daily fantasy baseball

Welcome to the Wednesday edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

If you are new to MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, the goal of this article is not simply to list out the “best plays” but rather to walk through the context of the slate and help you identify the best arms and stacks to build around for MLB DFS tournament play. We will use DraftKings pricing as our anchor and help you get a head start on your winning builds!

Early Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a split slate rainy Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we start off with a 3 game early slate that actually has some interesting GPP options for us to explore.

The first key decision that we have to make that will determine our build type and likely our cash position is what we do with Yu Darvish ($9.3K) who is at his lowest price since June against an Arizona team that he struck out 12 against a few weeks ago on his way to 33.4 DK points.

There is no doubt that Darvish has the kind of ceiling that would win us a slate, especially one this small, but it is fair to question his recent form and the dip in his swing and miss stuff. The fact of the matter is, this is a 35-year-old arm, with one start since coming off the IL with back tightness and the last start against the Dodgers should give us some pause.

In that game, Darvish relied on his fastball more than normal but what is most concerning is how much his velocity was down across the board. Against the Dodgers, his fastball was down 1.5 MPH, both his cutter and slider 1.1 MPH, and his split-finger down over 2 MPH. All of this resulted in the Dodgers squaring him up pretty well, with a near 50% hard contact rate allowed in that game.

I talk about this all the time but small MLB DFS slates are always more about strategy and after Blake Snell dominated in this spot last night, I wonder if people see the price drop on Darvish and just blindly click him in. The reality is, there has been more floor than ceiling with the Padres right-handed the last 10 outings and with a recent IL stint due to back tightness and the drop in velocity, I am fine fading him if/when he is chalk because I do think we have viable pivots.

The duo of Kyle Freeland and Jake Odorizzi is where I would move to if you are fading Darvish as they sit right at the $7K price point and I believe they both have paths to match/exceed him today.

Freeland ($7.4K) has been incredible the last month with a 30% K rate and a 33% K rate to RHB specifically which could pay off in a big way against a Texas Rangers team that is likely to go nearly all right-handed against him. In terms of recent form, Freeland has gone for 23, 25, and 27 DK points in his last three outings with 23 K’s over 19 innings of work.

Odorizzi ($6.7K) has also found recent success including a 8K, 26 DK point outing against the same Mariners team he faces tonight and as a sizeable favorite (more on that in a minute), he has a solid path here against a Seattle team with the 4th highest K rate in baseball over the last two weeks. If Houston gets out early, it will allow Odorizzi to pitch comfortably ahead and attack the zone and I think a easy 5-6 inning win gets him to value at this price tag today.

The flip side – if we look at pure metrics, Odorizzi has a 15% K rate the last month with a 48% HC rate to LHB and a .260 ISO to RHB and so while the path to “get there” is clear – he also has the least amount of wiggle room to claw back his DFS output with K’s if things go poorly.

My general take on this early slate for pitching is – well, going to be ownership-based. Kyle Freeland feels like the only arm that I would use regardless of match-up but I think you can make strong cases for/against both Darvish and Odorizzi at potentially elevated ownerships.

No matter which route you go with arms, it requires you to nail your hitters, and today there is one stack I want to plant my flag with – that is all Houston Astros against RHP Logan Gilbert.

Logan Gilbert has hit a very clear rough patch with 19 ER’s allowed in his last 3 starts including a 2 HR, 9 ER drubbing by the hand of the same Astros lineup he faces today. Right-handed batters have smacked him around to the tune of a .361 ISO mark over the last month and with the Astros getting Alex Bregman back, the lineup just becomes incredibly deep and that much harder to navigate through.

In these recent struggles for Gilbert, he is having to go to his fastball far more than he was initially and while the fastball is a great pitch for the lefty at 94+ MPH, the Astros specifically are a team that feasts on the fastball with almost every projected hitters sporting some combination of a .200+ ISO and/or a 40-50% HC rate against his velocity.

To right-handed batters, Gilbert is also using his slider more – at over 35%, becoming essentially a two-pitch arm over the last month and both pitches are surrendering a .330+ ISO mark to RHB over that time.

So how do we prioritize the Astros stack? We want the right-handed batters first and foremost that hit the slider and high-velocity fastball well and that is very clearly the trio of Jose Altuve, Carlos Correa and Yuli Gurriel. After that trio – I think you can go a few different ways, pairing the big LH bat in Yordan Alvarez with the righties and/or using some of the value with guys like Jake Meyers or Martin Maldonado to get cheap fill in pieces.

The fact that the Padres have the highest IRT on this slate at 5.2 which is well above the Astros 4.5, it may keep people off this as their main stack but the recent form of Gilbert says he is the arm we should attack early and often with our pitching pair.

Main Slate Breakdown

The MLB DFS Picks and Pivots main slate is scheduled for 11 games, but with the Mets/Marlins already postponed and the gave in Washington looking like it could have the same outcome- this could become a 9 game slate before long.

The trend continues for me in MLB DFS as we head into the home stretch – we are seeing strong top-heavy pitching slates almost daily now and going double-aces when the slate dictates is exactly the path I want to follow. We saw it last night again that winning build anchored to two high K arms and with Max Scherzer, Chris Sale, Carlos Rodon and Gerrit Cole all on the slate tonight – we would be foolish to deviate off this path.

As Adam outlined in Starting Rotation, with clear pitch concerns for Rodon and the same for Chris Sale against the Rays (a team I simply don’t pick on) – it almost leads you by default to a Mad Max/Cole build and with Cole at a laughable $9.9K on DK – going double aces is a path you can go down without much trouble at all.

Going with two arms with near 35% K rates over the last month in Scherzer and Cole still gives you $3.6K+ per batter on DK and while we have some pricey bats we may covet, I would also argue that there are far more reasonable spots we can attack to make this build type work.

We head to Toronto tonight where there are a few things at play – first the Blue Jays coming off a night as a chalk stack that flopped and now they get a start against RHP Matt Harvey which screams bounce back. On the other side of this game the Orioles will get to face LHP Steven Matz in a game that only a Mets fan could love. Maybe we get Jason Isringhausen and Bull Pulsipher coming out of the pen tonight and we can all relive “Mets pitchers that were supposed to be good.”

The Dark Knight has not been bad in his recent turns but he also has been far from good. The underlying metrics point to a 55% hard contact rate overall with a .286 ISO and 50%+ fly ball rate to the left-handed batters.

The Blue Jays are expensive but there are ways to make this stack work by using a wrap-around technique with the punts of Kevin Smith and Reese McGuire. Also, we need to keep an eye on the lineup because George Springer left last night with a leg injury and there is simply no way there are going to rush him back if he is not 100% after a lengthy injury absence.

So let’s just say we get Jerrod Dyson ($2.1K) in the lineup with punts like Smith and/or McGuire and all of a sudden this Jays stack becomes far more balanced and easy to do. So now all of a sudden a Jays stack with 1-2 punts wrapped around Vladdy Jr., Bichette, Semien and the Jays OF/DH bats.

The way Vladdy is seeing the ball right now he is the scariest fade on the slate and I think you simply have to find a way to use the value I mentioned to make sure you can afford him.

The other side of this game is really interesting to me because of the pitch profile against LHP Steven Matz. Matz is a heavy sinker ball arm, throwing it nearly 60% of the time and while he has done so effectively with little hard contact allowed- this Orioles team is one that hits that specific pitch well.

In fact, all of Ryan Mountcastle, Trey Mancini, Pedro Severino and Anthony Santander have 200+ ISO marks, 40%+ HC rates, and averaged batted ball distance over 300 feet against that pitch type. Now Mountcastleplays the same position as the aforementioned Guerrero, but with Mancini’s OF eligibility – I think there is a path to work him in as something with serious pop.

The way I would play this game stack is as follows – the Orioles you are going power hunting and hoping you get the HR calls right but the Blue Jays you play as a more traditional stack in the hopes their ownership is deflated after disappointing last night.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We get a full day of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots and in both slates we get strong pitching to anchor to which I think needs to be our default build type each and every day!

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 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 14 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Tuesday slate where we have some rain concerns in Philly/Washington, a 7 inning doubleheader game between the Marlins/Mets and a whole lot of top-end arms to sort through!

When looking at this slate, much like we saw last night and has been a trend in recent MLB DFS play, the ace level starting pitchers are becoming key anchors each and every night as a result of their considerable K upside. Last night as an example, going the double ace approach as we outlined here in Picks and Pivots with Corbin Burnes and Robbie Ray gave you a path to the two highest-scoring arms on the slate while still allowing you to take shots on the big bats due to all the value punts we had available.

Tonight – I think we need to approach this slate with that same mindset as we have even more top-tier arms with high K upside but the one difference is we can do so at various price points which makes mixing and matching builds an ideal approach.

Starting Pitching Picks

At the top tonight, we have three arms to pay up for in Walker Buehler ($10.5K), Lance McCullers ($10.1K) and Brandon Woodruff ($9.4K).

Buehler has been a model of consistency no matter the match-up with four straight starts between 25-30 DK points with 8-10 K’s per outing against the Padres, Angels and Mets (twice). Over the last month, it has been his ability to strike out right-handed batters that have buoyed his K output with a 34.4% K rate against RHB and tonight Atlanta projects to throw out 5 from the right side plus the pitcher which adds considerable juice to Buehler’s K ceiling.

Where Buehler has been a model of consistency, McCullers has been far more volatile but the match-up against the Mariners and his underlying metrics reminds me a lot of what we attacked with Burnes last night where the game logs were not indicative of the spot/recent trends.

McCullers ranks 3rd in all of baseball the last months in CSW rate with a 33.1% mark and the Mariners are a team no matter how we slice it – has been an elite match-up for opposing SP’s in recent weeks as they rank 10th in baseball over the last month with a 24.1% K rate and have ballooned to 4th over the last two weeks with a 25.5% K rate. McCullers was in this spot just a few starts ago, where he struck out 8 batters on his way to 25 DK points and had a similar 20+ DK point and 8 K outing against Seattle at the end of July.

Woodruff gets that same spot we attacked with Mr. Burnes last night against the Giants in San Francisco and is coming off a 10K, 35 DK point outing against the Reds where he flaunted his own ceiling. Much like we talked about with Buehler, the splits seem to favor Woodruff in this match-up and he has a 36.6% K rate against LHB the last month, and the Giants are projected to throw out 6 lefties plus a pitcher in a massive pitcher’s park.

Past this top-tier – there is two elite level K arms that are not priced as such in Lucas Giolito ($8.8K) and Blake Snell ($7.7K).

Over the last month, Giolito ranks 1st in all of baseball with a 17.5% swinging-strike rate and sits in the top 10 in CSW with a 30.8% rate over the last 30 days. Pittsburgh sits in the middle of the pack as a K match-up recently but from a run prevention standpoint, this is a great spot for Lucas as the Pirates rank in the bottom 5 in team ISO the last two weeks.

Oddly enough, the best pure K metric arm on the slate may actually be the cheapest of the lot with Snell at $7.7K on DK. Snell leads all of baseball the last month with a 37.8% K rate and is 7th in swinging-strike rate at 15% and has two double-digit K games over his last four outings that have resulted in 33.5 DK and 42.8 DK points, the last one being against the same Arizona team he faces today.

The pitching pool is DEEP tonight – more so than we have had in some time, and on night’s like tonight, I will narrow my exposure solely to this group of high ceiling arms that allow me to target strikeout upside at various price points. With so many good K arms, tonight is not a night to get cute and play guys that “could get there” – I want arms with 25-30+ DK point performances to anchor my builds in all formats and will live and die with this 5 man player pool.

Stacks on Stacks

While so much of my initial focus is on how deep the high-end pitching is tonight, there are an equal number of big-time totals for the offenses when choosing our MLB DFS Picks and Pivots stacks including the Blue Jays with a 6+ IRT against the Orioles.

Now, I know this is going to shock you but today – today we Ray.

That’s right, the Tampa Bay Rays look to be in an incredibly strong spot at home against what is likely to be some sort of patchwork Boston Red Sox starter/reliever parade in what some have assumed will either be a Garret Richards opener deal or they may call-up Brad Peacock to start the game.

With the Red Sox in a midst of a COVID team outbreak, the lineup and pitching staff is in shambles and that short-handed nature means you are likely to get a lot of advantageous match-ups for the best lineup in baseball since the All-Star Break.

Every and any Rays hitter is in play. Every one.

This team has everything we want from an MLB DFS perspective and their price points and position flexibility allow us to go so many routes – you can pay up for the studs like Austin Meadows or punt down to a Kevin Kiermeir – the team has been my favorite to stack all year and the addition of Nelson Cruz has made them so deep.

If Peacock is confirmed the starter, we are talking about a 34-year-old journeyman with a near 8 ERA in AAA, who in his career has struggled with the home run balls to lefties with big time HR/FB splits, and this Rays team is just going to come in waves with power.

My secondary stack tonight that jumps out tonight is well, the same one that did last night – the New York Yankees. Going double aces and a core Rays stacks is basically the same route we did with the Padres last night and it required solid mid-range value to work around them – exactly what the Yankees have tonight against RHP Jamie Barria.

Over the last month, Barria is throwing batting practice with a .200 ISO and 43% HC rate to LHB and a massive .289 ISO and 59.4% HC rate to RHB.

This Yankee line-up is just simply too cheap – with both Anthony Rizzo and Luke Voit under $4K, same with DJ at $3.9K at 2B and you can extend that to Rougned Odor at $3.2K and punt play of the day $2K Andrew Velazquez.

Barria has an over-reliance on the slider – a pitch he throws roughly 50% of the time to hitters on both sides of the plate and over the last month lefties have a .273 ISO mark with 44% HC against it while RHB has .235 ISO and 54% HC rate.

We need to identify the batters that hit the slider well and we have a bunch with Anthony Rizzo, Aaron Judge, Luke Voit, Giancarlo Stanton and Joey Gallo all sporting .200+ ISO marks and 40%+ HC rates.

The Yankees/Rays correlation from a position and pricing perspective works perfectly with a double ace build and my plan to use this strategy at the core of my early build process.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Tonight’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate looks like a great one – with a pretty clear path for GPP and single-entry type builds as we have multiple elite K arms which is where your focus should be as you start your build. Mixing and matching the stacks and using the cheap punts/bottom of the orders for both the Rays/Yankees allows you maximum flexibility and the option to shoot for the ceiling.

Let’s ride today!

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 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 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday slate and a huge thank you to Jared/Adam for covering the MLB DFS content here at Win Daily over the weekend as I had my annual Fantasy Football dynasty draft weekend. I am back and ready to crush this Monday slate after a weekend of adult beverages, steaks, and questionable football picks!

When stepping back and looking at this slate, it is an incredibly top-loaded pitching pool with Corbin Burnes, Zack Wheeler, and Robbie Ray all catching my eye as high ceiling arms we can anchor to. Conversely, the pitching pool past them seems like far more floor options than ceiling, and even the secondary options feel priced to a point where I am better off finding the extra money to just get to the aces.

Robbie Ray ($9.7K) is the cheapest of the three, with arguably the best match-up against the Orioles, and comes into this game with the best recent form that is going to make him the default spend-up option and it is hard to argue a reason against him. The trickier decision though maybe what we do with Burnes and/or Wheeler at $10K plus price tags on DraftKings.

Corbin Burnes ($10.2K) by all metrics is the most dominant arm in MLB DFS this season with demonstrated 40+ DK point upside as a result of his 34%+ K rate. The last month, like many other arms in baseball, that K rate has dropped but what has not is his swinging strike rate which at 17.2% ranks second in baseball over the last 30 days and his CSW rate of 35% is tops in all of baseball.

So while the raw K arms have been more floor than ceiling if you look at it game by game numbers, overall, his swing and miss ability remain the best in the business and I think with Ray cheaper tonight, we may get the opportunity to get Burnes as an ownership pivot.

Burnes will take on the same Giants team he faced back on August 1st in Milwaukee where he struck out 5 batters and now get a sneaky boost as he moves into a massive pitcher’s park in San Francisco and oh by the way gets the Giants having to fly back home after a Sunday game in Atlanta.

As a GPP player, the appeal for Burnes is clear to me early on as I expect lower than normal ownership and for an arm that has gone for 40+ twice in his last ten games, he has the slate breaking ability I covet. While this Giants offense is not one we typically pick on, the fact is we have seen mid-range arms like Marcus Stroman and Frankie Montas rack up 9 K’s each against San Francisco over the last two weeks which gives us a path to a ceiling here for a league-best K arm like Burnes.

Going double aces on DraftKings tonight may not seem like the most obvious path but I think it is far too easy to do as a result of some seriously soft pricing across the slate. If you really look at the top offenses, sure the “main” pieces are pricey but there is a ton of value within team stacks that I think we need to mix and match to give us a roster build that allows for aces and big bats.

The San Diego Padres will take on LHP Tyler Gilbert in Chase field (roof status pending) and getting the Padres on the road with 9 guaranteed innings in Chase Field against a rookie who has given up 57% hard contact rate to RHB and a 55% fly-ball rate could spell serious firepower.

Gilbert utilizes his cutter as his primary pitch and bad news kiddo – the Padres lineup up and down feasts on this pitch type from lefties. Manny Machado leads the team with a .609 ISO mark, while Fernando Tatis Jr. leads the team with a massive 64% hard contact rate. Again – those are the obvious plays and the pricey ones – but dig deeper and you start to see some serious value.

Eric Hosmer ($2.7K) is a sneaky L/L bat in this stack who has incredibly strong batted ball data against the cutter despite the splits working against him. Hosmer has a .250 ISO mark with a 70% HC rate and actually leads the team with a 340-foot average distance traveled on this pitch type. Keep an eye on the lineup here but we may see $2K punt Ha-Seong Kim with 2B/SS which would open another path to salary flexibility and allow us to stack this team up and down with ease.

The other line-up that stands out to me as far too cheap is the New York Yankees who are likely to face an Angels bullpen game with Shohei Ohtani confirmed to start on Tuesday. Whether we get LHP Jose Quintana or recent call-up RHP Kyle Tiller, this Yankees lineup just feels collectively too cheap. Sure you have Aaron Judge over $5K and even Joey Gallo/Giancarlo Stanton sitting in the $4K range but after that, the majority of the Bombers are sub $4K including Anthony Rizzo/Luke Voit, DJ LeMahieu and $2K punt superstar Andrew Velazquez.

In both the Padres/Yankees cases, the ability to go high/low with lineups and mix and match around the ceiling high-priced bats in away games with 9 guaranteed innings makes them my favorite stack pairing, and oh by the way – you can do it with double aces – go ahead, it is too easy.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We start off the week with a solid 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate and it starts with a familiar DK GPP path anchoring to the high K arms we need for ceiling and we can do so with two high powered offenses in favorable match-ups with underpriced stacking options.

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 edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

If you are new to MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, the goal of this article is not simply to list out the “best plays” but rather to walk through the context of the slate and help you identify the best arms and stacks to build around for MLB DFS tournament play. We will use DraftKings pricing as our anchor and help you get a head start on your winning builds!

Early Slate Breakdown

Welcome into another split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Thursday where we start off with a 3 game afternoon slate that should allow us some intriguing GPP strategy to pivot off the field.

With the Angels/Orioles sporting an 11+ game total, my guess is that this becomes the chalk spot for offense as the high implied total and recency bias from last night pushes ownership it’s way.

We also saw this yesterday, when a chalk stack fails, it changes the dynamic of a slate, and yesterday the Cardinals were the most heavily owned stack and we watched Tarik Skubal totally dominate them and suppress the ceiling of everyone who went St. Louis heavy. I am always fine fading the chalk offenses on a small slate with the understanding that hitting is the most variable aspect of this DFS sport.

UPDATE – DraftKings has added Shohei Ohtani ($6K) to the player pool and this totally changes how I see them now. Initially I was fine fading them because their best hitter wasn’t playable but I do think they become a viable mini-stack with Ohtani a core piece with how much value we have.

The Baltimore Orioles side of this game is far more appealing stack in my opinion with Jaime Barria on the mound, who has given up 8 runs and 13 hits over just 5 innings across his last two starts. Barria in the last 30 days has given up a .200+ ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate and a massive 56.3% HC rate. The Orioles are going to hit HR’s today and picking the right bats is key.

We want Orioles hitters that hit the slider well, as Barria throws it nearly 50% of the time to both sides of the plate and with a .286 ISO and 50% HC rate against that pitch type – well, it is safe to say that 50% of the time Barria is throwing batting practice.

The Orioles outfielders have the best-batted ball profile against the slider from righties with Cedric Mullins ($4.4K) leading the team in hard contact rate at 44% and his 200+ ISO and 50% HC rate overall against RHP the last 30 days is the top mark on the team. Pairing him with guys like Austin Hays, Anthony Santander and/or DJ Stewart is a great way to attack the Orioles stack once we have confirmed lineups.

My favorite stack on the board is one I write with trepidation – not because of any strong analytical reason, but because our Reds expert in Discord, Jimmy, always says you don’t play the Reds on a day game.

Sorry, Jimmy but here I am stacking the Reds against LHP Brett Anderson.

If we look strictly at pitch profile, Anderson is an arm that relies nearly 45% of the time on his sinker – a pitch which righties have hit to the tune of a .223 ISO and 52% HC rate this season and an average distance of over 320 feet which is amazing considering he still has a 60% GB rate. Translation – if the hitters can get the pitch elevated – it goes a long way!

So if we are going this route we want to find right-handed batters who hit the sinker well and do so with power – lucky for us, that is basically the entire Reds lineup.

Nick Castellanos leads the team with a .333 ISO and massive 64% HC rate against this pitch type but all of Tyler Stephenson, Kyle Farmer, Eugenio Suarez and Aristedes Aquino have similar .200+ ISO marks against the sinker from lefties. Overall – both Suarez and Aquino have fly-ball tendencies against lefties and that is critical in this case as we want to avoid batters who will play into Anderson’s high ground ball rate. The Reds lineup to me has the most upside potential and it is the spot I plan on planting my flag with on this early slate.

One of the benefits of going with the Reds/Orioles bats is that we have ALL the salary we want to pay for pitching and that means going with a pairing of Carlos Rodon and Sonny Gray. Yes, the match-ups may not be ideal but these are the two highest K arms on the slate and strikeouts are what sets ceilings in MLB DFS every single time.

Gray is going to face a watered-down Brewers lineup with Eduardo Escobar hurt and if Willy Adames remains sidelined, the match boost is even greater in my opinion. Gray is likely to face 5 lefties plus Brett Anderson, which sets up for ceiling with his 28.3% K rate to LHB the last month with a 52% GB rate and a lowely .044 ISO mark allowed.

Rodon meanwhile makes his first start back off the IL and while the match-up against the Blue Jays is a scary one, so is fading a near 40% K rate arm on a three-game MLB DFS slate. The White Sox have already said they will manage Rodon’s workload but if you read the reports (this is a great article) this sounds like a management program that will allow extra days between starts to get the “best version of him” when he takes the mound. If we get Rodon at even 90% of what he can be – his ceiling is unmatched on this slate and I want all of it!

Keep an eye on lineups- we should have everything we need before lock with the games only being 2 hours apart but be flexible and don’t be afraid to leave salary on the table on this slate- it becomes a great way to set you apart.

Main Slate Breakdown

The 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate is one where right off the bat you have to plant your flag – you want pitching or do you want offense, because frankly, it is hard to prioritize both.

One of the main reasons you have to make this choice upfront is that we have top-tier aces like Max Scherzer and Chris Sale but we also have a Boston Red Sox team in Fenway against John Gant and a Twins bullpen day. Put simply – you need to pick the right side of the line to take your stand because you could be left behind in the dust quickly.

To me – I think prioritizing the Red Sox bats wins out over the aces on this slate with Mad Max against a tough Padres lineup and Sale still working his way back from injury – but that means two things – finding cheap arms and a cheap secondary stack.

Just so happens – you can get both in the same game with the Yankees/Athletics with Jameson Taillon on the mound.

Taillon is an arm we have picked on with lefties in the Bronx this year and so tonight against a right-handed heavy team pitching on the road in Oakland, we can flip how we attack this and anchor to Taillon under $8K on DraftKings.

Taillon over the last month has a 30.8% K rate against RHB and Oakland tonight is likely to throw out 6 right-handed hitters and there are a few bats in this lineup that are striking out at a massive rate in Matt Chapman and Seth Brown (L) – both ar 43% rates against RHP the last month. If we get a right-handed heavy line-up and one of the 3 lefties happens to be Brown, this could be a 30+ DK ceiling point spot for the Yankees righty.

Speaking of Yankees – why exactly are they so cheap? Like Anthony Rizzo ($3.4K), Luke Voit ($3.1K) – even Gary Sanchez at $4K. James Kaprelian has really struggled the last month, with a 6+xFIP, just a 15% K rate and a 45% fly-ball rate to match with a .200+ISO mark against RHB.

I bring up the Yankees C/1B bats because I want to find teams with cheaper options that correlate well with the aforementioned Red Sox – and that is the one area the Boston bats are weak – so using Sanchez and Rizzo/Voit to work around the core Boston stack give you some serious pop from a mini-stack.

Going Boston/NYY bats, even with Taillon still forces you to get creative and this is where Brad Keller ($5.2K) comes in. Keller is cheaper than most of the bats we are looking at tonight and considering he is coming off back to back starts against the Cubs/Cardinals where he struck out 8 batters both outings and racked up 22 and 28 DK points, why exactly are we not using this free square against the Seattle Mariners tonight?

Keller is a pitcher we have talked about in Picks and Pivots before, one who has worked to change his pitching approach and relies almost exclusively on a fastball/slider approach that with it – has brought added swing and miss ceiling.

Keller is throwing this slider 40% to 50% of the time to both sides of the plate and that uptick in usage especially to lefties has made a massive difference. We saw this in early July against the Indians and Twins where he struck out 9 and 7 batters, using the slider 50% of the time and getting 12 K’s of his 16 with that approach.

The Mariners are likely to roll out 7 left-handed batters tonight and Keller has a 28.6% K rate against lefties the last month. From a pure K perspective and metrics standpoint, Keller is far too cheap and I think he is the key to unlocking a Red Sox heavy build tonight.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We get two solid slates of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots today and I think there are clear stands we need to take on both when we factor in how the builds present themselves.

I am off until Monday but the team here at Win Daily Sports has your back and believe me when I tell you, they have something special brewing for Friday.

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 edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

If you are new to MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, the goal of this article is not simply to list out the “best plays” but rather to walk through the context of the slate and help you identify the best arms and stacks to build around for MLB DFS tournament play. We will use DraftKings pricing as our anchor and help you get a head start on your winning builds!

Early Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a split slate of Wednesday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we get a 3 game afternoon slate to whet our appetite for the day! This slate is going to be an interesting one strategy-wise because we have solid pitching up top that will likely mean we get really concentrated ownership and similar build types- so the key is how do we get different?

With the Cubs/Rockies game being PPD last night, that means German Marquez gets the same spot we all wanted yesterday and he gets it in a 7 inning double-header which gives him even more potential ceiling. Pairing Marquez with Lance McCullers ($10.3K) is likely the chalky path on DK but it is hard to argue it and I think eating the chalk on pitchers with demonstrated ceiling is the right way to go and we find a way to be different with our bats!

The Detroit Tigers are not an offense we typically lead with but when its 90 degrees with 8-10 MPH winds blowing out and Jon Lester on the hill, well you get all the Detroit bats you can handle!

The Tigers will go with an all-right-handed lineup which is how you want to attack Lester and his .210 ISO and 40% HC rate to RHB. What you want to focus on is getting right-handed batters that hit both the cutter/sinker well since that makes up roughly 40% of Lester’s pitch type against righties and they are the two pitch types giving up high ISO/HC marks.

Jonathan Schoop is the premier must-have bat in this stack with a .300 ISO against the sinker and a .560 ISO mark against the cutter and his 1B/2B eligibility on DraftKings makes him an ideal building block due to his position flexibility.

Lester has really altered his pitch type the last month, going far more sinker-heavy but it has come with some troubling metrics overall – a 49% HC rate, an 11.3% K rate, and a bloated 11% walk rate to match. It looks like Carlos Torress will be the home plate umpire today and umpire data matters for a guy like Lester who counts on getting the low/fringe strike calls due to his lack of swing and miss stuff. Torres in his home plate career, allows 11% more runs to score than the average umpire with a 7% boost to slugging % and all that comes with a lower than average strikeout rate.

With the hot temperature, the wind blowing out, recent trends working against him and a hitter’s umpire – today could be a serious beatdown for our old friend.

Now I would assume the IRT’s of the Astros and Cardinals will make them popular plays early but remember, strategy matters more than anything on small slates so I think going off the wall and stacking the Rockies against Kyle Davies is the right secondary play!

If we look at the last 30 days, no pitcher on this slate has been worse from a power metrics perspective than Davies who has given up a .433 ISO to LHB, a .406 ISO to RHB with a bloated 57.4% hard contact rate. In his last two home starts, he gave up 4 HR’s to the Padres and 3 HR’s to the White Sox so even in a 7 inning game – this Rockies team has the potential to win you a GPP if Davies is serving up batting practice.

Davies is a sinker/change-up arm so finding the bats that do the most damage against those pitch types is key since it accounts for essentially 90% of his pitch mix.

Trevor Story has a .298 ISO and 46% HC rate against the sinker and almost identical .267 ISO and 44% HC rate against the change-up which makes him my favorite play on this Rockies side.

The key with the Rockies is finding the HR bats you want to target in your stack – because this is a 7 inning offense, I want to target the bats with the best power profile and use them as a 3 man mini-stack alongside the Tigers.

Main Slate Breakdown

The 10 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate is well- a pitching bonanza! You can literally make a strong case for 10+ arms on this slate and with so many good pitchers, it is not a shock at all to see just 3 teams with IRT’s over 5. I think what we are likely to see as a result is some serious offensive chalk (looking at you Angels) and the pitching ownership being largely spread out.

I am not going to try and simply reiterate what Adam broke down in Starting Rotation because he really nailed the way to look at the top/mid-range arms. However, I want to add on one arm that is on my DFS radar this evening and that is $5K Miami starter Edward Cabrera.

Any time a consensus top prospect with 90+ strikeouts in just 60 innings of work gets a call up from the minors – we better take notice and this kid’s stuff is SERIOUS.

Cabrera has a high 90’s heater with sink that can touch triple digits and he has really perfected his change-up and slider that acts like a curve with its the sweeping break. You are looking at a dynamic talent for just $5K and with so many arms, he may get overlooked tonight just because of the name-value we have at the top tier.

The name of the game tonight in MLB DFS GPP play is getting offenses right because, with so many strong arms, the reality is – getting pitchers right is almost a pre-cursor tonight and it is what your bats do that will set you apart.

There are two offenses that jump out to me tonight that correlate really well on DraftKings – the Cleveland Indians and the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Indians are going to get a date with Rangers LHP Jake Latz, a “prospect” that has spot-starter type ceiling – basically just a minor league arm that is being pushed into duty here. Latz is a 25-year-old lefty who has pitched only 9 innings above AA and ranks as the Rangers 50th best prospect – again, this is a depth-type guy with no real pitch profile to be wary of.

The Indians are a line-up with serious pop against lefties and it all starts in the middle of the order with Amed Rosario, Jose Ramirez and Franmil Reyes. Over the last month especially, this trio is raking against lefties with both Rosario and Reyes sporting .250+ ISO marks with Franmil leading the team with a 60% HC rate while JRam leads the squad with a .425 ISO mark.

The Phillies meanwhile take on the Tampa Bay Rays and yes I know, I did not write up the Rays for once – see, I have some depth! Rays lefty Ryan Yarbrough has really hit a rough patch the last month against RHB specifically with .388 ISO allowed and a massive 65% FB rate which in Citizen’s Bank Park could spell disaster.

Yarbrough relies heavily on the cutter to RHB, throwing it over 40% of the time and it has been hit to the tune of a .733 ISO and 56% HC rate with an average distance of 353 feet the last month- not great Bob.

The right-handed trio of Rhys Hoskins, JT Realmuto and Andrew McCutchen all have 40%+ HC rates and 300+ average distance traveled metrics against this pitch type wits Hoskins having a massive fly-ball batters profile which sets up perfectly against Yarbrough’s tendencies. Hoskins is going yard tonight – book it.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

There is nothing better than a full day of MLB DFS and Picks and Pivots is ready to roll! On both slates today, we have strong pitching and I think the bats are what win us the day as we need to find ways to build around the arms with ceiling while not sacrificing hitting upside.

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!