLB DFS, and even in tough match-ups, the elite arms have the K ceiling to offset any runs they may give up. On short slates, like we have today, I think this strategy is even more important and so while I could argue the “leverage” that stacking Tampa may give you (you know I will never argue against a Rays stack), or fading these top two arms to load up on bats, etc. – the reality is, we have a clear path of double aces that gives us a path of least resistance and I think it is one we should take.
Go ahead and lock in the 50-60 point DFS output of the aces and let the variable nature of the hitters be where you make or break your day.
The Milwaukee Brewers bats look like they have an absolutely perfect match-up against RHP Matt Manning, a pitcher who has given up a .200+ ISO and 41% HC rate to LHB this season and seen those marks spike to 2.41 and 56% respectively.
The Brewers not only are loaded with left-handed pop but they also continue to be laughably cheap on DraftKings which is another reason why I think paying up for double aces, is simply too easy.
The Brewers will load up on lefties with Kolten Wong, Eduardo Escobar, Christian Yelich and Omar Narvaez at the top of the lineup and we should see the bottom of the order bats like Daniel Vogelbach and Jace Peterson get bumped up today with Avisail Garcia DTD and expected to miss this game. While the bigger name bats are pricey, the cost savings by using a $2.1K Jace Peterson with 3B and OF eligibility to a punt power 1B like Vogelbach at $2.7K gives you multiple paths to get pieces to this stack without overpaying.
My favorite stack of the early slate though is the Tampa Bay – oh wait sorry, a force of habit – the Boston Red Sox against LHP Marco Gonzales. The metrics for Gonzales against RHB have been bad all year but the last month they have gotten even worse with a .287 ISO mark, 43% HC rate and a 53% fly ball rate and that fly ball rate is why he has given up 2 HR’s per game in 3 of his last 4 trips to the mound.
We can really hone in on the bats here because of Marco’s reliance on a sinker he throws 51% of the time to RHB and it has been hit to the tune of a .257 ISO the last 30 days. The Red Sox have multiple bats that simply jump off the page with their batted ball data against the sinker and this is where you need to start your builds.
Hunter Renfroe has a team-high .483 ISO and a 54% HC rate and while those are impressive – even more so is the high fly ball rate against that pitch type which when you overlay it with Gonzales fly-ball tendencies makes Renfore an absolute home run lock for me. Go ahead and screenshot it, wait for the notification that Renfroe went deep, and then come back and see me.
Kike’ Hernandez and J.D. Martinez both have similarly strong profiles with .200+ ISO marks and 45% HC rates and anchoring to a core three-man Red Sox stack on this early slate is easy to do with the top-end arms we mentioned as a result of the Brew Crew value.
My only concern – and this is something we always mention on daytime small slates are the start times of the games. The Red Sox do not start until 4:10 PM EST which is a full 3 hours after lock so there is a very real risk you will not have their lineup before the slate locks. There are two ways you can attack this without bailing completely – 1) Go 5 man Brewers stack to start in the hopes your 3 man Red Sox stack all ends up confirmed as starting or 2) Go 5 man Red Sox stack to give yourself the most flexibility to move pieces in and out once we have the lineup notification.
Either way – I think this slate sets up perfectly to anchor to the top K arms and we are able to do so without having to sacrifice at all with our preferred stacks.
Main Slate Breakdown
The composition of the Main Slate frankly is far different and the build for this 10 game slate at first glance, will follow a different route as a result of what the slate offers us.
The high-end pitchers are not must-have options in my mind and while Julio Urias is a strong play if the salary was not a thing – I think we have a better bang for your buck with the mid-range and specifically Nestor Cortes Jr. and Ranger Suarez.
Nestor Cortes Jr. ($7.9K) has been fantastic for the Yankees since joining the rotation for the Yankees and a steady option that has both suppressed runs (2 or fewer in 4 of last 5 outings) with a 26% K rate the last month that has allowed him to eclipse 20 DK points in 3 of his last 5 outings including against the same Orioles team he will face today.
The Orioles are a solid offense but last night they saw both Trey Mancini AND Pedro Severino leave the game with an injury and that to me could completely change the complexion of this match-up as you could get a light-hitting backup Catcher like Austin Wynns and/or a LHB like DJ Stewart taking the place of Mancini at DH. Cortes was a strong play before this news and I think if we get a beaten down Orioles line-up, it unlocks an even higher ceiling for the Yankees southpaw.
Ranger Suarez ($7.2K) was super chalk his last outing against the Rockies and while there was a concern due to leaving the last game with triceps tightness, he came out and racked up 6K’s and threw 96 pitches against the Rockies to answer any doubts. What really stood out to me though was his velocity – that was really my concern prior to the last start after he saw his fastball velocity drop over 2 MPH in his injury-shortened outing down to 91 MPH but against the Rockies it was back up to 94 MPH, at and even above his season-long metrics.
With the velocity spike and the pitch count up to 96, I have no concerns with him today and he gets arguably the best K match-up in baseball with the free-swinging Chicago Cubs coming to town. Lock and load today!
By living in the mid-range with arms, we can go power hunting and we don’t have to deviate far from last night with the New York Yankees once again in Camden Yards where it is hot and humid and the wind is blowing out against a lefty. Remember yesterday when we said you just play this straight and let the masses make the mistake of fading? I think the same logic applies today and the big Yankee power bats have to be at the core of our build against LHP John Means.
Means is a good real life arm but the metics we always anchor to tell us we can go after him with power, as his .250 ISO and 50% fly-ball rate to right-handed batters gives us the ability to go right back to the Yankee right-handed power like Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton, Luke Voit and Gary Sanchez.
However, my friends, this isn’t even the best stack in New York tonight – yeah buddy – welcome to Jon Lester versus the New York Mets. Shoot off the fireworks, start the parade, fire up the BBQ and DJ, go ahead and crank it up to 10 – we gonna party tonight.
If you are new to Picks and Pivots (first off, how dare you) – attacking Lester is a thing we do here every fifth day but we also know that his recent form has been strong so we have to be strategic in how we unleash the Mets bats tonight.
Even though Lester has been a run suppression magician the last month, the underlying metrics tell a story of a 6+xFIP nearly 3 runs higher than his ERA. His last three starts specifically have been pure Lester tilt personified with a 100% left on base rate, .118 BABIP and a 5.4 xFIP which is massively higher than his 1.93 ERA.
Regression is coming and it comes tonight in Queens.
With Lester’s reliance on the cutter to right-handed batters, we want to find the right-handed hitters that profile best and it frankly, is not all that hard. Javy Baez has a .471 ISO and 46% HC rate, Pete Alonso sports a .310 ISO mark of his own and even the bottom of the order bats like Kevin Pillar (.667 ISO and 43% HC rate) and lefty-masher James McCann (42% HC rate and 75% FB rate) have strong marks against this pitch type.
With the Cardinals taking the first two games of this series, and opening up a 4 game lead on the Mets for the wild-card – this is about as must-win for the Mets as you get to get the deficit back to 3 games and with the temperature in New York today being hot and humid and the winds blowing out – I think the Mets offense shows up and shows out against a left-hander that has simply been far too lucky.
MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up
Today’s MLB DFS split slate is a strong one and I frankly love the roster composition and DraftKings contests types we have – it sets up for an all-day sweat and one I think we can make waves on with strong strikeout arms and some serious power bats!
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!
