draftkings mlb dfs picks

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!

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

Early Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Saturday where we begin with a 6 game early slate that includes a 7 inning double-header game between the Mets/Nationals. One thing to note is the starting times of these games – we have two games that start after 4 PM EST despite the 1 PM EST so there is a real chance we will not have lineup news for the later games by the time lock rolls around which is always a concern on these daytime slates.

When looking at the starting pitching on this early slate – the overarching theme is that it is far more floor than ceiling and DK has priced us to where are paying for perceived safety versus slate breaking upside. Jose Berrios at $10K after failing to crack double-digit DK points in 3 of his last 4 games starts us off and well, it seems aggressive to quite aggressive.

Marcus Stroman ($9.6K) takes on the same Nationals team he has faced twice in the last month, putting up 27 and 15 DK points, and gets the added boost of this being a 7 inning game. Jordan Montgomery ($8.8K) is a ground ball/soft contact machine that has not eclipsed 20 DK points in a month so this is another case where you are paying for run prevention versus K upside.

The issue you have is that going any lower on this slate – well, you have similar run prevention options who do not have the K ability to offset runs allowed and there is a real concern you could have a negative score from your SP’s.

So while I do not feel good about paying up for “safe” arms – I think it is a necessary evil on this slate and my advice is to build backwards and mix and match the arms as your salary allows. Taking the safe path with 20DK points from your arm may allow you to outpace the field in a significant way and I think it’s the path of least resistance.

So here we are – going double aces and well well well – the Tampa Bay Rays are on the slate. I swear guys, I don’t set out to do this but why are we kidding ourselves. Take the clear path because we all know we are the only ones who realize how deadly this lineup is.

Let’s make this one simple – if you get a lefty on the mound – you start with Zunino, Cruz and Arozarena. Albers threw his sinker as his primary pitch and guys, come on – we know the drill – who hits the sinker well from the right side? Yeah, Mike Zunino and his .300 ISO jump out but the real prize is Randy Arozarena and his – wait for it – .550 ISo and 81% HC rate.

Guys – Arozarena is hitting an HR today on a sinker. I will let you screenshot it right now. Go ahead – I will wait. See you later for the victory lap.

After the big “3” it becomes a lineup-based decision and much of that will depend on if Wander Franco is back in the lineup or not after missing Friday’s game with concussion-like symptoms but we will likely get some value like Manuel Margot and Jordan Luplow in the OF at $3K price points.

Now how do we afford the Rays and double aces? Well – my man Adam gave us an awesome path with Pittsburgh but I want to roll out another idea for you – how about the New York Mets?

Yes, I know it is a 7 inning game BUT the Mets are the road team so we get guaranteed 7 innings of AB’s which is a key decision point when playing this double-header bats and DraftKings really took the pricing down accordingly with almost every bat $1,000+ cheaper than they were last night.

Erick Fedde is a sinkerball arm who at home this year is giving up a 1.7 HR/9 with 45% hard contact and the Mets left-handed bats are stupid cheap today! Michael Conforto ($2.7K) is a free square today – the dude rakes against sinkers – a .338 ISO and 48% HC rate and you can pair him with the Squirrell – Jeff McNeil ($3K) who has a .200+ ISO mark of his own.

My goal today is simple – two top-tier arms, 5 Rays, and 3 Mets left-handed bats. Ride the wave baby!

Main Slate Breakdown

We have an 8 game MLB DFS Main Picks and Pivots Slate – well, assuming we get the all-clear with the Reds/Tigers game which seems like the one risky spot we have to watch. So here we are again with another small slate with Coors Field and its lofty run total staring at us to play the chalk.

I have to be honest – I have been staring at this slate all morning. I don’t really like it.

I know you come here for advice on who to play but to be truthful, this slate stinks. I hate the arms, I don’t love the offenses and the more I try and build the more I dislike it.

So – here is my advice – don’t play it.

My goal in Picks and Pivots is to teach you to be a successful MLB DFS player – it is never to give you the “right plays” or hand you a build. The goal is always to make you a player that can succeed on their own using the principles we outline here.

One of those – one we rarely talk about – is taking slates off.

Yeah, FOMO is real and it will drive people to play “just because” – but that’s how you make mistakes and drain bankroll.

So instead take the slate off. If I don’t get a good feel on a slate (like tonight’s) then I simply don’t play it.

This is something I NEVER did starting out playing DFS but it is something I learned over the years and it has made me a far more consistent player who avoids the dreaded “deposit” button.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

So we step back and look at these two MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slates and my advice is simple – rock the first one, play some NASCAR mid-day and then take the night off – grab a cold one and enjoy the evening.

Good luck tonight all! Let’s keep that hot streak rolling! Come join the Win Daily Sports Team – grab a Gold Membership and take advantage of all the tools, articles, and expert coaching we can give you to make you a consistent winner in DFS.

Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @2LockSports and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT account here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!

Welcome to the Friday 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 my friends to a 14 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Friday Night slate of baseball where we have a mostly clear weather outlook, with some slight rain chances in Colorado and KC but nothing that should result in postponements and a smaller slate.

We once again have a Coors Field game on the slate with a slate high 11.5 game total but unlike last night we have a larger player pool and 6 other teams with 5+ IRT’s that we can pivot to which should result in far less ownership than the 40-50 and even 60% ownership we saw last night on some of the Braves bats.

Pitching Picks

Unlike last night and the last few nights, the pitching is well – not nearly as strong at the top end and the fact that Adam Wainwright is the highest-priced arm on the slate in 2021 at $10K tells you everything you need to know. I think what this likely means more broadly from a roster construction perspective is that the lack of must-have high-priced arms will mean everyone and their mother is able to load up on the bats.

While I am not overly interested in Waino, I do have interest in Nathan Eovaldi ($9.8K) against the Cleveland Indians. Over the last month, the Red Sox right-hander is quietly among the best K arms in baseball with a 28.6% rate that has him ranked 14th in the league over that time frame and he is doing it by dominating left-handed batters.

Over the last month, Eovaldi has a 34.1% K rate to left-handed batters and with the Indians, a team he just faced and struck out 7, projected to throw out 5 left-handed batters – I think we have a serious path to ceiling here once again.

In that last outing, there are a few things that jump out to me past the box score – Eovaldi had a 14.4% SS rate which was far higher than his season metrics and he did it with a pitch mix change – relying heavily on his slider and curveball and threw his fastball just 35% of the time which was his lowest mark of any start this season.

One thing that is interesting in reading about Eovaldi is this strategic use of a quick pitch where he changes the end of his delivery, simply striding forward to deliver the ball to the plate instead of going through his fullleg kick.

This awesome view from Pitching Ninja shows the overlay and the difference in his delivery.

That timing difference in the eye of the batter is massive, especially for a pitcher with 98 MPH gas coming at you. This was a move that Eovaldi used on Franmil Reyes last game to get a K and his continued changes in the delivery type and pitch mix, make me really bullish on a ceiling game here tonight.

Not far down the player pool is another high K arm in top form recently with Vladimir Gutierrez ($8.5K) at home against the K-heavy Detroit Tigers. Gutierrez has really been able to dominate RHB the last month with a 32% K rate and the Tigers are projected to roll out half their lineup from the right side while also losing the DH heading to a National League park.

We talked about this yesterday with Frankie Montas, but this match-up has screamed ceiling for opposing right-handed arms with 4 of the last 9 going for 30+ DK points and while Montas stumbled late yesterday, he was on his way to a similar outing with 7 K’s before some late runs knocked his performance down.

The one arm sitting among the league leaders in K rate the last 30 days that frankly, I did not expect was Cal Quantrill ($7.2K) who has a 29.5% K rate over the last month and he is doing so with a 38.5% K rate to LHB. Quantrill is coming off the same match-up with the Red Sox he just struck out 6 batters against on his way to 21 DK points and his price went down from $8.3K to $7.2K. Insert Ryan Reynolds – “But Why” GIF.

What is great about this slate for pitching is that it is not “as bad” as it may seem but it also lacks obvious plays – and as Adam Strangis mentioned in Starting Rotation, that may lead to condensed ownership on the “names” like Shohei Ohtani or a $5K punt like Glenn Otto. I have a feeling the arms I mentioned above are all going to be 15% or lower owned today once ownership shakes out – and if so, I think we have a path to really building around strong K arms that most people will overlook.

Stacks on Stacks

I am not going to waste your time here with Coors Field – it is Coors, it will be popular and with a lack of top-end arms, it will be a default option for many.

Yawn.

It is a 14 game slate – there are a ton of other strong offenses we can target and so as a GPP player, please all go play chalk bats in Colorado and the rest of us can find low-owned stacks that give us GPP ceiling. If the chalk hits so be it, if it doesn’t – well, these are the kind of tournament slates you can make massive bankroll gains.

It has been a long time since I went to this spot – honestly, I cannot even remember the last time I did – but tonight, this is a spot I think the New York Mets bats break out in a big way against LHP Sean Nolin and the Washington Nationals.

After not pitching in the bigs since 2015, Nolin returned to the Nationals rotation 3 games ago and has made 2 of his first 3 starts against this very same Mets lineup. For a pitcher with a low K pedigree, seeing the same team 3 times in 4 turns could spell disaster and the fact is, this Mets lineup has seen the ball well against him.

In 8 innings against the Mets, he has given up 14 hits, 6 ER, and 3 long balls with Kevin Pillar blasting two against him last game. If you dig into those two games, Nolin has a SIX PERCENT soft contact rate so this is a spot where a career mid-teens K rate guy is going to give up contact and lots of loud contact at that.

The two big hitters against left-handed pitching for the Mets are Pete Alonso and Javy Baez who have .345 and .290 ISO marks respectively against LHP in 2021. I would imagine the red-hot Jonathan Villar and Kevin Pillar after his two HR performances get the nods here again today and the price points on most of the Mets allow us for some serious mid-range pop in a balanced 4-5 man stack.

Finding a team to correlate with the Mets tonight led me to another team that honestly – I can’t recall stacking recently. It is odd, but when is the last time I mentioned using the Tampa Bay Rays.

Oh wait – I do that every day.

The Rays take on Randy Dobnak – a right-hander who throws the sinker 50% of the time. You guys know the drill – when the Rays face a sinkerball arm you lock in Austin Meadows and Brandon Lowe and you don’t think twice.

Against the sinker – Lower has a .232 ISO and 50% HC rate, while Meadows has a .296 ISO, 45% HC rate and an average distance of 340 feet. This duo is at the core of my builds today and they correlate perfectly with the Mets bats no matter how their lineup breaks.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Today we have a great MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate for GPP’s and one that I think we can really capitalize on with low-owned builds that pivot off the likely heavy chalk of Ohtani and Coors. If you want to play the chalk – go for it – I won’t and tonight is the perfect night I think to play the slate differently.

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 a split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Thursday where once again we get a 3 game early slate to dive into – now, let’s just hope the pitchers perform better than yesterday’s mess!

This slate to me looks and feels a lot like yesterday in the sense we have three clear top-level arms that it seems like we need to anchor to with Aaron Nola, Logan Webb and Frankie Montas.

All three have strong cases with 30%+ K rates over the last month which is the ceiling we are hoping for if we decide to go this route. Aaron Nola ($9.5K) to me is the one pitcher I think we can lock in regardless of the opposing lineup with 32 and 33% K rates to either side of the plate. The decision on your SP2 with Logan Webb or Frankie Montas, is where you can get a bit more picky based on the opposing lineup.

Webb has been dominant the last month with a 34% K rate but that is wildly skewed due to a 42% K rate versus RHB while the LHB sit at just 25%. Milwaukee is projected to throw 6 left-handed bats today so there is an argument to be made that Webb’s K upside is limited with the splits.

Montas meanwhile has a similar story the last month with a 31% K rate overall that is buoyed by a 42% K rate to RHB versus a 21% K rate to LHB and the Tigers confirmed lineup has 7 hitters from the left side. Now the flip side – right-handed SP’s have flourished against the Tigers lately with 4 of the last 8 going for 30+ DK points so Montas has the higher ceiling of the two in my mind.

So how do we decide? While Webb has the better ballpark, Montas faces a Tigers team with the higher K rate over the last month – but the real deciding factor in some odd way could be the start time of these games.

With the Giants game not starting until 3:45 PM EST which is well after the 1:10 PM EST lock and the start of the other games, the likelihood is we don’t have lineup information on Webb to make a decision so some of it may simply be seeing what Montas has to deal with against the Tigers. Play the known versus the unknown basically.

With Webb/Montas at similar price points – it should not stop us from building – and I think starting with Nola and either SP2 and then anchoring to an Oakland A’s stack is the way to attack early.

Matt Manning is a talented pitcher but he is also an arm giving up nearly 50% hard contact over the last month and the LHB specifically are squaring him up to the tune of a .333 ISO. The biggest issue is the sinker which Manning throws nearly 40% of the time and is giving up a .330+ ISO mark and all the lefties in the A’s lineup hit this pitch well. So start your builds with Matt Olson, Jed Lowrie and Tony Kemp who all have .225 ISO marks and 45%+ HC rates.

Main Slate Breakdown

The 5 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate has a little bit of everything as we have top-end arms, a game in Coors Field with a near THIRTEEN implied run total and some solid contests on DraftKings to make this a really appealing short slate to play.

With both slates today being smaller than usual, ownership and strategy play a massive part and I think this 5 game slate is even more so due to the Coors Field impact. If everyone and their mother is stacking Coors, well the other offenses by default will be overlooked and the build types will likely be largely similar.

If you have ever read Picks and Pivots – the simple truth is – you know what is coming next. Everyone, please go look at the shiny Vegas Coors totals – we will stack the best offense in baseball and do so with double aces.

Yep, it’s a Double Ace/Rays day – because, well it is what we do.

The spot for Shane McLanahan ($10.1K) against a depleted Red Sox lineup screams ceiling especially when you consider the last time he faced them at home he struck out 7 and racked up 26 DK points – and that was before the team got gutted with COVID outbreaks.

Triston McKenzie ($9.3K) has struggled this year but the last two starts are a reminder of his upside with 8 and 11 K’s and 32 and 43 DK points. Now the Royals are getting healthier with Aldaberto Mondesi back but the last two games for McKenzie give us a double ace-high K duo that the Coors Field lovers simply won’t go after because they won’t be able to afford it.

Meanwhile – the Rays offense is priced reasonably against LHP Eduardo Rodriguez and with Nelson Cruz and Jordan Luplow in this lineup now, the Rays become deep and dangerous against lefties which was their bugaboo all year.

The RHB in this lineup has a .236 ISO and 47% HC rate against southpaws the last month and I would argue they are the most dangerous offense on the slate that I expect will be totally overlooked.

The one spot we can find value today easily is in Cleveland with the Indians against LHP Mike Minor. Over the last month, Minor has given up a massive .284 ISO and 49% HC rate to RHB and the Indians are going to have 9 of them – with a whopping 6 priced at $3K or less. You want value and the match-up – this is the spot!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Today we get a full day of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots and with two short slates, navigating through ownership is KEY. I say this all the time but these slates are always strategy over best plays and if there was ever a day to be in Discord with us talking strategy – today is the 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 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!

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 an incredibly strong pitch slate once again with a ton of big bats, lots of first look value stacks, and the only rain risk looking like some delay potential in Wrigley Field between the Rockies and Cubs.

When stepping back and looking at this slate, there were a few things that stood out to me and they just so happen to work in concert. First, we have another top-heavy and deep pitching player pool which is a trend we have seen the last week that has seen winning builds anchor to top arms on a nightly basis. Secondly, we have a TON of hitting value with 10-11 teams with 3 or more $2K punt bats in their projected line-up which makes the path to pay up for pitching one that makes far too much sense this evening.

Pitching Picks

Corbin Burnes ($10.6K) is the highest priced ace and the one with the most significant demonstrated ceiling of any arm on this slate as he has eclipsed 30+ DK points in 7 of his 21 starts this season and has 3 starts this year in which he dropped 40+ DK points, including a July match-up with the very same Reds team he faces tonight.

If you look at the metrics for Burnes, his ceiling comes from right-handed batters as he sports a 39.7% K rate to RHB versus “just” a 32% rate to left-handed batters. Over the last 30 days, his overall K rate has dropped as a result of his strikeouts to LHB dropping to just 24% which could present an argument against him considering the Reds are likely to throw out 4 left-handed hitters tonight.

On the flip side – he still will have 5 right-handed batters including the pitcher to get to his ceiling and Burnes has actually shown some material home/road splits this season in terms of his K rate – with a 2% increase overall at home and a 41% K rate against RHB in Milwaukee. Assuming the line-up stays more righty focused from the Reds, Burnes to me is the highest ceiling SP1 we have available to us.

The next arm that stands out to me is Jack Flaherty ($9.6K) who is sporting a 30% K rate of his own over the last month with 13 K’s over those 12 innings of work and back to back 23-26 DK points outings. A match-up with the Tigers, who are striking out at a top 10 rate in baseball the last two weeks and rank as the second-highest K opponent for RHP on the season – well, sets us up for a ceiling spot here for the Cardinals righty. The Tigers lose the DH and will have 5 right-handed batters in the projected line-up which sets up ideally for Flaherty and his 31% K rate to RHB this season.

Lastly, assuming the rain cooperates – is the default “pitcher versus Cubs” spot – which today will be Rockies RHP German Marquez ($8.2K). After watching ground ball arms like Carlos Hernandez and Antonio Senzatela combine for 14 K’s against this Cubs lineup the last two starts – it is not hard to see a path for ceiling from Marquez who has far more swing and miss ability than the arms we have seen drop 20+ DK points on a consistent basis against the highest K lineup in baseball the last two weeks and/or month.

Marquez has racked up a 35% K rate the last month to RHB and the Cubs are projected to roll out 4-5 tonight – assuming the rain does not mess with him (40% chance throughout) – Marquez looks like a mid-range ace with a ceiling that could far outpace his price point.

Top Bats and Stacks

As we pivot to the MLB DFS Picks and Pivots bats – I mentioned there is a TON of value on the hitting side of things tonight which makes me really intrigued by the high-dollar stacks you can still pair with a “double-ace” type build.

You guys know the drill by now – the best slate on the board is going to be the Tampa Bay Rays again tonight. Yes, every single night this tends to be the case and every single night the MLB DFS community ignores them – but not us.

The Rays head to Philadelphia tonight where although they lose the DH, they will get a massive ballpark boost in Citizen’s Bank Park and we get the added bonus of being the road team and 9 guaranteed innings of at-bats. We need to watch the Rays roster moves leading up to this game as it is expected they will put Ji-Man Choi on the IL and activate Nelson Cruz which sounds like bad news for LHP opposing starter Ranger Suarez.

The Phillies continue to stretch Suarez out as a starter, ramping up to a season-high 86 pitches last time out which was the good news- the bad news, he walked 4 and gave up 8 hits in just 4 innings of work.

The profile on Suarez is that he is an extreme ground ball arm with a low swing and miss rate who relies on his sinker 50% of the time to hitters and if you have paid attention to Picks and Pivots this year, you know the Rays against sinker ball arms is a spot I LOVE to target.

The two heavy hitters against the sinker are Randy Arozarena, who has a team-high .579 ISO and 80% HC rate against the pitch type, and Mike Zunino who has a .321 ISO mark of his own. It does not stop there either – all of Nelson Cruz, Yandy Diaz and Manuel Margot have 50%% hard contact rates against this pitch type.

The second aspect of this stack I love is that Suarez we know will not go deep which means we can attack a Phillies bullpen that is bottom 10 in all of baseball since the All-Star Break. So playing a game script here – you have the sinker mashers knock Suarez out early and then you get a full 9 innings in Citizen’s Bank Park against a Phillies pen that over the last 14 days has a 5+ ERA, a 1.5 HR/9 rate, double-digit walk rate and an elevated 45% fly-ball rate – all marks that sit in the top 10 in baseball.

With the Rays having “just” a 5 IRT, sitting just below the top teams – this could be a spot like we had on Sunday where we get the full Rays stack for essentially no ownership and you know as well as I do – that is a recipe for GPP success this season.

Going double aces and a Rays stack means finding value but again – that is NOT an issue on this slate. In fact, we have multiple spots that I think we can target and it was great to see our Discord firing off before 7AM EST today with many of these teams as targets.

The Orioles against RHP Dylan Bundy are loaded with value and face a struggling righty with a 54% HC rate allowed and a near 6 xFIP the last 30 days. The Nationals against LHP Jesus Luzardo as the right-handed value bats look like ideal punt plays considering Luzardo’s struggles the last month with RHB – noting a .235 ISO and 46% HC rate allowed.

There is one additional one that really piques my interest that I only really stumbled upon because I was actually looking initially at the arm- and that is the Royals against RHP Luis Garcia.

Garcia has been one of the best K arms in baseball the last month with a 30.2% K rate that ranks in the top 10 among pitchers with 20+ innings but it has come with an extreme boom or bust makeup with a corresponding 49.3% hard contact rate and a .200+ ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate.

Garcia has had the ability to rack up K’s but it is coming with a price with 5 HR’s allowed and 16 runs given up in his last 5 starts including 3 runs allowed and an HR allowed to the same Royals team he faces tonight. Kansas City is another dirt-cheap team with 7 of their 9 batters at $3K or below and their punt bats have a ton of position flexibility on DK which makes mixing and matching them as a mini-stack a great GPP path alongside the Rays tonight.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Tonight’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate sets up exactly how we like it here at PnP – we have a clear double-ace build with the top stack in baseball and tons of mini-stack value options to make the paths to ceiling come without sacrifice.

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 6 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday slate where we look to get the all-clear for weather in what sets up for a perfect GPP slate in my opinion. Personally, I love these smaller Monday slates of 6-7 games where the player pool is large enough to be different but small enough where you can really dive in and think through the strategy of your builds.

From a pitching pool perspective, there are frankly only three names I have any interest in – Lance Lynn, Alex Manoah, and Antonio Senzatela.

Lance Lynn ($9.9K) and Alex Manoah ($8.5K) are arguably the two highest ceiling arms on the slate but the matchups against the White Sox and Blue Jays bats are not ones we typically go out of our way to attack.

Lynn has faced the Blue Jays once before this season, back in the beginning of June, where he struck out 9 batters, giving up just a solo HR, on his way to 29.4 DK points. Interestingly enough, his opponent that game was also Manoah who struck out only 4 batters on his way to just 13.7 DK points.

What is interesting is that if you look at recent trends, Manoah has actually flashed more ceiling than Lynn (with significantly less steady of a floor) as he has gone for 30+ DK points twice in his last six outings but the underlying metrics for Lynn are better with a 30% K rate and just a 29% hard contact rate allowed over the last month.

Senzatela ($6K) feels like the default SP2 as he takes on the Chicago Cubs in Wrigley Field and for all the reasons we were on Carlos Hernandez yesterday, are why we should go to Senzatela today.

In the last two weeks, of the 14 starters to face the Cubs, half of them have eclipsed 23 DK points with 11 of the 16 going for double-digits including Hernandez who struck out 8 batters over 7 innings on his way to 29.6 DK points.

Senzatela is everything we talked about with Hernandez yesterday, a high ground ball arm, giving up low ISO who has the run prevention floor, and the added K ceiling with the match-up. The only real reason to avoid him today is ownership as we saw Hernandez pushing 40-45% ownership yesterday in single entry GPP’s and on a smaller slate today I think Senzatela could eclipse 50%!

So how do we play this?

The Senzatela ownership really is going to help drive some of my decision-making today because I think that if the ownership mirrors what we saw with Hernandez yesterday, we have to re-think whether he is “needed.” In 20 starts this season, Senzatela has gone for single-digit DK points in half of those starts – so are we really ready to play a super chalk SP2 who fails to get double-digit DK points half the time?

The sneaky play here may be to go “double aces” with Lynn/Manoah despite the less than ideal match-ups and shoot for ceiling games from both. Look back at yesterday, a slate that was similarly blah from a pitching perspective however we saw four arms go for 30+ DK points with Adam Wainwright, Vladimir Gutierrez, Sandy Alacantara and Carlos Hernandez.

At some point, pitching still sets the cash line and on a short slate like this, if Lynn/Manoah have ceiling games, you could be way ahead of the field. The other mid-way option – simply split the difference and go high/low with one of Lynn/Manaoah and pair them with Senzatela as your cheap SP2.

UPDATE – The first pass of ownership is out and- um, excuse me? Alek Manoah is 60% projected? OK, well that takes him out of consideration for me, and the Chicago White Sox just became the ultimate leverage on a boom or bust arm that has been lit up twice in his last eight starts.

If we look at the bats on this slate, we really don’t have a ton of stand-out spots, with only the Astros sporting an IRT over 5 which adds to the GPP intrigue of this 6 gamer. We have aces in bad match-ups and no offenses to pay for – what a world!

The one spot that really intrigues me tonight is the Yankee/Braves game in Atlanta where Jordan Montgomery and Huascar Ynoa will take the mound. Ynoa is an arm I want to attack tonight with the Yankees, despite the loss of the DH, because the underlying metrics and pitch data suggest this could be a spot he gets worked.

Ynoa in his short career has been a reverse splits pitcher with a .220 ISO mark to RHB and a 1.87 HR/9 rate which makes the Yankees bats really appealing to me on this slate especially considering the pricing as they are largely under-priced.

Ynoa is basically a two-pitch pitcher with a 96+ MPH fastball and slider that he throws nearly 50% of the time to right-handed batters so finding the Yankees bats that hit the slider and high-velocity fastball well is the priority. Aaron Judge stands out as the key bat in both cases with massive ISO/HC rates against both pitch types with a .437 ISO and 75% HC rate against the high-velocity fastball and a .212 ISO and 46% HC rate against the slider.

Both Giancarlo Stanton and Gary Sanchez have similar .200 ISO marks against both pitch types and while the lefties may not necessarily be the “way to attack” Ynoa – it is hard to overlook the slider data with both Anthony Rizzo and Joey Gallo sporting .250 ISO marks against the slider from RHP.

While the HR power has not been there for the lefties against Ynoa, what is sneaky is the 49.1% hard contact rate allowed and while Ynoa is a GB-specific arm, the Yankees have the left-handed bats like Gallo and Rougned Odor with extreme flyball tendencies to balance it out.

On the flip side of this game the Yankees are throwing out Jordan Montgomery and I am sorry – but in what world is he a $10K pitcher on the road against the Braves?

While Montgomery is not an arm that gets lit up, he has given up a 46% HC rate to RHB the last 30 days and this Braves lineup is LOADED with right-handed batters that have a .230 ISO and 46.7% HC rate against southpaws this season.

Jorge Soler’s numbers in the last 30 days are just insane against LHP with a .590 ISO, 50% HC rate, and a 62% fly-ball rate with an average distance traveled of 370 feet. My goodness.

Ozzie Albies has quietly been red-hot as well against lefties with a .211 ISO and 50% HC rate – again with a 50% fly-ball rate which is key against a ground ball arm like Montgomery.

This Yankees/Braves game stack correlates really well from a position perspective and with the Yankees being priced in the mid-range, it allows you the ability to load up on the key bats from this game on both sides!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This is a great MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate tonight with a ton of GPP appeal as ownership could really open up some fascinating low-owned paths. Today is the kind of slate where you get a general early build and we use ownership to sharpen our focus as we head toward lock.

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!