daily fantasy baseball

Welcome to the Sunday, June 27th 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!

Main Slate Breakdown – Pitching

When opening up this Sunday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, we are met with a 12 game slate that has some serious top end pitching on it and I think that anchoring to at least one high end K arm will be necessary on this slate.

Max Scherzer ($10.7K) looks like the ideal pay up today pitching against the Marlins in Miami as his 36% K rate will match-up against a Miami projected line-up that has a 24% K rate and a .150 ISO mark against RHP since the start of last season.

The last time Mad Max faced Miami, he went 9 innings, with 9 K’s and 39 DK points but keep in mind the entire top of the Marlins order (Jazz, Aguilar and Marte) did not play that game.

One of the reasons I think we can and should anchor to a “known” quantity as an SP1 is that we have a plethora of cheap, albeit risky SP2’s we can sort through in the value range.

The one name that jumps out to me is $4K Pirates right-hander Max Kranick who makes his major league debut today against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Yeah – that’s right – we are taking it to the MAX with a Double Max Stack!

Kranick is a bit of a mystery as injuries derailed his minor league career initially but a change in approach has allowed him to make it to the majors with consistent velocity being added and now topping out at 98 MPH and has upward trajectory.

Kranick used the pandemic to really change his approach and this included changing his arm angle to throw harder up in the zone to play off his curveball that break down and out of the zone. This is a great article from Baseball America that outlined his pitch change working with former major leaguer Vic Black and with this new pitch approach, we could see a player who was a top 100 prospect out of high school finally make a big league impact.

In this video you can see this short arm angle that Kranick has gone to and I think that the limited tape on him could play to his advantage the first time through the bigs. If he can use this short arm angle with his velocity to play off his breaker, it could produce some serious swing and misses as batters try to pick up the ball from a pitcher who has reinvented himself. At $4K on DK – he could be a massive GPP pay off especially with all the bats we want!

If you want another option in this range- take a look at LHP Kyle Muller ($4.7K) who made his big league debut against the Mets and showcased a high velocity heater and nasty breaking stuff.

Main Slate Breakdown – Hitting

The main storyline on this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is how much offense we have and it all starts with a near 7 run total for the Blue Jays against Jorge Lopez and the Orioles.

One of the reasons I spent time on the $4K punt arms is because the Jays offense is SUPER expensive and finding a way to get to them is going to be key on this slate. Going with a Max/Muller double punt build gives you all the bats, specifically all the Jays you could possibly want.

The thing is – as good as the Jays offense is, it is not like this is the only good hitting spot on the slate, in fact we have 7 total teams as of this writing with 5+ IRT’s.

The Yankees will be in Fenway Park today with warm & humid temperatures, the wind blowing out 15-20 MPH and LHP Eduardo Rodriguez on the mound who has struggled mightily to the tune of a 6+ ERA this season with 5+ runs allowed now in 4 of his last 10 starts.

The Yankees bats are set up perfectly for this match-up with their right-handed heavy lineup and while the big bats like Judge, Stanton and Voit are pricey, you can balance it out with cheaper options like Torres, Ursehla, Andujar and Frazier who offer you some serious salary relief.

My favorite tournament offense today is the Kansas City Royals against RHP Jordan Lyles – arguably the worst arm on this slate. Lyles sits among the worst arms in baseball this year against right-handed hitting line-ups as his 2.59 HR/9 rate is second-worst in the bigs and his 39.7% hard contact sits bottom five.

Lyles relies on a slider nearly 40% of the time to RHB and this is a pitch type that all of Salvador Perez, Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier all hit with 200+ ISO marks and 50% hard contact rates.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is interesting because I think there is the potential for some serious chalk with the Blue Jays offense sporting such a massive total and it allows us to find some pivot paths that still give us high ceiling offenses.

Going high/low at pitching is really the key because we need to open up salary to find the big bats and using a mid-range stack the Royals at low ownership against Jordan Lyles is an ideal way to pivot off the field and the same core team stacks.

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!

Welcome to the Friday, June 25th 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome in to a 13 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where at first glance, we have some serious stacks, a few top end arms in play and three games in Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis that have some rain risk we need to navigate through.

When looking at the pitching, while we have Carlos Rodon up top as the clear SP1, I find myself more intrigued by the $8K range on DraftKings when looking at my player pool.

Chris Paddack ($8.8K) is the first arm that stands out as his last two games have seemingly unlocked the ceiling we were waiting to utilize in our MLB DFS lineups.

Through his first 11 starts of the season, Paddack scuffled with just a 22% K rate, 11% SS rate and threw just 63% of his pitches for first pitch strikes. IN his last two starts, behind a 72% first strike rate, he has jumped to a 43.5% K rate and 21% SS rate while also seeing his swing rate outside the zone jump from 30% to 40%.

Paddack has not seen any material changes to his pitch mixes, with a slight uptick in his change-up usage being the only discernible difference but attacking the zone has really been the biggest key and it is getting ahead in counts and then getting swings and misses on his nasty change-up. Additionally, he has also seen his fastball velocity tick up from 94 MPH on average to 95.6 MPH which is helping him get more swing and misses on the fastball which he can then play off his change-up at a 10 MPH drop in velocity.

At this same price point, Mike Minor ($8.7K) gets to take the mound against the K heavy Rangers in Texas and has pitched extremely well with 20+ DK points now in 5 of his last 8 outings.

There are a couple things I really like about Minor here tonight – he is consistently going deep into games with 90-100+ pitches in every single outing and his 27% K rate on the season is quietly elite with his 37% K rate against LHB being the real key to ceiling.

Left-handed pitchers have had recent success against Texas as well, with 5 of the last 10 southpaws to face Texas to put up 20+ DK points including Kershaw, Wood, Kikucki, Dick Mountain and the venerable Austin Gomber.

The other arm in this range I really like is Alex Manoah ($8.1K) as the K pedigree is there and the match-up with the Orioles is great but man, there is some risk here. Manoah faced this Baltimore team last time out, giving up 4 HR and was tossed after throwing at Maikel Franco and is now appealing a suspension.

Listen, the K stuff and ceiling is there – he showed it in his first start, but I do think there is risk the “moment” could play against the rookie tonight and if he is overly amped and let’s last game bleed into tonight, all it takes is one inside pitch and the umpires could have a quick hook. I get the play but it worries me.

Now to the bats – oh the bats!

Let’s see – checks notes, sees a starting pitcher that ranks among the worst in baseball with a HR/9 rate of 1.96, a 42.4% HC rate with a fly ball rate that ranks among the top 25 in baseball and gets to face the Tampa Bay Rays. Good luck Mr. Canning.

I swear guys, I don’t set out to do this but if the Rays face RHP that give up HR and power, I am going to be on them EVERY DAMN DAY especially when we see them sub 5% owned every single night.

You want to go deeper?

Canning relies on his change-up nearly a third of the time against LHB and the Rays, well they feast on that pitch type, with all of Meadows, Lowe, Choi, Wendle and Kiermeir sporting .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type.

This Rays team has a .210+ team ISO and 45% HC rate against RHP with the 6 of the 9 being high fly ball hitters. It’s the same thing I tell you guys every time – there is MASSIVE power for this Rays team when the profile matches up and while they can strike out a TON they are also leaving a ton of batters on base lately – 12 last night, 16 the night before and 27 the night before that.

With all that base running traffic and all that power in the line-up – this team can (and oh by the way – has) the ability to take down a GPP when they can get those big base hits. The base runners have been there, now we just need the HR’s to follow.

Wait – can it be?

Are you saying it is a Rays night AND Jon Lester?

Insert dancing bears GIF here Ghost.

Lester continues to flirt with disaster, with a 5 ERA and xFIP that are a full run over his ERA, and that variance mark between metrics ranks among the highest in baseball this season – say it with me kids – REGRESSION!

Lester is giving up a .210 ISO mark to RHB this season and here come a right-handed heavy Marlins team with some serious pop in the middle of the order as both Starling Marte and Adam Duvall have .250+ ISO marks this year against lefties while Jesus Aguilar has a team-high 42% HC rate against lefties since the start of last season.

The cutter is what is killing Lester when he gets hit – as he has given up a .590 ISO mark on a pitch he throws nearly 30% of the time. Seriously – a third of the time hes throwing a pitch that has traveled an average distance of 310 feet and nearly 50% hard contact.

All of the RHB I mentioned above have at least a 42% HC rate against the cutter and Marte specifically stands out as an elite play with a .375 ISO, 57% HC rate, and average distance of 317 feet. HR Call of the Day right here – it’s a Marte Party!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Strong arms, the Rays stack and Jon Lester on the hill – imagine having a better MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate? I can’t.

Lock. Load. Profit.

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!

Welcome to the Thursday, June 24th 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a small slate Thursday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have just an 8 game Main Slate with some pitching options that are gross, horrible, and downright poo. You excited yet?

As far as starting pitching goes – there really is not much to say beyond what Adam broke down in Starting Rotation and to tell you there are better paths as pure plays than Walker Buehler and Luis Garcia would be lying to you.

The thing with MLB DFS is, especially on small slates, are we have to find ways to think strategically if we want to pivot off the field and while Buehler and Garcia are good plays – they also do not posses the ceiling that I think is insurmountable if we fade them and let our bats do the talking.

Going past these two tonight is dicey but I do think we have some paths and one of my favorites is Carlos Martinez ($6.3K) against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Martinez is not a high K arm, the reality is – nobody in the mid to low range on this slate is – but he does have a match-up that he can take advantage of and has already this season. Back on May 2nd, C-Mart went 8 shutout innings, allowing just 5 total hits on 12 ground balls with 3 K’s on his way to 22 DK points – a total which would smash his salary at tonight’s price point.

The Pirates line-up is the ideal match-up for Martinez in that they hit for essentially no power against right-handed pitching, in fact they rank dead last in team ISO at .123 against RHP this season. Not surprisingly they also rank as the highest soft contact rate (20.4%), lowest hard contact rate (27.3%) and have a 44% ground ball rate which all plays into Martinez’s style.

The path for Martinez is all about ground ball outs, soft contact and easy outs – that is really it. The risk any time you play a path like this is if BABIP is not on his side, he does not have the swing and miss stuff to make up for it, but you could argue there is no better match-up if you are playing this type of arm tonight.

You want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts.

Jean Carlos Mejia ($4.7K) against the Minnesota Twins.

Listen, this one is not going to be an easy sell and I get it – but we all know my stack tonight is going to be the Tampa Bay Rays so let’s not act like we need to rush to get to the next part – OK? Cool.

Mejia has converted from the Indians bullpen and has now made a series of starts and they, well, have not gone well. In fact, he is coming off his worst outing of the year where he gave up 6 ER’s and 7 hits in 5 innings to the aforementioned Pirates who cannot hit right-handed pitching.

I promise – there is a selling point here.

Mejia is a strikeout arm from his minor league profile with 26-27% K rates over the last two years in the minor league system as a result of a darting fastball/sinker that generates ground balls and a plus slider that gets swing and misses as you can see below.

Mejia has been crazy unlucky so far, and his 6.11 ERA is FAR higher than his 3 xFIP – in fact, it is one of the most extreme ” positive regression” marks of any pitcher in baseball this season. In the last two starts, he has a .333 BABIP despite the fact he is giving up minimal hard contact and has just a 2.8% walk rate.

He is not as bad as these few starts have shown and while I can quote “sample size” like some moronic touts in the industry do – I do not want to get Adam Strangis all fired up and have him body slam me when I argue the appropriate sample size amount.

That slider is going to be what gets us profit – its the biggest swing and miss offering he has and it comes mostly to right-handed batters. The Twins are only projected to have 3 righties – Cruz, Sano and Simmons – in the line-up tonight so that does limit his ceiling but let’s keep an eye on the line-up they roll out because the more righties the better.

There is massive risk here but there is a pedigree that I think we need to understand and the advanced stats tell us there is positive regression coming his way – this is the kind of first or last play in GPP that could make our break our night.

Part of the reason I want to look at cheap arms – is because I want bats – ALL OF THE BATS.

Let’s get this out of the way –Nick Pivetta against the Rays.

Lock. Load. Rays. Go.

Pivetta has a .200+ ISO mark to both sides of the plate since the start of last year and this Rays team has a .205 ISO mark against RHP – and that is before you add in the power of Wander Franco.

The Rays drew minuscule ownership the last two days even with Wander Franco being a popular one-off – but now he is up to $3.8K on DK this is a spot where everyone goes back to ignoring them and we get the stack at single-digit ownership AGAIN.

The other spot that is hard to ignore tonight is the Toronto Blue Jays against RHP Dean Kremer. Kremer’s metrics are just awful to both sides of the plate – arguably the worst of any arm tonight – with a .250 ISO, 50% fly ball, and 50% hard contact combo that has resulted in a 2.4 HR/9 rate this season.

With George Springer ($3.8K) now back – this Jays line-up is insane and I am not sure how any pitcher, let alone a terrible one with a bad bullpen behind him, is able to navigate it.

Bats win you this slate – and the Jays/Rays combo is the high upside path I want to anchor to tonight!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

At first glance you may look at this 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate and think it is a night to avoid because of the lack of pitching, but these slates tend to be my favorite because it forces you to think outside the box.

On a night where bats are going to win you the slate, finding a path to cheap arms is key and I think between Adam and I – we have laid out some solid, albeit risky, plays that get you all the bats your heart desires!

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!

Welcome to the Wednesday, June 23rd 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 to a split slate Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have six early games which kick-off at 12:35 PM EST to get us rolling for the day.

The over arching theme on this early slate is how loaded the pitching is – and it is not just loaded at the top with Kevin Gausman and Brandon Wodruff, this slate is DEEP with arms which means two things – 1) We have tons of viable pitching options and 2) the hitting stacks become far more limited and strategic.

If you take a step back and look at the trends of this slate, one thing that jumped out to me was how cheap the Detroit Tigers bats were against RHP Jon Gant. I bring this up because it is one of the few attackable spots with bats and their cheap price tags will make a Gausman/Woodruff double ace approach, really easy to do!

Short slates like this are always far more about strategy to me than simply finding the best plays, so how can we find ways to pivot with our plays and more so with our builds.

I think Adam Strangis nailed it in Starting Rotation that the aces paired together or with a far too cheap German Marquez as an SP2 will be the chalk builds and the aforementioned Tigers I think become the default cheap stack that holds it all together.

So what if instead of spending up for arms – we opt to spend down and stack the big bats that the Gausman/Woodruff builds cannot afford?

Adam mentioned German Marquez but there are two other arms down in this range that I have my eye on – Caleb Smith ($7.2K) and Matt Manning ($5.4K).

Smith has been under the radar from a DFS perspective since his return to the rotation just four games ago but with a 26% K rate and his pitch count now comfortably up to 90-100 in his last two starts, it is time we start to take notice.

We were all over him in his last start against the Dodgers where he racked up 20 DK points and he now gets the same match-up with a Brewers team he faced back on June 6th, striking out 8 and knocking down 22 DK points. This Milwaukee projected line-up has a 27.4% K rate against LHP this season and has 4 of the 8 hitters with 30%+ K rates individually so the ceiling is once again incredibly high for the former Marlins left-hander.

The other arm Picks and Pivots were all over in their previous start was Tigers RHP Matt Manning ($5.4K) who is one of the big-time prospect arms the Tigers have coming to the majors with a high 90’s fastball and two nasty off-speed pitches in a change-up and 12-6 curveball.

Manning was solid in his debut against the Angels with 5 innings of work, 2 runs allowed, 3 K’s and 8 ground ball outs and this match-up today against St. Louis is sneaky good.

Over their last 15 starts against right-handed starters, we have seen 9 of the 15 go for 20+ DK points so the path for success is clear for Manning, who despite the lack of K’s in his first start is still a ~30% K rate arms throughout the minors and I do think this being his first start at home will have him amped to bring some more punchouts.

If you live down in this Smith, Marquez, and Manning range – what you are hoping for is 20 DK point type outings that give you paths to the big time bats that the ace builds cannot afford and my favorite spot today is in Philly with the Nationals and Phillies against Velasquez/Fedde.

Vincent Velasquez is in the midst of one of his customary downswings where he is not missing bats and the fly balls and home run tendencies come back to bite him – and with 15 runs allowed in his last 16 innings of work, well the Nationals bats looked primed for a day-time beatdown.

The top of the Washington order is pricey but again this is where paying down for arms opens a path to pay for Trea Turner, Juan Soto and Kyle Schwarber. No matter the pitch type for VV, hitters are hammering it from both sides as there is not a single offering this season that Velasquez throws that have gotten under a 40% hard contact rate. The fact that his swinging strike rate is also in single digits the last four starts tells you this is an arm that is not missing bats and the hard contact is coming back to bite him – HARD.

Erick Fedde on the other side of this game has pitched well for the Nationals and even has done so against these Phillies but boy oh boy, does Bryce Harper look like an ideal one-off play or key part of a Philly mini-stack.

Fedde is a sinkerball arm, that is his bread and butter offering, and well – Harper, LOVES that pitch as evidenced by his .329 ISO, 57% HC rate and averaged distance traveled of 330+ feet. You guys know I despise BvP as a stand-alone stat, but when you see a division match-up like this and a pitch type that stands out like the sinker does to Harper – I wanted to see if there was BvP history, and yikes – how does 5 for 13 with 3 HR’s sound?

If you take it a step further, Fedde will fall back on the cutter to lefties as a secondary offering- again Harper has a .200+ ISO against that pitch type and this is the same pitch Fedde threw him last game and Harper deposited in the OF stands. It is hard not to look at the pitch data here and see Harper getting us a bomb on the early slate in a game stack here in Citizen’s Bank Park with a massive hitters umpire behind the plate!

Main Slate Breakdown

The main slate pitching options are well – not nearly as kind, and taking risks here could blow up in our face in a major way. I hate simply piggy-backing on Adam’s starting rotation but goodness, I just don’t see a path here off the Robbie Ray and James Kaprelian pairing on DK.

The match-up for both against Miami and Texas is elite and when the other options are all in risky spots – Bauer against SD, Musgrove against LAD, Hill against Boston and Duffy against the Yankees – there are so many more paths on the main slate that seem like they could end poorly.

One of the reasons we can just take the path to the high-end at arms is well, because DraftKings decided to keep Wander Franco at $2K. Yep.

The kid was near 50% owned in single entry GPP last night – and tonight, it will be even higher on a short slate but it is hard to argue with the talent at this price.

What was fascinating to me was that the Rays outside of Franco were all sub 5% owned so if people are only going to use him as a one-off, stacking around him could pay big dividends and I would argue that tonight – Garrett Richards is one of the best arms to attack against.

Richards metrics are exactly what we look for in MLB DFS – as he is giving up a 48% hard contact rate this season with the last five starts being where the wheels have really fallen off with a 50% HC rate allowed and in 26 innings has surrendered 36 hits and 18 runs.

You guys know the deal – the Rays are always going to be my favorite stack when we get arms that do not have swing and miss ability and give up hard contact – that is who Richards is right now. The non-Wander Rays have 5 bats with .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season with Austin Meadows, Brandon Lowe and Mike Zunino offering massive power alongside the $2K free square rookie. Stack em again guys – it is just too easy.

The Rays were money last night but I didn’t have them paired with the Oakland A’s – tonight against Folty, well, I am not making that mistake again!

Poor Folty has given up an absurd .348 ISO, 47% FB rate and 51% HC rate and 3.3 HR/9 to left-handed batters – so Matt Olson, Mitch Moreland, Tony Kemp, and even Jed Lowrie (yuck) have the advantage of the split here. The Oakland bats correlate well position-wise with the Rays and while this path may end up popular – my hope is the “non-Wander Rays” bats remain under-owned and give us the different path we need for GPP glory!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have two solid MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slates today that have some really intriguing options and some really clear strategic decisions.

I think the early slate is the one to take chances on because of the deep pitching pool while the main slate is one where I think we play it straight and let other’s make mistakes.

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!

Welcome to the Tuesday, June 22nd 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome back to a loaded Tuesday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where we have 14 games to sort through, a ton of aces and what looks to be an all-clear on weather which is helpful on a slate this large.

When opening up this slate, what stood out to me at first glance was how top-heavy the arms seemed with multiple high-end strikeout arms including Gerrit Cole, Max Scherzer, Zack Wheeler, Freddy Peralta and Lucas Giolito.

As Adam Strangis does every day here at Win Daily – he absolutely nailed the pitching breakdown in today’s Starting Rotation and we are in lock step with our pitching pool – well, with one exception.

Now this is not to say Adam did not write this man up, he did – but I do not think Adam beat the table enough for one Tarik Skubal. Now, maybe it is because Adam is just genuinely less aggressive than me, maybe because he also writes his articles at 1 AM when he is tired – but screw that noise, I am here bright and early with some strong coffee to tell you Tarik Skubal should be in your SP1 discussion while priced as a bargain SP2!

Want to play a fun game? Of course you do! And honestly, even if you don’t we are doing it anyways because it is my article and you are required to keep reading. See, I told you Adam was nicer.

Since May 1st – want to guess who the top 5 strikeout arms in baseball are with a minimum of 40 innings pitched?

Some of the names are going to be likely guesses including studs like Mad Max and Tyler Glasnow but there is a trio of lefties in the top 5 including Carlos Rodon and Robbie Ray and one Tarik Daniel Skubal, whose 33.7% K rate is higher than other names on tonight’s slate like Wheeler, Peralta, Kershaw, Giolito and Mr. Gerrit Stickytack Cole.

This is not me skewing numbers, literally you are getting one of the BEST strikeout arms in baseball tonight for $6,600 on DraftKings. Seriously, that is actually cheaper than playing Vladimir Guerrero Jr. tonight who is $6.7K.

Since May, in this most recent 8 game stretch, you are seeing the strikeout stuff spike for Skubal with a near 34% K rate and 13% SS rate and you can actually argue that he has been wildly unlucky as his .348 BABIP is significantly higher than the league average of .290.

What really has taken Skubal to new heights recently is his slider which has been a dangerous weapon against right-handed heavy line-ups and in games recently where he threw it over 20% (versus CWS twice, Seattle and Cleveland) – he racked up 6, 9, 9 and 11 punchouts.

What is interesting with Skubal is that his slider grades out as his best put-away pitch, and while his recent success you may think is because he is using it more – actually the inverse is true – he is using it less than he did to start the season but he is throwing it more effectively as in April this was graded out as a negative pitch type for him and now it has flipped to his most valuable pitch since May 1st.

The addition of a change-up has really helped keep hitters off balance on the right side and his increased use of the splitter has seemingly taken his game to new heights and with all 3 pitches sporting 40%+ whiff rates against right-handed batters, the path to ceiling is once again there for the Tigers lefty.

I am spending this time on Skubal because of the context I want to lay out – this is a slate now where you can get the Picks and Pivots favorite – DOUBLE ACES – but you are doing so basically with a punt SP2 as one of those aces.

This is very similar to the slates we have had with Shohei Ohtani, where he is priced in the $7-$8K range despite being one of the best K arms in baseball and we can pair him with a high-dollar stud to get two “aces” without having to pay the market price. Today with Skubal we are getting an even steeper discount so using him as your SP2 and pairing him with a $10K type arms gives you a path to locking in two 30%+ K rate arms with all the salary you want to stack bats.

Now with a high/low ace pairing – where oh where do we go with our bats.

14 game slate so we probably have a lot of paths right?

Totally not going to go to the usual suspects – let’s mix it up right?

WRONG.

Hello once again Tampa Bay Rays bats.

Now the reason I started here was that I was excited to see where the #1 prospect in baseball, Wander Franco would be priced in his MLB debut tonight and I go to find that DraftKings was asleep and left him at $2K. Seriously- $2K.

This is likely to bring some ownership the way of my favorite stack in MLB DFS but I simply do not care – against LHP Eduardo Rodriguez, I want to get me some Tampa Bay Rays stacking!

E-Rod is giving up a .200 ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate with a 44% hard contact rate to LHB and a 38% HC rate to RHB and with the addition of Franco to this Rays line-up you get an amazing combination of power/speed and R/L bats at all different price points to take advantage of this match-up.

From the right side – Randy Arozarena and Mike Zunino stand out with .255 and .320 ISO marks respectively against southpaws since the start of 2020 and Zunino specifically has MASSIVE fly ball tendencies (55%) which is exactly the kind of batted ball profile you want against a lefty who is trying to get ground ball outs.

We mentioned the struggles with power and hard contact for E-Rod against lefties and this is where you make stacks different by playing L/L as MLB DFS players will almost always over-look these plays in their stacks. We saw this last night as an example where the Reds bats from the right side were major chalk and then Joey Votto was there in the middle of the line-up and came in at 5-10% ownership.

Remember – if this stack goes off and is hitting, thus knocking E-Rod out, the “splits” you anchored to no longer matter as you get into the bullpens and now it becomes a totally different ball game! Over the last two weeks – the Red Sox bullpen has been one of the worst in all of baseball, giving up a league-leading 14 HR’s and sitting in the bottom 5 in runs allowed.

However back to E-Rod, I would argue his approach versus lefties is a reason to attack here as Brandon Lowe has a .210 ISO mark, with a 40%+ plus FB and HC rate against lefties since the start of last season. Austin Meadows, the Captain of the Picks and Pivots ship, absolutely hammers the splitter from lefties which is what Rodriguez will throw nearly a third of the time and Meadows has a .267 ISO and 40% HC rate against!

The Rays bats are always going to be one of my favorite stacks because of their ability to hit for power and the pricing tonight, as a result of the Wander Franco free-square makes this an easy stack to anchor to without having a high average salary per player.

The other stack that really stands out to me tonight is the Chicago Cubs against RHP Eli Morgan of the Cleveland Indians. Morgan simply looks like he was rushed to the Major League level after throwing just 20 innings above AA and has struggled in his first two big-league outings with 9 ER and 3 HR allowed in just 6 innings of work across two starts. My focus here would be at the top of the Cubs order where all of Joc Pederson, Kris Bryant, Javy Baez and Anthony Rizzo have .200+ ISO marks and 40%+ hard contact rates against RHP.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Stepping back and looking at this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots stack, the build coming into the day seemed really clear and the Win Daily Discord crew knew it was coming – double aces and a Rays stack at the core.

However, the approach may not be as cut and dry as I think we can go double aces in a whole new way today as a result of the under-pricing on Tarik Skubal. Anchoring to him as a high K SP2, gives us the ability to go high/low with 30%+ K rate arms and still loading up on big time bats and stacks!

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!

Welcome to the Monday, June 21st 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a 6 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday Night slate where we have some top-tier arms, multiple big offensive totals, some rain in Baltimore and the wind blowing in at Wrigley! Personally, I love these smaller slates because we get to dig in to each game and option in the player pool at a more granular level than we would on a traditional larger slate.

Narrowing our Pitching Pool

The pitching pool on this small slate has a very clear line of delineation for me tonight and as such, I will likely be living in the higher dollar price point as a result of the bargain arms being far more bust than boom. It all begins with Yu Darvish ($10.2K), the only arm on the slate over $10K at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers for the third time this season.

Darvish in his previous two outings against the Dodgers was dominant, racking up 29.4 and 30.4 DraftKings points with nearly identical lines of 7 innings pitched 1 ER allowed, and 9 punchouts.

Right now this Dodgers line-up is overly right-handed heavy with only 3 of the 8 projected hitters being from the left side, which works perfectly into the splits for the Padres right-hander as his 32% K rate against RHB is 5% higher than that of his mark to LHB.

The other top-tier strikeout arm that I love tonight is Frankie Montas ($9.4K) against the Texas Rangers. Montas has even more extreme splits with a 30% K rate against LHB versus just an 18% rate against RHB so the more traditional “splits” he gets with this Texas line-up, the better. With a Rangers projected starting 9 that has 4 lefties in it and overall a team with a 27% K rate versus RHP this season, the path for Montas to have a ceiling game is clear.

Now, we have strikeout arms up top today which provide pivots but the match-ups have far more paths to red flags than I see for either Darvish or Montas.

Tyler Mahle ($9.8K) has the strikeout upside based on his 28% K rate this season but a match-up a right-handed heavy Twins line-up does not seem overly appealing. Mahle’s splits are far more traditional, with a 32% K rate against LHB and just a 24% K rate against RHB, of which he is expected to face six!

Julio Urias ($9.1K) has similar splits with just a 26% K rate against RHB this season versus a 31% mark versus lefties and will have to navigate through a right-handed heavy Padres line-up with 5 of the 8 batters hitting from the right side.

Lastly, Adbert Alzolay ($8.9K) takes on the Indians in Wrigley Field with the wind blowing in and while his K splits are relatively even, the batted ball profile is most certainly not. Against RHB this season, Alzolay has surrendered just a .125 ISO, a near 50% ground ball rate and a sub 30% hard contact rate. However, flip it to the left side and the .273 ISO and 46% hard contact rate spell trouble especially when you consider that this Cleveland line-up will likely have 6 of the 8 batters hitting from the left side.

Now, would it surprise me if arms like Mahle, Urias or Alzolay were able to match or exceed Darvish/Montas tonight? Of course not, it is baseball and the match-ups/line-ups could change as we get closer to lock which softens our stance. However, at first glance, I would argue the match-ups for Darvish/Montas have a far more clear path to success and on a short slate, I am simply unwilling to take “risks” with my arms when we have the ability to anchor to known outcomes.

Bats and Stacks and Stacks and Bats

One of the reasons, I think we can live in the top-tier of arms tonight on DraftKings is that we have “soft-enough” pricing to anchor to the bats we want, without having to pay down for arms.

One of the first stacks that jump out to me are the Cincinnati Reds against LHP JA Happ in Minnesota. Happ’s splits this season are really clear with a .263 ISO against RHB with a near 50% fly-ball rate and a 40% HC rate which has led to a 1.8 HR/9 rate r right-handed hitters in 2021.

This Reds team is loaded from the right side, with 7 of the 9 batters expected to bat from the right side and we have a good mix of high/low salary plays.

Nick Castellanos is the premier play with a .370 ISO mark this season against southpaws and a massive 65% hard contact rate but do not overlook Tyler Stephenson who has a .351 ISO mark and a 55% HC rate of his own. The best part about Stephenson is that he has C and 1 B eligibility on DK, so while you may want to use him at catcher, putting him at 1B and using a dual catcher build on DK could be a way to make your lineups look different for tournaments on a small slate.

The other stack that seems like it could go nuclear today is the Houston Astros against LHP Keegan Akin. Akin is coming off a dreadful start against the Indians where he gave up 8 ER in just 5 innings and his 43% fly-ball rate and 45% hard contact rate to right-handed batters this season seems troublesome with how right-handed heavy Houston can get.

Jose Altuve, Chas McCormick, Yuli Gurriel and Martin Maldonado all have .200+ ISO marks from the right side since the start of last season and when you look at the batted ball profile of this line-up, every single hitter has a 40%+ hard contact rate against lefties this year with the exception of Myles Straw.

The one option that really unlocks essentially anything you want is the red-hot Abraham Toro ($2.1K) who was called up with Alex Bregman sidelined and went 7 for 11 with a HR and 5 RBI’s over the weekend. Now it means leaving Eugenio Suarez out of your Reds stack, since he is only 3B eligible, but his salary flexibility may make him a core piece to unlock the ceiling across the rest of your lineup.

Also guys – PLEASE, do not overlook the left-handed batters for the Astros here tonight, as you know with a L/L spot to start they will go over-looked but this is where you can really make waves. Think about it this way – if and when the Astros knock out Akin, where do they go next – a right-handed heavy Baltimore pen and that is when the guys like Alvarez, Brantley and maybe even Kyle Tucker who is due back any day – can do serious damage as low-owned parts of the stack.

The Reds and Astros correlate really well together on DraftKings and this two-team stacking approach gives us the ability to lock in with two high-powered offenses, both on the road and that means 9 innings of guaranteed at-bats!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

With some really strong tournament options tonight on DraftKings, this is a great slate to go heavy with our MLB DFS Picks and Pivots plays and I think the path is incredibly clear.

Going with two aces, anchoring to Darvish and Montas, in elite match-ups, and doing so around a Reds/Astros two-team stack is where my core mindset sits to begin the day and I think it leaves us a path to massive ceiling potential!

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!

Welcome to the Sunday, June 20th 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a Sunday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate and for all the Dad’s out there – Happy Father’s Day! We have a solid 9 game slate here today with a 7 inning game for Atlanta/St. Louis as part of a double-header and some late-day rain concerns at Wrigley Field we will need to manage around.

As I always do, I sit down before I start writing Picks and Pivots and I jot down my player pool for arms to see if there is any overlap between what I like and what Adam likes in Starting Rotation. Well, my top three arms I wrote down were Taijuan Walker, Lance McCullers, and Kenta Maeda – so safe to say, we see things similarly at first glance. My initial builds all had Walker-Maeda and my guess is – that is a cash game pairing today.

Now, nobody wants to read my poor imitation of Adam’s well-articulated analysis – so rather than simply re-focus on the same arms, let me give you some GPP options specifically around the price point of Kenta Maeda, who I would expect is going to draw massive ownership based on price, name recognition, and match-up. If you are using Maeda to get to the same big-dollar stacks, it becomes really hard to find any pivot ownership-wise and so maybe swerving at pitcher is the right way to be different.

Alec Mills ($7K) gets a second straight spot start for the Cubs due to injury after his solid outing against the Mets the last time to the mound. Mills threw 57 pitches in that game, with 6 K’s, and what really stands out to me is the 80% first-strike rate in that game – a key metric for an arm that is not all the way stretched out.

Attacking Miami recently has been a profitable strategy as 9 of the last 13 arms have put up double-digit DK point outings and 6 of the 13 arms have struck out 6 or more in their outings.

Mills has primarily pitched out of the pen for the Cubs this year, but they sent him to AAA earlier in June to stretch him out and he threw 6 innings of shutout ball in his last minor league start before re-joining the big club so I think he can go deep enough to be relevant here today on a slate that is lacking the elite pitching options we want.

Bryse Wilson ($6.9K) is another arm that has been working in AAA and gets a spot start on Sunday in a double-header affair with the St. Louis Cardinals. Wilson is fully stretched out, going 5-6 innings in each of his last 4 AAA starts and we saw his him succeed in his last two starts at the MLB level before the demotion with 20 and 15 DK points against the Jays/Pirates.

Wilson’s splits favor right-handed heavy teams as he has a 21% K rate, 50% ground ball rate and a just a 30% hard contact rate against RHB since the start of last season. The Cardinals will have 5 of the 8 hitters in their line-up hitting from the right-side with a projected line-up that has a 23% K rate and 40% GB rate against RHP, so this is a spot where I think Wilson has a path to success.

In this price range, I think everyone is going to push to Maeda and I understand why but Wilson and Mills have similar paths to 15-20 DK point outings in my opinion and if Maeda struggles, you have immediete low owned leverage in this price point. Even if Maeda hits, I do not think he outperforms either of these arms but a material enough amount to warrant the massive difference in ownership.

One of the reasons Maeda is going to be super chalky today – everyone is going to load up on the Blue Jays versus Matt Harvey and for good reason. You do not need me to wax poetic about why the Jays offense is in the ideal spot today in Camden Yards with 9 innings of guaranteed at-bats against Harvey and Co. The chalk is going to be chalk for a reason – and while I would argue you need to eat it, that is why I also argue that using them with Maeda becomes far too “similar” of a build for GPP’s and why I think we need to pivot somewhere to make our builds different.

Staying in this game could offer us the ideal game stack with the Orioles power bats against Ryu and the Jays pen. Attacking Ryu is simple – you go after him with RHB as he has given up 11 HR’s in 60 innings versus RHB with a 1.65 HR/9 rate.

Behind Ryu is where I think this stack really pays off as the Toronto pen has been among the worst in baseball over the last 7-14 days with a near 6 ERA over the last 7 games with 17 ER’s in 26 innings of work including 6 HR’s. Ryu himself has been at his worst form recently as well, giving up 12 ER and 5 HR’s over his last 3 starts and this Orioles lineup is arguably one of the hottest in baseball ranking top 10 in runs scored and HR’s hit over the last 2 weeks.

We have two high-powered offenses in one of the best hitter’s parks in baseball with 90-degree temperatures, humidity, and the wind blowing out to CF – game stack city!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate seem like a strong one but I also think it could end up very chalky with Maeda and a Blue Jays stack being at the core. Finding ways to slightly pivot with our arms or secondary stacks is the key to making waves in GPP’s today and that is where the focus will be as we get clarity on lineups and ownership.

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!