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daily fantasy baseball

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Wednesday, September 15th

Gary Gustafson 4 years ago

written by 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!

https://twitter.com/WinDailySports/status/1437227177091682315

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!

4 years ago 0 comments

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Tuesday, September 14th

Gary Gustafson 4 years ago

written by Gary Gustafson

Welcome to the Tuesday 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!

https://twitter.com/WinDailySports/status/1437227177091682315

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome to an MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Tuesday where we are back on the grind after a big NFL Sunday! First and foremost, a huge congrats to Jon and Big T – two of the Win Daily Sports family that hit BIG on Sunday – what a way to kick off the NFL season!

When stepping back and looking at this 12 game MLB DFS slate on Tuesday, what stands out is the plethora of top-end pitching with elite strikeout ability and the presence of a New York Yankee lineup with a 6+ IRT against the Baltimore Orioles in Camden Yards that will likely draw the lion’s share of offensive ownership.

So let’s just explore that for a second because we need to take slate context, the player pool at large, and the pricing into account before you simply list off “best plays.”

Finding the Chalk

The single most glaring aspect of this slate is how cheap the Yankees bats are against LHP Alex Wells, who has given up a .246 ISO mark and 49.2% hard contact rate to right-handed batters this season. Sure the big bats like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are $5K and up but the rest of the Yankee lineup is affordable – with Luke Voit ($3.8K), Gleyber Torres ($3.7K) and Gio Urshela ($3.5K) all offering solid mid-range value.

I bring this up because the bats for New York will be popular and are also not all that cost-prohibitive which will allow MLB DFS players to not only grab the stack but use Gerrit Cole ($10.7K) as the clear cut SP1. From a metrics perspective, Cole is everything we want to anchor to – the clear top-dog in elite recent form with a 36% K rate the last month which ranks 4th in all of baseball. Like we argued yesterday with Sandy Alcantara, when you get an elite K arm in top recent form, those become the guys you anchor to on DK as SP1’s every single time out.

The fact you can get Cole and a Yankees stack so easily are what jumps out to me at first glance and I struggle to see a path today where this is not the stone chalk concept – for good reason. I will ALWAYS argue to play the top-tier K arms – on every slate, every single time. Pitching, and pitching with strikeouts, is what will give you ceiling performances and so Cole to me is the chalk to eat and simply move on and while I want to tell you that the Yankees bats are something we can fade – DraftKings made the pricing such where it gets difficult to even make the argument. I will always say, however – MLB DFS hitting is the most variable aspect of the game so if the Yankees bats are chalk and you want to find pivots – on a 12 gamer – we have options.

Finding the Pivots

The SP2 pairing and secondary stack become critical pivot points for us now in GPP build’s where we opt to get some Bronx chalk. If we see ownership later today and the chalk SP2 or secondary stack is where you are landing – that is where you move off – again, if you go Cole/Yankees as chalk, this is how you find ways to be different.

There are two SP2’s and two stacks that stand out to me as great correlated plays with our core concept and I think we can get builds that work well with a mixture of both.

First, let’s talk pitching – and how dominant Nathan Eovaldi ($9.6K) was the last time out against the Rays. The single most glaring thing about that start was how Eovalidy totally changed his pitch type – going to his curveball over 30% of the time which was by far the most he had used it in any start this season and it accounted for 50% of his strikeouts in that outing. That change in pitch type and strategy and the success he had with it – makes him an intriguing case but I also do wonder, with how chalky E-Rod was last night, is this a spot where game log watchers go to him as a default SP2 despite the price increase?

My favorite SP2 though is someone we talked about last time he took the mound and I am going right back to it after his price went down. What if I told you there was an arm on this slate with a 26% K rate the last month, who has a 14.5% SS rate and has struck out 6 and 7 batters in each of his last two starts where he went 6 innings and 100 pitches.

Welcome to Jackson Kowar ($5K) night my friends.

If you went this route with us last time you saw the good and bad with Kowar, an electric K arm but a youngster still finding his way. The Royals right-hander have up 6 ER on 2 HR’s but managed 11 DK points due to the 7 punchouts. We talk about this all the time – K’s are king in MLB DFS and they can get you DFS output even when the pitcher gives up runs.

What is interesting about this match-up tonight is that the Oakland A’s are right-handed heavy, with 6 of the 9 batters projected to hit from the side of the plate that Kowar has a 28% K rate against. The change-up is the key for Kowar with 5 punchouts on that pitch type in both of his most recent outings and his ability to use it as a putaway pitch to RHB is what makes this a tantalizing ceiling spot at minimum price.

One of the benefits of going Cole/Kowar tonight is that you can really pay up for a secondary stack and two teams – the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox – have a correlation that fits perfectly with where we want to build around the Yankees core stack.

With Jordan Lyles and Tyler Anderson opposing these lineups, we get a chance to attack high ISO and HC arms with visiting teams and guaranteed 9th inning at-bats that fit around where the Yankees bats may be weaker.

Against Lyles, the reality is we have multiple paths to attack as he has a 1.8 HR/9 rate against LHB and a 2.25 HR.9 rate to RHB with 45%-50% HC rates to both sides so do not be afraid to stack this up on either side. The Astros once again could be a great high/low lineup with elite top-end bats like Yordan Alvarez but also $2K punts like Siri/McCormack in the OF.

Anderson on the other hand is far more traditional in terms of his splits with the right-handed batters sporting the higher power metrics with a .207 ISO mark and near 2 HR/9 rate. The change-up has really been the pitch to righties that have been walloped with a .467 ISO mark from RHB the last month – and both JD Martinez and Hunter Renfroe have .250-.300 ISO marks against that pitch type from southpaws.

We talked about this a lot yesterday – but secondary stacks are always more about position correlation and how they fit around your core stacks more than anything else. So if you are going Yankees at the core of your build – do not sacrifice for a secondary stack – simply find the one that fits best around it.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This is a strong MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Tuesday slate and one where I think we will see highly concentrated ownership which is always fascinating for a 12 game slate where we have so many viable pivot options.

I do think that ownership will become an incredibly important part of our decision-making tonight and where and how we choose to follow the chalk and where we find pivot paths off it. On a slate of this size, we won’t have trouble finding ways off it but we need to be smart and strategic in how we do it!

4 years ago 0 comments

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MLB DFS: Aces and Bases for Tuesday – 09/14

Joel Bartilotta 4 years ago

written by Joel Bartilotta

Welcome to the Tuesday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 12 game slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.

My goal today will be to walk you through my 3 favorite pitchers and 3 favorite stacks on the day.

Let’s dig in to tonight’s slate!

MLB DFS: The Aces

Gerrit Cole ($11.4k) vs. Baltimore Orioles – If we get a full clean bill of health on Cole before the game tonight he becomes the clear SP1 on the night. Even with his poor outing against the Blue Jays last week Cole still has a 36% strike out rate over the past month. All of his metrics are separate him from his peers.

He has the highest CSW of any pitcher tonight, the lowest xFIP, and one of the lowest swinging strike rates. He gets a great match up vs. a poor Orioles team. While the Orioles have been better of late vs. righties, they’re still striking out more than 25% of the time vs. righties over the last month. Again, if we know Cole is healthy tonight, he’s my clear SP1.

Lucas Giolito ($9.8k) vs. Los Angeles Angels – This is another pitcher with a questions mark surrounding his health. Gio is expected to come off the IL tonight after a short stay. If we get confirmation that he’s a full go with no limitations I’m going to give him a serious look. He gets as good of a match up as there is tonight against strike out prone Angels team.

Over the least 30 days the Angels are striking out nearly 28% of the time vs. righties. The only guy in this lineup that isn’t striking out much vs. righties is Fletcher but if we look at his other numbers, we should be fine letting him put the ball in play as he has a .176 wOBA against righties over the last month.

Gio’s main put away pitch is his changeup. If it’s on tonight he has a chance to have a ceiling type game. If we look at the Angels projected lineup tonight it’s a pitch that they struggle with. They all have high whiff rates.

Nathan Eovaldi ($10k) vs. Seattle Mariners – Eovaldi has been on a roll of late. Over the last month his 30% K rate is second only to Cole of the pitchers on the mound tonight. Eovaldi is going to face a lefty heavy lineup. The projected Mariners lineup tonight should have 7 lefties in it.

As we look into the Eovaldi’s splits, this is in his wheelhouse. Over the past 30 days he’s striking lefties out at a 33% clip and has held them to a .255 wOBA. He’s going to throw lefties his curveball almost a third of the time tonight, similar to what he did to dominate the Rays last night. In looking at the Mariners lineup the majority of them have whiff rates over 30% to this pitch. This has the makings of another solid Eovaldi outing tonight.

I’m staying in the upper tier of pitchers tonight. The pitchers in the mid to low tiers all look awful on paper and we could make a strong case to stack against all of them.

MLB DFS: The Bats

San Francisco Giants vs. Jake Arrieta – You have to think at this point we are seeing the last few stats of a pitcher that had a very solid career. The last few years have been a big struggle for Arrieta, with this year being his worst by far.

On the year he has a 5.21 xFIP and just a 17% K rate. Once an extreme groundball pitcher, Arrieta is giving up one of the highest fly ball rates of his career this year at 31%. This match up vs. the Giants is as bad of a match up as Arrieta could have. Arrieta relies heavily on his sinker. This Giants lineup is extremely solid vs. sinkers.

The guy I’m targeting first here is Brandon Crawford ($3.4k). On the year he has a .741 slugging % and .515 wOBA vs. sinkers. I’ll be building around Crawford with Wade ($2.9k) and Yastrzemski ($3.3k). Both guys have slugging %’s over .500 and wOBA’s over .400 vs. sinkers this year. All three guys stand a chance to smash tonight.

Houston Astros vs. Jordan Lyles – Lyles is a favorite of mine when it comes to stacking against in DFS. He provides what we need, homers. Over his last 30 innings of work he has given up 9 homers. That’s just an absurd number and one we want to chase tonight.

Lyles is someone that is pretty poor against both sides of the plate so I’m not going to be overly concerned with splits here. My hope is that the Astros play it safe with Brantley and sit him for another game. They have a 6.5 game lead so I don’t see them rushing him back. If he sits and Jose Siri ($2k) plays tonight he becomes a free square.

This isn’t about chasing his performance from last night. It’s about what he unlocks with the rest of the lineup. He frees up salary for guys like Alvarez ($3.6k), Bregman ($4.2k), and Tucker ($3.4k). All three of those guys are the guys hitting righties the hardest now and would be the core to my Astros stack. The Astros will probably be chalky tonight, but we have a full slate of games and ownership should be more spread out.

Washington Nationals vs. Jesus Luzardo – I’m looking to the Nationals again tonight for some value. Let’s start with the match up and then we’ll get into pricing later. Luzardo has not been good with the Marlins. Over the last 30 days he has a near 5 xFIP and is giving up hard hits and fly balls more than 35% of the time. He’s also walking a ton of batters with a 4.68 BB/9.

I really only want to focus on the righties in the Nats lineup. Luzardo has a near 70% GB rate vs. lefties and I really don’t want any part of that. What I do want is a part of the 45% fly ball rate he’s giving up to righties over the last 30 days. The guy I repeatedly look at for value and continues to be under priced is Lane Thomas ($2.3k). He’s near min priced and since 8/31 he has 9 games with at least double digit FD points with just one goose egg. He’s also been extremely solid vs. lefties with a .308 ISO and a .600 wOBA against them over the last 30 days.

Other value plays I like here are min priced Riley Adams ($2k) and Carter Keiboom ($2.4k). Both guys have ISO’s over .250 vs. lefties over the last 30 days. They probably won’t win you a GPP on their own merits. What they will do though is give you enough salary relief to fit in the players that will.

MLB DFS: The Wrap Up

My pitching tonight is focused on the top tier. I don’t trust any one else and we’ll have enough value to fit a top pitcher and a top stack tonight. The Nats players I like fit well with either the Giants or Astros. With the NFL on a break for a few days we’re back to having some solid tournaments to play. I hope these picks help you get to the top.

Good luck and hope to see you in the green!

Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD 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!

4 years ago 0 comments

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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Monday, September 13th

Gary Gustafson 4 years ago

written by Gary Gustafson

Welcome to the Monday 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!

https://twitter.com/WinDailySports/status/1437227177091682315

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome to an MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday where we are back on the grind after a big NFL Sunday! First and foremost, a huge congrats to Jon and Big T – two of the Win Daily Sports family that hit BIG yesterday – what a way to kick off the NFL season!

Secondly, after just laughably bad MLB DFS contests selection yesterday, let’s hope DraftKings does not continue with that trend on Sundays going forward. The way yesterday was set up, it was the easiest decision ever to simply skip the slate and I promise you – I will always be transparent if a slate is bad or the contest selection is not there – you need to take it off, and yesterday that was exactly what I was coaching members to do!

Thankfully today we have a solid 7 game MLB DFS slate and good contest selection and even better – the NFL newbies are going to infiltrate MLB DFS today to get their itch so we are going to get some folks playing that – well, shouldn’t be. However, for those of you at Win Daily Sports – we are going to break this down for you and help you build a strong lineup tonight for tournaments whether this is your first time playing MLB DFS all year or your first time since, well – we did this Saturday.

First and foremost, we need to decide on how we attack the pitching pool here, in what appears to be a really top-heavy sort of slate without much value we are going to feel good about. With Clayton Kershaw on a pitch count, we can safely move on but I do not think we have to move far and can anchor to the dup of Yu Darvish and Sandy Alcantara.

Sandy Alcantara ($9.6K) comes into this game in the best form of any pitcher on the slate, with a 35.2% K rate the last month which ranks 5th in all of baseball behind just Snell, Ray, Max and Cole. Yeah – that is how good he has been. His 32.1% CSW rate ranks 6th in baseball and his 18.1% SS rate is second in the league the last 30 days and so while his price tag may seem high, I would argue it is not high enough. Alcantara has double-digit K’s now in 3 of his last 4 outings and this spot against the Washington Nationals, should not be one that takes us off arguably the best pitcher on a short slate.

Yu Darvish ($9K) was a pitcher I was yelling to fade last game due to consistent dips in his velocity since his return from injury and then all he did was go out and shove 7K’s in 6 innings down the Angels throat. Listen, forget the game logs – go to the velocity – that is the key – it was back and it was a significant jump. The fastball which had been sitting in the low 93 MPH range his previous two starts was back up to 94.8 MPH which was actually above his season-long metrics and all of a sudden the swinging strike rate jumped with it.

That is all I needed to see – and the fact he is priced at his lowest point in 3 months is crazy. We are getting a significant discount on an elite K arm pitching in a pitcher’s park in San Francisco – it is simply too easy to go double aces today and that is the route I would suggest you all start with – this is not the slate to get cute with pitching.

Now if you are new to MLB DFS, looking to take some of those NFL winnings and double down – welcome to our little secret here at Win Daily Sports where we stack the best offense in baseball every single day at single-digit ownership. Welcome to Tampa Bay Rays Headquarters!

The Rays get a road game in Toronto, a guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats and a match-up with RHP Alek Manaoah. Now, Manaoh is a talented arm but the underlying metrics would tell you this is a brutal spot for him with his struggles against LHB and especially those who attack his pitch mix.

Over the last month, Manoah has a.6.48 xFIP and much of that is due to his struggles from left-handed batters, who are hitting him to a .323 ISO clip and overall his 1.8 HR/9 rate top LHB is where you want to attack. The Jays right-hander relies heavily on his sinker to left-handed batters – and hitters from that side are clocking it to a .364 ISO and 43% HC rate the last month.

Here is a secret that the MLB DFS family here has known for weeks – the Rays simply hammer sinkers from right-handers, so go ahead pal – throw ’em – it will end in some big-time points for our stacks.

Want proof? Sure you do.

Here are the big Rays lefties against sinkers:

Brandon Lowe – .233 ISO, 51% HC rate and 305 feet avg distance traveled
Austin Meadows – .297 ISO, 41% HC rate and 335 feet
Ji-Man Choi – .171 IS), 61% HC rate and 307 feet

Now what is interesting is that Manaoah throws the sinker even more to righties but its been far more effective – in fact, he has given up just a 5% HC rate on it to RHB the last month which is pretty incredible. The flip side is that the Rays have right-handers with staggering power numbers against the pitch type so this is true strength versus strength type matchups.

Nelson Cruz and Mike Zunino both have high ISO and high HC rates against this pitch type and even more so, they both hit the slider well, which is utilized just as much as the sinker to right-handed batters.

When stacking here today, my focus would be the start with the lefties and get at least 3-4 of them in but then use the right-handed batters as “fill-ins” with the expectation that you have a game flow where they get to Manaoah early and get the bad bullpen arms to follow.

The Rays have so much value in the lineup and it is underutilized in how most stack this team – because you can take guys at the bottom of the lineup like Kiermier and Walls, especially as a road team where you can use the wrap-around stack and get them with Lowe/Meadows up top. This is one of my absolute favorite strategies to use when Stacking the Rays and it is so under-utilized.

There are two teams that I think make for strongly correlated stacks with the Rays – the Cardinals/Astros. Both teams give you punt/value options in the OF but even the big bats in the IF are priced at a level where you can mix and match them with the Rays big hitters.

The Astros allow you a similar wrap-around approach with cheapies at the bottom of the order like Chas McCormick ($2K) punt and Catcher Martin Maldonado. The Cardinals meanwhile have a value-heavy OF with Dylan Carlson and Harrison Bader sitting in the $2.7-$3K range in the OF. In both instances what you are doing is attacking road teams with guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats that correlate position-wise with the Rays stack as a priority.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Tonight’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is a strong one – and I one where I think we have more landmines than obvious plays so it could be the ideal tournament night where we simply take the clear approach with double aces and still have the ability to stack the big bats.

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MLB DFS: Aces and Bases for Sunday – 09/12

Joel Bartilotta 4 years ago

written by Joel Bartilotta

Welcome to the Sunday Funday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a nice sized 10 game slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.

My goal today will be to walk you through my 3 favorite pitchers and 3 favorite stacks on the day. With today’s slate we are going to see a much smaller tournament pool with NFL starting. Today’s a day to scale back as the risk just won’t worth the reward. At first look I wasn’t going to play, but it’s a fun looking slate so I’m going to play.

Let’s dig in to today’s slate!

MLB DFS: The Aces

Logan Webb ($9.7k) vs. Chicago Cubs – Logan Webb has been one of the best and most consistent pitchers over the past month. Over his last 7 starts he hasn’t been under 40 FD points, with 3 of them going for at least 50. With a match up vs. the Cubs today I see no reason he doesn’t get to 40 again.

Let’s start by looking at why he’s been so great over the last month. The two things I’m looking at the most are his strike out rate and his groundball rate. He has a 31% K rate and 66% ground ball rate. When he’s not striking batters out, they’re mostly hammering the ball into the ground.

During his hot stretch he’s faced teams like Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Oakland. All very solid offenses. The Cubs pale in comparison to those offenses. Look for Webb to be the top starting pitcher on the day.

Max Fried ($9.3k) vs. Miami Marlins – Over the last month the Marlins have really struggled vs. southpaws. The projected lineup today has a near 30% K rate vs. them and just a .132 ISO. I’m going to look to take advantage of that with Max Fried.

Fried himself has been pretty good over that same stretch. He’s pitching to a 2.91 xFIP and has really been doing a great job at keeping hitters in check. While his K rate is only at 24% over the last 30 days, his match up gives him some upside. The Braves are looking to pad their division lead so they’ll be banking on a solid performance from Fried. Really like his chances of giving us value today.

Sonny Gray ($9.2k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – I’m sticking with the 2 guys I mentioned fist, but Gray gives us another option that has some K upside today. Over the last month his K rate is sitting at around 22% which isn’t that great. But it’s higher against righties and he’s going to face a team loaded with righty bats today.

Also, the Cardinals have been striking out a ton over the past week as they have a 29.7% k rate. We’ve seen the Cardinals fall asleep against righties at time this year and today could be a day for Gray to have a ceiling game. He’s a high risk/high reward play.

MLB DFS: The Bats

Philadelphia Phillies vs. Ryan Feltner – We don’t have much to go on w/ Feltner because he made his debut a week ago. That debut did not go as intended as he got rocked for 6 ER in just 2 innings of work. Both sides of the plate lit him up.

With the Phillies we have a team that’s currently in the playoff hunt. This time of the year those are going to be the teams that we focus on as they’re still going to be putting their best lineup out there. We also have a team in the Phillies that has some really hot bats.

The three Phills I’m going to be focused on today are Bryce Harper ($4.4k), Jean Segura ($3.2k), and Brad Miller ($2.4k). Those three guys give us a mix of expensive, evenly priced, and cheap. They are also the Phillies hottest hitters. All three have OPS’s greater than 1.000 over the past week. Harper is as locked in as I’ve ever seen him. He has 5 homers and 7 barrels over the last 7 days. He’s making his case for MVP down the stretch. Look for the Phillies to put a big number today.

Chicago White Sox vs. Nick Pivetta – Looks like Pivetta has hit a bit of a speed bump as pitching has been a of a struggle for him recently. He’s given up 4 ER in 3 straight games. If the White Sox can be patient at the plate today they should have a dominant game. I preach patience for the White Sox because Pivetta’s struggles of late have come with the walk.

In his last 10 innings he’s walked 10 batters. That’s not going to cut it. Outside of his walks, he’s also been getting hit pretty hard. He’s giving up a 44% hard hit rate over the last 30 days and a 44% fly ball rate. Pivetta’s been giving up more hard contact and more fly balls to righties and that’s where I’m going to hang out today.

The righties I’m focused on are Jose Abreu ($3.8k) and Luis Robert ($3.9k). Both guys have been hitting righties well over the last month. Abreu has a .250 ISO against them and Robert has a .425 wOBA. The value plays I like in this lineup are Garcia ($2.5k) and Goodwin ($2.2k).

While Pivetta’s been better against righties, he’s still susceptible vs. lefties. Both Garcia and Goodwin will provide us the value we need and have wOBA’s over .340 against righties over the last month.

Washington Nationals vs. Bryce Wilson – The Nats are my cheap stack today. I’ve recommended some pretty pricey guys so far so we’ll need more value. The Nats are going to provide that today with a great match up vs. Wilson. Wilson is someone I like to attack because he gives up a lot of hard contact and doesn’t miss many bats.

Over the last 30 days his swinging strike rate is just 9% and his hard rate is approaching 40%. 40% isn’t overly high but when you look at his low SwStr% it means he’s putting more balls in play which means more hard hits in play. Wilson has also been a reverse splits guys and the righties from the Nats are cheap.

Righties have a 56% fly ball rate and 50% hard hit rate against Wilson over the last month. Kieboom ($2.6k) and Thomas ($2.4k) are really my top values here. Thomas has been very serviceable of late with 6 games of double digit FD points in his last 9 games. At that price he’s going to be a great value if he continues playing like he is.

If you want to prioritize the Nats today over the other teams I mentioned, both Bell ($3.6k) and Soto ($4.5k) are swinging hot sticks with OPS’s greater than 1.000 over the last 7 days. They should both do very well today and will probably be low owned.

MLB DFS: The Wrap Up

My lean right now is to use either Fried or Webb. I love how the Phillies and White Sox fit together and I’m going to prioritize getting them into my lineups.

Good luck and hope to see you in the green!

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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Saturday, September 11th

Gary Gustafson 4 years ago

written by Gary Gustafson

Welcome to the Saturday 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!

Split Slate Saturday

Welcome into a split slate Saturday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots with two solid slates of Saturday baseball we can sink our teeth into but first, I want to take a moment to simply recognize today as the 20th anniversary of September 11th. For anyone of my generation, and especially for anyone like me who grew up in the NYC area, this is one of those days you remember everything about – where you were, who you were with, what the next days were like, etc – and those feelings you had 20 years ago, just take a moment to reflect on them today all those years later.

You will hear many stories about what this day meant to people but what I remember, most honestly were the days after. Maybe it was the haze and disbelief of that day that make it far more surreal but the following days and the feelings are something I won’t ever shake. The unity of the country, the outpouring of love across communities everywhere, and the genuine appreciation we had for being able to hug our friends and family. Tonight, the Mets/Yankees will play in New York and I am sure that Mike Piazza home run against the Braves will be played a million times – it doesn’t matter – the roar of the crowd gives me chills every single time. Sports were a way of healing then and today they still have the power to bring us together. Take time to remember that day and the days after – and remember that same unity, love, and appreciation we all felt and bring it into today.

Early Slate Breakdown

On this six-game early MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, well frankly – it SCREAMS the Picks and Pivots life and I am not sure a build could come together much easier at first glance. It all begins with two ace arms in Corbin Burnes and Zack Wheeler who are priced over $10K on DraftKings with the 30%+ K rate metrics that we covet when building our DFS lineups. Strikeouts are king, and pitching on small slates sets the tone – so today getting the chance to take these two as foundation pieces seems like the clear path.

The reason it becomes almost entirely too easy is because of how the pricing on the bats are set up – going right back to the well with the highly correlated Rays/Brewers stacks that once again SCREAM value.

The Rays take on Casey Mize and the Tigers and the right-hander has had pretty drastic splits this season with his struggles against left-handed batters really standing out – with a .258 ISO mark, 52% HC rate and 2.37 HR/9 rate.

The obvious plays are going to be Austin Meadows and Brandon Lowe here and with Ji-Man Choi back, this Rays lineup can flip to attack from the left side with ease but I am going to be fascinated to see what kind of lineup Kevin Cash throws out tonight. With Wander Franco injured last night – how will the Rays lineup look tonight? We could end up with multiple value bats here from the Rays with Taylor Walls, Kevin Kiermeir and Josh Lowe all viable options and all silly cheap batting from the left side.

The Brewers absolutely smashed for us last night and the pricing is still just laughable here today against Dan Plesac and the Indians with the wind blowing straight out at 15-16 MPH in Detroit today.

Plesac is a reverse splits arm with a .223 ISO, 43% HC rate and 1.91 HR/9 rate so the preference is to go after him with right-handed batters first and specifically ones that can hit the slider he throws over 40% of the time. Avisail Garcia leads the team from the right side with a 315 average distance traveled on that pitch type while Luis Urias has a .205 ISO and 43% HC rate. Over the last month, Garcia has a .326 ISO and 60% HC rate against RHP and at just $3.3K on DK is a slate-breaking HR call at a cheap mid-range price point! Garcia is going deep today kids.

Again, depending on the line-up here we could get multiple $2K punts with Daniel Vogelbach, Rowdy Tellez and Lorenzo Cain all at minimum price. You want double aces, big bats, and two highly correlated stacks – this is it kids – don’t overthink it.

Just one reminder – the Blue Jays/Orioles game is only a 7 inning double-header and 4 of the 6 games start after 6 PM even though the lock is at 4 PM EST so strategically – backloading your builds to give you maximum flexibility is key and the Rays/Brewers give you exactly that.

Main Slate Breakdown

The MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate is fascinating to me because even with just 8 games, it has a little bit of everything – we have ace level arms, we have multiple team with 5-6 IRT’s and the pricing is such where I think we can get really creative with our GPP builds.

I feel like the default build at first glance is going to be Charlie Morton ($8K) against the Marlins and a whole lot of Twins bats with a 6 IRT against Brady Singer and the Royals. While I get the Morton love (but be prepared for massive ownership) – let me say, I officially don’t get attacking Brady Singer ($6K).

If you guys have been following along Picks and Pivots, you know Singer is an arm I have been pushing for weeks and this has come as a result of his a new pitch mix approach which has frankly, made him totally different pitcher.

Singer has 5-6 K’s in each of his last 4 starts, with 15, 17, 18 and 29 DK points coming against offenses like Houston (2x) and the White Sox last time out.

https://twitter.com/alec_lewis/status/1435298776479043590

Over the last four starts, Singer is using his slider nearly 45% and it has brought with it a 12% SS rate – guys this is a totally different pitcher and the results are showing. Now it is scary to see the 6 IRT for the Twins and going against Vegas, well rarely works out, but this may be the ultimate leverage SP2 play tonight – especially if you choose to use Morton chalk – pairing him with Singer could make for GPP gold!

Going down to Singer as an SP2 opens up all the bats and that is good because I want all the Houston Astros tonight against LHP Jose Suarez and the Angels. This is not an indictment necessarily on Suarez because his numbers have been solid but let’s not overlook the fact that he is still giving up a near 50% hard contact rate to right-handed batters which will be – well, most of the Houston lineup tonight and the righties have a .200+ ISO and 46% HC rate against lefties this season.

Suarez is a ground ball heavy arm who relies on that to keep his LOB rate up and strand runners. Over his last four starts, you are starting to see where the luck may be playing into it just a bit – with an 80% plus left on base rate and an xFIP a full run higher than his ERA. So if/when regression hits – it’s going to hit hard and this Astros lineup is as deep as we have on this slate – so going full in with the Astros bats and banking on regression for Suarez is a key part of this main slate strategy.

The other lineup with a ton of big-name power tonight is the LA Dodgers against RHP Chris Paddack. Paddack is giving up over a 1.5 HR/9 rate to both sides of the plate and 45% plus HC rates and this Dodgers lineup – well, you know the drill – is just going to come at him in waves as the late night hammer. Paddack has a 5+ xFIp the last month with a 56% HC rate allowed and so going Dodgers heavy here tonight alongside the Astros will give you an incredible offense-centric build with massive upside.

We are seeing Paddack have to rely more and more on his fastball, and anytime you are throwing a fastball to big league hitters 60-75% of the time – it is bound to get you in trouble especially with a 12% K rate the last month. Both Mookie Betts and Max Muncy have .400+ ISO marks against the fastball velocity and 60% HC rates and I would anchor my builds to these big bats this evening!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Enjoy today’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slates as we have two good ones and a chance to build our bankroll heading into the first NFL Sunday of the season!

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MLB DFS: Aces and Bases for Friday – 09/10

Joel Bartilotta 4 years ago

written by Joel Bartilotta

Welcome to the Friday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a big 13 game slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.

My goal today will be to walk you through my 3 favorite pitchers and 3 favorite stacks on the day.

Let’s dig in to today’s slates!

MLB DFS: The Aces

Robbie Ray ($11.2k) vs. Baltimore Orioles – Not sure what else there is to say about Robbie Ray at this point. He continues to go out and mow down batters. While his price is steep he’s someone that has unmatched strike out ability on this slate.

Over the last month he has a 40% k rate. He has 4 straight games with double digit strike outs. W/ a match up against an inconsistent Orioles team there’s no reason to think he can be slowed down. The Orioles haven’t been as good against lefties recently and have a 24% K rate over the last 30 days vs. them. I’m locking in Ray tonight in my lineup and not looking back.

Michael Wacha ($8.5k) vs. Detroit Tigers – I’m not as in love with this pick as I am with Ray, but Wacha has been pretty good over the last month. He has 3.18 xFIP and his K rate is approaching 30%. Of all the pitchers on the slate tonight there are only 2 others that have been striking out more batters over the past month than Wacha.

Wacha gets a decent match up too tonight as the Tigers offense hasn’t been doing much over the past week. They have a 26% K rate with limited barrels. At the end of the night tonight Wacha will be one of the higher scoring pitchers.

Tyler Mahle ($9.9k) vs. St. Louis Cardinals – After Ray, there really isn’t much to love tonight. The majority of the pitchers have tough match ups but I think we can get some value with Mahle tonight. We’ve seen at times the Cardinals lineup go cold.

They’re in one of those stretches right now as they have a 27% K rate over the past week and haven’t done much in the power dept. They have 6 barrels over the past week and only 38 hard hit balls. League average over the past week is 54 hard hit balls so they are underperforming compared to the rest of the league.

In Mahle we’re getting a pitcher that has a 27% K rate over the past month and has done a nice job in limiting the hard hits w/ just a 24% hard hit rate. The Cardinals could wake up at any point, but I like Mahle’s chances of having a solid game tonight.

MLB DFS: The Bats

Tampa Bay Rays vs. Matthew Boyd – Boyd hasn’t pitched much over the past month but from his two outings we can decipher that he’s not sharp. In both outings he last only 4 innings. In those 8 innings he’s managed to give up 3 homers. With the Rays current lineup we know that we can chase homers against Boyd.

Since coming off the IL it’s been righties that have been giving him the most trouble. In 35 PA righties have a .345 ISO against him. I’m going to load up on Rays righties tonight. The first two that I’m targeting are Mike Zunino ($3.4k) and Manual Margot ($2.3k). Let’s start with Zunino who is having just an amazing year. Over the past 30 days he has an unreal .773 ISO against lefties. I’ll let Brian do the home run calls, but Zunino has a great chance to have a solid night.

Other Rays I’m interested in are Nelson Cruz ($4k) and Jordan Luplow ($2.2k). Cruz is another guy that is absolutely crushing lefties right now with a .321 ISO over the last month. Look for the Rays to have another one of those monster nights tonight.

Minnesota Twins vs. Daniel Lynch – Lynch is going to be a good pitcher one day. He’s just not there yet. It’s been a struggle for him so far at the Major League level. Over the last 30 days it’s been an even bigger struggle as his xFIP and SIERA are both sitting in the mid 5’s. Lynch has very clear splits that we can take advantage of. He’s dominant against lefties. But righties. Righties are have a .405 wOBA against him over the last month.

He gives up way more hard contact and fly balls to righties. The middle of the Twins lineup is where I want to sit tonight and they are all very affordable. Refsnyder ($2.2k), Donaldson ($3.1k), Sano ($3.2k), and Rooker ($2.4k) are all extremely cheap given the match up. On a night where we want to get Ray and then the Rays, having a lineup like the Twins will help us afford what we want.

Milwaukee Brewers vs. Eli Morgan – Morgan is another pitcher I want to pick on. He’s part of the young crop of pitchers that the Indians are developing and he’ll be solid one day. Right now, he’s just giving up way too many mistakes.

Over the last month he has a fly ball rate pushing 50%. In just 23 innings of work he’s managed to give up 8 barrels. If Morgan had a higher K rate I’d be willing to overlook the barrels but with a K rate of around 23% over the last month he’s just getting into too much trouble. Morgan also has some pretty clear splits.

Lefties have a hit distance more than 70 feet farther than righties do against him. With the Brewers I’m going to live at the back of the lineup tonight. Narvaez ($2.4k), Vogelbach ($2.3k) , and Tellez ($2.3k) are all underpriced for the match up vs. Morgan tonight.

MLB DFS: The Wrap Up

I’ve listed 3 pitchers tonight but that’s only because my bosses require me to. I’m sticking w/ Ray tonight as he just has so much upside. With the stacks I laid out you should have no issue fitting in the Rays plus Ray plus some decent Twins.

Good luck and hope to see you in the green!

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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Friday, September 10th

Brian Tulloch 4 years ago

written by Brian Tulloch

Welcome to the Friday 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a Friday Night MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate – a strong 10 game slate with a good contest base on DraftKings that we can sink our teeth into and build some bankroll heading into a football and NASCAR weekend!

Let’s just get this one out of the way because to me, it is the must-have building block on the slate without any care how highly owned he will be and that is Robbie Ray as our SP1. There has been no better strikeout pitcher in baseball the last month than Ray with a 40%+ K rate, and while his $10.7K price tag is high, considering he is coming off four straight double-digit strikeout starts, including a 10K 33 DK point effort against the same Orioles team he faced tonight – well, maybe he is not priced up enough.

The SP2 decision is really where your decision process starts and I will be honest – the options by and large, are not overwhelming. We have great name value up top in bad match-ups and some shaky value in the mid to lower end of our player pool.

While it may be tempting to drop down to SP2 values that “can get there” – I am always going to anchor to the top arms when I can and I think paying up for both tonight will be contrarian. Framber Valdez ($9.1K) gets arguably the best match-up tonight of any arm against an Angels team that is striking out at the second-highest mark in baseball the last two weeks at 26.6%. The recent trends give you some potential upside but the flip side of this argument is that Valdez has just a 17% K rate against RHB the last month and the Angels are projected to flip the lineup over and roll out 8 of the 9 batters from the right side.

We have seen mediocre lefties like Keegan Akin, Cole Rivin and Austin Gomber all put up 20+ DK outings against the Angels since the break and Blake Snell just dominated them for 30+ DK points. I will always side with arms over bats and tonight going Ray and Valdez gives me K upside and the ability to still anchor to big time stacks.

It is a day that ends in Y and the Tampa Bay Rays are on the slate – on the road against the Detroit Tigers and LHP Matt Boyd. Over the last month, Boyd has seen his metrics spike to RHB with a .345 ISO and 45% fly ball rate and that is bad news with the Rays being able to flip their lineup to hit southpaws with power.

Over the last month, the right-handed bats in this Rays lineup have a massive .329 ISO with a 45% fly ball rate and a 45% hard contact rate. All of Manuel Margot, Wander Franco, Nelson Cruz, Jordan Luplow and Mike Zunino have .200+ ISO marks with Zunino’s numbers just looking fake – a .773 ISO and 72% HC rate – seriously. Stack the Rays. People won’t. We will. Rinse. Repeat.

One of the reasons we can do double aces with the Rays is the insane pricing on the Milwaukee Brewers bats – seriously, what is happening? Milwaukee has the highest IRT on the slate against RHP Eli Morgan, a pitcher who over the last month has a .260 ISO and 61% fly ball rate to left-handed batters and Milwaukee is just simply too cheap.

Christian Yelich is $3.9K. What?

You need a punt 1B – how about Rowdy Tellez and/or Daniel Vogelbach at $2K.

Eduardo Escobar is the most expensive bat at $4K.

Seriously – it is almost too easy today to go double aces and Rays because of the pricing on Milwaukee. Lock and load kids – we eat tonight!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

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MLB DFS: Aces and Bases for Thursday – 09/09

Joel Bartilotta 4 years ago

written by Joel Bartilotta

Welcome to the Thursday edition of Aces and Bases. Today we have a small 4 game slate of MLB DFS on Fanduel to navigate through.

My goal today will be to walk you through my 3 favorite pitchers and 3 favorite stacks on the day.

Let’s dig in to today’s slates!

MLB DFS: The Aces

I’ll start by saying no pitcher is safe tonight. It’s a weird slate in which the highest priced pitcher is just $9.1k. If you are playing the slate tonight, play light.

Jose Berrios ($9.1k) vs. New York Yankees – After a slow start to his Blue Jays career Berrios has really settled in nicely over the last couple of starts. He has struck out 18 in his last 13 innings of work.

Over the past month he’s sporting a slate leading 26% K rate and 3.69 xFIP. He’s been doing a great job of getting ahead of hitters with a 67% first strike %. He does have two red flags tonight. One being the match up isn’t the greatest as the Yankees are a tough lineup but from a pure K ability he’s the top pitcher tonight.

The second being that he’s been giving up a healthy amount of hard contact at 35.9% over the past month. The one reason I may lock in Berrios tonight is that he Yankees are struggling a bit this week with a 28% K rate. Can Berrios take advantage of a team on a downward spiral?

Ranger Suarez ($8.6k) vs. Colorado Rockies – Suarez may be the safest of the bunch tonight as he gets to take on a Rockies team that is nowhere near as good away from home. Suarez has also been very solid of late. Over the past month he has 3.79 xFIP and hasn’t given up a single homer in over 26 innings of work.

Suarez has one of the heaviest sinkers in the game and gives up just a ton of groundballs. While the Rockies lineup isn’t too bad against sinkers, most of that has to do w/ sinkers not doing a whole lot of sinking in Coors. Suarez has 3 straight outings of at least 34 FD points, with a 42 point effort against a solid Rays teams. Look for Suarez to be the top scoring pitcher on the night.

Antonio Senzatela ($8.4k) vs. Philadelphia Phillies – I expect this game to be a low scoring affair as we have *cough* two of the top pitchers on the slate throwing here. Senzatela isn’t a high strike out pitcher but if we look at the slate tonight, only 2 pitchers have a K rate greater than 24% over the last month.

In Senzatela we have a pitcher that stands a good chance to limit the damage. He’s an extreme ground ball pitcher with a 50% groundball rate over the past month. This has led him to give up just 1 homer in the last 33 innings of work. In his last 3 outings he’s scored 30 FD in each. During that stretch he’s faced the Dodgers and Braves. If he can perform well against those 2 lineups, he should also do well tonight.

MLB DFS: The Bats

Baltimore Orioles vs. Carlos Hernandez – I anticipate Hernandez being chalky tonight because of the match up against the last place Orioles. On a small slate like tonight I want to attack a questionable chalk choice. Hernandez has a bunch of red flags over the past 30 days.

The first being there’s a huge gap between his ERA and xFIP. His ERA is sitting at 2.55 while his xFIP is more than 2 runs higher. Here’s what I think is causing that delta. He’s given up 6 barrels in just 24 innings of work. So at least 1 per game. He’s getting behind on a large amount of batters with a first strike % of 57%. Lastly, he has a .232 BABIP. There’s been some luck on his side and at some point the luck is going to run out.

Surprisingly, the O’s have flipped the scrip a bit of late and are hitting righties much better. Over the past 30 days the O’s have 4 batters with ISO’s greater than .360 against righties. Mullins ($3.4k) has a .385, Mountcastle ($3.5k) has a .406, Santander ($3.3k) has a .367, and Stewart ($2.7k) has a .500. Look for the O’s to get to Hernandez early and then get a beat up pen for the Royals.

Toronto Blue Jays vs. Nestor Cortes – We have one team in the Yankees that are in a tailspin and a team in the Blue Jays that are fighting like heck to pass the Yankees in the standings. At the point in the season we are in, that’s where I want to go with my stacks. A team fighting for something that is playing great ball.

The match up for the Blue Jays is also solid. The sweet spot to attack Cortes is batters from the right side. Over the last 30 days righties have a 51% fly ball rate and 40% hard hit rate. They also have a .213 ISO. With the Blue Jays we have a lineup loaded with righties.

It starts with Alejandro Kirk ($2.6k) who is extremely under priced considering his recent form. Over the last month he has a .308 ISO against lefties. If we go with even more recent data, he has a 1.412 OPS and a wRC+ of 270 over the last week.

Teoscar Hernandez ($4.1k) burned me on Sunday, but we have to have short memories in DFS. Over the last 30 days he has a .464 ISO vs. lefties. Those two are my building blocks here but the entire lineup is in play. Don’t be scared to load up on the back end of this lineup. That’s where you’ll see the lower owned guys in what will be a chalky stack.

Kansas City Royals vs. John Means – Means’ biggest struggles of late have come against righties. His ISO jumps from .143 against lefties over the last month all the way up to .415 to righties. The good news for us is that the Royals have a few righties that are really hitting the ball hard. Over the last week one guy that continues to go under the radar is Michael Taylor ($2.5k). He has a 45% hard hit rate and a 35% line drive rate. He’s seeing the ball really well right now and gets a great match up tonight.

I’ll also look to grab Perez ($3.9k) who is riding a 7 game hitting streak. Look for him to take Means deep tonight. This game has the potential to be a shoot out tonight. You’ll want to grab bats from both side of this game.

MLB DFS: The Wrap Up

Pitching tonight is going to be tough. My lean right now is to go safe and grab Suarez who will provide us a decent floor. We don’t typically chase a floor, but on a night like tonight we may need to. A game stack of Bal/KC may be the way to go and the Baltimore side should be under owned.

Good luck and hope to see you in the green!

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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Thursday, September 9th

Gary Gustafson 4 years ago

written by Gary Gustafson

Welcome to the Thursday 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a 5 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate here on Thursday where, well let’s be honest – the slate is not overly exciting and DraftKings decided to scale back considerably on the contest selection with the NFL kicking off and the smaller baseball slate. I really hope this is not indicative of what DK will do going forward but history would tell us we will start to see MLB DFS contests scaled back especially on the weekends.

My advice to you as we head down the homestretch – if the contest selections are not good, scale back and/or take slates off. Never go full FOMO and play for the sake of playing – stay diligent in your bankroll management and keep grinding when the opportunity is right.

This 5 game slate starts at 6:40 PM EST and it is entirely front-loaded with every single game starting by 7:20 PM EST so we should have all the lineup news we need with plenty of time to spare before lock which is a nice added benefit of this slate (I am looking for silver linings people).

With it being a short slate, this is going to be one of those “strategy over best plays” deals I talk about in Picks and Pivots where we need to play against the field more than we would typically and account for ownership as we see it unfold.

With the Atlanta Braves sporting a 6+ IRT, my guess is we see a whole lot of ownership push to the expensive Braves bats and if that is the case, it may mean many similar build types due to salary constraints.

What that may mean is that the “high-priced arms” like Marcus Stroman and Jose Berrios become secondary priorities for people and my guess is most will go with one OR the other instead of both to jam in the big bats. However, I think with both arms sitting in the low $9K range, there is a path here to locking in the best floor/ceiling arms together on a short slate.

Marcus Stroman ($9.4K) will take the mound in Miami against the Marlins and while the Stro Show is not someone I typically look to pay top dollar for, I think his recent form and the Marlins recent trends set up ideally for a strong game from the Mets right-hander. Over the last month, Stroman has a 26.6% K rate and he gets to take on the most K heavy team on this slate with the Marlins who have struck out at the third-highest rate in all of baseball the last 14 days at 25.3% while also sporting the lowest ISO rate in baseball at just .116.

This is a high K spot for ceiling with considerable run prevention floor so paying up for Stroman here seems like the clear SP1 path. My only issue with Stroman, watching most of his starts as a Mets fan, is he is far more a pitch to contact guy and last game against the Nationals with the Mets up 9-0, he really struggled to put away hitters in a spot where he should have been going after them with such a big lead. If Stroman is insane chalk (think 75% or more) – I am fine playing the fade game and hoping for floor because as you will see in a moment – I think the Mets offense gives him a similar game script today where they get up big early.

Jose Berrios ($9.2K) is the fascinating play on this slate because his metrics would say he is perhaps the highest K ceiling arm but his recent boom/bust nature and a match-up in Da Bronx makes this the logical spot people move off of because of the inherent risk and desire to get more bats in their builds.

Over the last two games, we have seen the ceiling Berrios can deliver with 7 and 11K’s against the A’s and Tigers and there are a few underlying stats/metrics that make me believe he is turning the corner. First, his velocity has ticked up in each of his last two outings from season-low marks in August and that has coincided with increased use of his curveball – so more fastball velocity and leaning more on his highest K pitch – seems like a recipe for more strikeouts.

Berrios also saw a significant spike in his first pitch strikes – getting 75% of his pitches over for first-pitch strikes. There have only been two other games this season where Berrios got ahead at that rate – twice in July – and both games he had ceiling efforts with 8 and 10 K’s respectively.

This is not rocket science – get ahead in the count and use his curveball as his putaway pitch. Berrios to me has the kind of upside that I want to anchor to on a small slate and my hope is, people opt to pay down at SP2 tonight and leave Berrios under-owned.

The last arm I have interest in tonight as a pay-down option is Antonio Senzatela at $6.8K. Senzatela is a pitcher that MLB DFS players tend to pick on especially in Colorado and I never quite get why as he has significant ground ball metrics that suppress runs. Now the K metrics are not high by any means but they improve materially on the road and this is an arm that has put up double-digit DK outings in 8 of his 10 starts. If you are trying to jam in bats and are not sold on the Stroman/Berrios pay ups – Senzatela is my preferred SP2 play.

If the Braves and their 6+ IRT are the chalk then pivoting to other offenses is the move today. In fact, there is almost no need to eat hitter chalk on this small slate because the large majority of arms stink – so getting any ownership edge with our stacks is how we win today.

Over the last month, LHP Jesus Luzardo has been dreadful by all underlying metrics with a 5.70 xFIP, a 11% walk rate, with .300+ ISO marks to both sides of the plate and a 46% hard contact rate that is driven primarily by a 50% rate to right-handed batters.

Every single one of his offerings to right-handed batters the last month is getting hit hard with his fastball and curveball, which account for 35% of his pitch types, at .450+ ISO marks and the change/sinker which make up the rest at .300 ISO marks combined.

The Mets are by far my favorite stack on the slate today with Pete Alonso and Javier Baez my top two bats. Both hitters absolutely destroy the sinker from lefties with Big Pete sporting a decent .895 ISO and 58% HC rate with an average distance of 360 feet and 100 MPH+ exit velocity. Pete is going deep today. Book it.

The Mets are the road team here, so we get 9 innings of guaranteed at-bats and with switch hitters like Villar/Lindor at the top of the order it will make R/L splits once they get past Luzardo totally meaningless.

The other spot I love today is in Atlanta – and no, it’s not the Braves, it is the Washington Nationals. I have a feeling that Huascor Ynoa will be a popular pitching choice on this slate and considering his near 50% HC rates to both sides of the plate, this Nationals lineup has sneaky power appeal.

Over the last month, the Nationals bats have some staggering metrics against RHP with Juan Soto (.444 ISO and 57% HC rate) and Josh Bell (.341 ISO and 58% hard contact rates) leading the team. With Lane Thomas a cheap lead-off option with high fly ball tendencies and hard contact rates to boot – this top of the order Nationals stack could be the low-owned pivot off a potential chalky pitcher that vaults us up the leaderboards.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Tonight’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is not the best and it is one you should scale back bankroll accordingly on – but that does not mean we cannot get an edge in our GPP play and so staying locked into ownership in Discord will be key.

Lock in early, get some MLB DFS profit with us then kick back and watch the opening night of the NFL season!

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