draftkings mlb dfs picks

Welcome to the Thursday, July 29th 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

We get our Thursday going with another split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots afternoon with a 6 (maybe 5) game slate that begins at noon and the biggest question mark is if we see the Nationals/Phillies game even play due to COVID outbreaks on the Nationals.

For the sake of simplicity – let’s assume this game does not play and honestly, even if it does, it is going to be a 7 inning doubleheader so it is likely the only interest we would have is on the pitchers if Mad Max or Zack Wheeler takes the mound and with rain expected to impact both games, maybe crossing this game off is the best course of action anyway.

The other tricky party here once again is the timing of these games – as the slate starts at 12:05 PM EST and three of the games on this slate start after 2 PM EST. We saw this yesterday where 50% of the games on the early slate did not have confirmed lineups before lock and this could very well be the case again today.

My recommendation once again then is to either fully front load or back load your stacks to give you maximum flexibilty. Stacking the Mets for example at 12:10 PM EST with the Dodgers at 3:45 PM EST is not ideal because you will have half your lineup locked in and if the late lineup doesn’t work as you planned, you are going to scramble to suboptimal stacking options.

Now back to the Mets – because honestly, I think this is where the slate starts for me and will drive much of my decision-making. The match-up against LHP Drew Smyly is one I want to attack as Smyly ranks in the bottom 10 of all Major League arms with at least 80 IP this season in hard contact allowed, fly-ball rate and HR/9 rate.

What is interesting about Smyly is that his splits are well – not really splits at all – he gives up .200+ ISO marks to both sides of the plate with nearly identical 45% hard contact rates and 40-43% fly ball rates. Even his pitch types are the same as he relies on a fastball/curveball mix nearly 90% of the time no matter which side of the plate is up.

While the right-handed batters may be the obvious spots to attack with James McCann, Pete Alonso and JD Davis – do NOT overlook the lefties for the Mets here as this is where I think you can get a massive advantage in GPP’s.

Smyly actually has a higher HR/9 rate to LHB this season at 2.3 versus 1.5 to RHB and the Mets lefties all hit left-handed pitching well, especially the pitch type on Smyly. Against the curveball, Brandon Nimmo (.429), Jeff McNeil (.235) and Michael Conforto (.190) all have strong ISO marks and against the low-velocity fastball, Nimmo (.571) and Conforto (.200) both stand out as great L/L plays.

If we are stacking the Mets – then I need to stay with early stacks and so locking in the Yankees and going full New Yawk on this early slate maybe my best route. Now, I am a believer in the talent of Luis Patino as a pitcher but I also trust the data and what it tells me is that he is giving up lots of loud contact and we saw that against the Indians where left-handed batters had a 50% HC rate and RHB had a 45% HC rate with both sides of the plate showing elevated fly ball rates.

Patino is a two-pitch arm, featuring a high-velocity fastball and slider with the slider being the big swing and miss offering. If you look at batted ball profiles, Aaron Judge stands out as one of the best plays on this slate. Against the high-velocity fastball, Judge has a .522 ISO and 48% HC rate, and against the slider his .227 ISO/44% HC rate lead the team.

We will need to wait and see what this Yankees lineup looks like and if Joey Gallo is able to suit up – but the more I look at the top of this Yankee line-up with it being right-handed heavy against a pitcher who has hard contact and fly ball tendencies – we could see the Yankees get to the youngster with some early long balls.

Working our way backward into the arms – I think you simply NEED to anchor to one top-end arm as your SP1 due to the strong options with Gerrit Cole and Carlos Rodon up top as Adam Strangis laid out in Starting Rotation.

Going down for our SP2 is where I plan to attack today and I think Alec Mills ($6.3K) is an intriguing case for the Cubs against the Reds in Wrigley with the wind blowing in.

Yes I know Joey Votto is on some Barry Bonds type run right now but as our resident Reds expert in Discord, Jimmy, always says – use arms against the Reds on the getaway day!

Mills just faced the Reds in Cincinnati on July 2nd, striking out 9 Reds on his way to a 24 DK point outing and if you look at his pitch mix, while the sinker was still his primary offering – nearly 40% of the time – his slider and changeup were used nearly the same amount and they generated a 50% whiff rate.

Mills really feasted on the K-heavy bottom of the Reds order and with Aristedes Aquino and his 47% K rate against RHB now in the heart of the order, I think if he can avoid Votto, there is a path once again to a ceiling game. Over the last 30 days – 7 of the 8 Reds projected hitters have a 25% or higher K rate against RHP while also sporting a GB rate that is 5% higher than the fly ball rate. Against a sinkerballer with the wind blowing in – I love this spot for Mills today as a low-owned SP2.

Main Slate Overview

The 5 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate is one that is loaded with rain issues with Milwaukee/Pittsburgh and Toronto/Boston being the biggest risk areas tonight and on a 5 game slate, that could have massive ramifications.

Now add on the fact that pitching is straight gross and you almost get backed into this build where you land on Montas/Musgrove as your two pitchers on DK by default.

What it likely means is you need some cheaper stacks and this is where the Orioles stand out to me against Casey Mize and a terrible Tigers bullpen. Attacking Mize has been simple this year – you want every and all lefties as Mize has a massive .232 ISO and 51% HC rate against LHB this season which makes Cedric Mullins and DJ Stewart primary plays for me on this slate.

However, the place I really want to plant my flag tonight is in the late-night hammer – the San Diego Padres – against LHP Kyle Freeland. If you just look at the talent of the bats on this stack, it is hard to argue for me that the Padres are the best pure hitting stack on the slate ESPECIALLY if the Blue Jays game has risk.

Against a lefty who has surrendered a .200 ISO and 42% HC rate, this is the spot you load up on Padres and it all starts with Manny Machado and Fernando Tatis Jr.

The nice part about this stack is how you can really attack the mid-range to build around the two big bats as Adam Frazier ($3.4K), Austin Nola ($3.2K) and Jurickson Profar ($2.3K) give you cheap options to round out your stack with a true wrap-around build with Nola/Profar at the bottom before you move to the top 3 in Frazier/Machado/Tatis.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Looking at these two MLB DFS slates today – the Early Slate has the better build paths but the main slate has the better contest options, unfortunately. On both slates – my goal is to avoid uncertainty – on the early slate that means the Nationals and on the Main it means avoiding the rain which really limits your player pool but I think it is easily doable.

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, July 28th 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 Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we kick the day off with a 4 game day slate that is super intriguing for GPP play.

We actually have a strong pitching slate but in all cases, the arms like Sean Manaea, Blake Snell, and Yusei Kikuchi are met with brutal match-ups that frankly, I doubt we would pick on if this were a larger slate. The flip side of this, specifically with Manaea and Kikuchi are that they come into this game in elite form as the only two arms with 30%+ K rates over the last month and while the match-ups are not ideal, they are the two arms on this slate that have the ceiling we are chasing in MLB DFS GPP play.

If you guys have played these daytime small slates with me this year you know I focus far more on strategy than pure best plays when we get to these types of slates and today is no different.

One thing I noticed about today is the start times of the games. Yes – the start times.

St. Louis/Cleveland and Detroit/Minnesota games start at 1:10 PM EST while the Houston/Seattle and Oakland/San Diego do not start until 3:40 and 4:10 PM EST respectively.

I bring that up because that 3-hour difference likely means we go to lock without lineups for 50% of the slate. Now, maybe we get lucky and that is not the case but if we play out that scenario I think as far as bats are concerned we either front load or back load our builds.

We know in daytime games the lineups can look funky – and so if you go into lock stacking the Padres as an example and all of a sudden Fernando Tatis Jr. gets a day off – well, your core play in your stack is now firmly on the bench and you are left scrambling.

So one strategy today could be to simply front-load the bats we have confirmed lineups for and then use the arms like Kikuchi, Snell and Manaea.

The Detroit Tigers are the obvious early stack in my mind against our favorite – LHP JA Happ. Over the last 30 days has surrendered a .308 ISO and 48% HC rate to right-handed batters and the Tigers will offer us a line-up with likely 8 right-handed hitters to choose from.

Eric Haase is the main play for me from Detroit as over the last month he is straight hammering LHP to the tune of a .652 ISO and only a 6% soft contact rate. His C/OF eligibility gives you maximum flexibility on DraftKings as well.

The other stack early that I love for GPP play is the St. Louis Cardinals against RHP Zach Plesac. One of the reasons I love this spot is that Plesac is a reverse splits arm, giving up more power to RHB (.217 ISO on the season) and over the last 30 days, specifically his .300 ISO and 56% hard contact rate to right-handed batters jump off the page.

On a smaller slate like this, the non-traditional splits may lead the Cardinals to be an under-owned difference-making stack where we can attack Plesac’s 2 HR/9 mark against RHB this season.

Over the last month, Plesac has relied essentially on a two-pitch mix of fastball and slider to RHB nearly 85% of the time and both pitches have been hit to the tune of a 300+ ISO mark and a 60% hard contact rate.

Stacking up the right-handed Cardinals bats on this slate could pay off in a big-time way and get the slate started for the Win Daily family early as we cement our spots up top the leaderboards and dare the field to catch us!

Main Slate Overview

The 11 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate includes a 7 inning tail end double-header of the Jays/Sox and once again we actually have strong pitching options up top with Walker Buehler and Zack Wheeler sitting as the primary spend ups.

While we have been hesitant lately to pay up for double aces, I think this slate is going to play differently and my initial lean is to lock in both who I believe have 30+ DK point type ceilings today.

Two of Buehler’s last five starts have come against the Giants, where he has racked up 29 and 31 DK points with 9 and 7 K’s in those outings.

Wheeler meanwhile will face a watered-down Nationals lineup with Trea Turner now out and one that is also going to have 5 of the 8 batters hitting from the right side which plays into Wheeler’s splits with a 32% K rate to RHB over the last month.

The flip side of this slate is that we have tons of AWFUL arms and that means another night of offensive fireworks is likely – so can we pair double aces with high upside stacks? I believe we can!

The two stacks that stand out to me are the White Sox against LHP Kris Bubic who has given up a massive .290 ISO and 56% HC rate to RHB the last month and the Phillies against LHP Patrick Corbin who has a .220 ISO and 45% HC rate to RHB on the year.

Now, you may not think of those teams as value but we actually have a significant amount of punts within these two high-powered stacks that open up the path to double aces.

The White Sox are simply too cheap overall – we have five batters in the projected line-up under $3K with Eloy Jimenez and Andrew Vaughn at $2.8K and the bottom of the order stack with Hamilton/Mendick and punt catcher Seby Zavala at $2.2K-$2.3K each. Flip this to the Philly side and while you don’t have as much pure punt value, we do have Luke Williams at $2.1K with 2B/OF eligibility.

I bring this up because, with so many cheap options, you have the ability to go high/low with these stacks to attack the arms we want to stack against without having to compromise on arms. I simply love this path today!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have two slates of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots goodness today and honestly, it’s nice to have real pitching for once and I plan to take full advantage by anchoring today to high K arms on both slates while using the value we have across the board to attach high powered offenses against bad opposing arms!

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, July 27th edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

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

Main Slate Breakdown – Pitching

Welcome into a full 15 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where once again we have a slate without obvious pitching options – seriously, where did all the aces go?

It seems like every night, the pitching options at best get you “solid games” – maybe 20-25 DK points but we are far removed from seeing aces routinely drop 30+ DK point ceiling games that can help set a cash line foundation.

However, tonight does afford us the ability to pay up for elite K arms in strong recent form with both Lance McCullers Jr. and Robbie Ray who are over $10K on DraftKings and ranks 2nd and 3rd respectively in K rate over the last 30 days behind only Gerrit Cole.

McCullers ($10.4K) also ranks 2nd in MLB during the last 30 days in CSW rate at 33.6%, ranks 3rd in GB rate at 56%, and gets the best match-up of these high-end arms against Seattle who is 2nd in baseball the last month with a 26.6% K rate.

Five of the last eleven right-handed arms to face the Mariners since the start of July have gone for 20+ DK points and while Luis Garcia struggled last night, he still struck out 9 batters and we have actually seen other recent starters (Montas – 10) and Taillon (9) have similar K upside in this spot.

The last time Brad Keller ($5.9K) was on the mound, we featured him here in Picks and Pivots against the Brewers because we noticed a massive shift in his pitch mix, with a new found reliance on his slider. Prior to his July starts, Keller had thrown the slider just 31% but has thrown it just under 50% of the time in his last three starts and it has coincided with his three best outings – 19.5, 20.2 and 28.5 DK points.

The price moved up to $6.9K last start in which Keller went out and struck out 6 Brewers and yet today – after this recent run, his price actually dropped down to $5.9K on DraftKings – huh?

Keller ranks in the top 5 in baseball the last 30 days in ground ball rate, so he is not only getting swings and misses but he is driving tons of weak contact to both sides of the plate on top of it. Keller is using that slider to both sides of the plate but relying on it a little more against lefties which could work out nicely tonight against a White Sox team projected to have 5 LHB in the line-up.

The White Sox have one of the highest implied run totals on the slate at 5.2 – which likely only serves to keep folks off Keller here and likely gives us another chance to use Keller as a high upside SP2 before people realize how he has reinvented himself.

Oh also – it is Brad Keller’s birthday today. Just sayin’.

Main Slate Overview – Hitting

The bats are plentiful once again and so we need to be very strategic in how and where we plant our flags with stacks and liket most night it will start with a Toronto Blue Jays line-up with a near 6 IRT in Fenway Park against Garret Richards.

We have talked at length about Richards being vocal opposition to the pitching rule changes and he has worked to re-invent himself on the fly post sticky stuff crackdown. Over the last 30 days however, we see reasons to continue to attack Richards who has a massive .306 ISO and 46% HC rate allowed to right-handed batters.

The Blue Jays – have a few good right-handed batters – FYI.

Against right-handed hitters, Richards is relying basically on a two pitch mix of fastball/slider that accounts for 70% of his offerings the last 30 days. The issue is, batters are hitting that fastball velocity at a .600 ISO and 47% HC rate and the slider is not much better at .375 ISO and 60% HC rate!

Against a 94+MPH fastball, well – the Jays right-handers all feast on it with George Springer jumping off the page with a .813 ISO and 46% HC rate but all of Vlad Jr., Marcus Semien, Bo Bichette and Teoscar Hernandez have .200+ ISO marks and 45% HC rates as well!

Against the slider, it is Springer/Vladdy once again at the top but you also see Lourdes Gurriel and Randal Grichuk pop with 300+ ISO marks against that pitch type.

Basically – this stack is the nuts again today like it seemingly is every day and guess what, using Keller at SP2 makes them incredibly easy to afford.

The other spot that jumps out to me today is the Cincinnati Reds left-handed batters against Adbert Alzolay in Wrigley Field. Over the last 30 days, the metrics for Alzolay against LHB are stunningly bad with a .500 ISO and 58% HC rate and no pitcher in baseball during that time has a higher HR/RB rate than the Cubs righty.

Alzolay is relying on a 3 pitch mix to lefties- fastbal, slider and sinker which accounts for 75% of his pitch arsenal against lefthanded batters and well, not a single one has lower than a .600 ISO mark with the fastball and sinker generating 75% and 88% hard contact rates. Remember when I said his mterics were stunningly bad? Yeah, this is what I meant.

The lefties are the priority – Jessie Winker, Tyler Naquin, Tucker Barnhart at Catcher and even Joey Votto who has homered in three straight games. It is hot, humid and the wind is blowing out at Wrigley – sorry Alzolay but you are in some serious trouble today!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have a massive 15 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate and once again the pitching options are going to force our hand a bit, however I think with a key SP2 option – we can navigate this slate with ease, allowing us to anchor to one high end arm and two high powered offensive stacks!

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

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

Welcome to the Monday, July 26th edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

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

Main Slate Breakdown – Pitching

Welcome into a Monday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have 7 games to choose from, an all-clear day of weather, and just days before the MLB Trade Deadline which means a heightened awareness of roster moves that could impact our builds up to and even after lock.

Once again, the pitching options on this slate are weak and while it may seem like paying up for arms is a fool’s errand these days – if you look back at Sunday’s winning builds you saw “double aces” being a consistent winning strategy with Aaron Nola and either Trevor Williams or Yu Darvish.

On today’s slate, I would argue paying up for both arms is the best choice once again and it starts with Luis Garcia ($10.4K) against the Seattle Mariners.

Garcia is coming off his best two-game stretch, with 15 K’s in 11 innings, sporting a 37% K rate and a 19% swinging-strike rate. Over those two outings, Garcia has really altered his pitch mix, throwing his fastball just 38% of the time and ratcheting his cutter usage up to 32% which is a far cry from his season-long marks of 48% fastball usage and 19% cutter usage.

Garcia has thrown the cutter all year long to right-handed batters, but the last two games is throwing it over 45% to right-handed batters and even went to the pitch over 20% of the time last game against the lefties.

That cutter is one of the most dominant single pitches in baseball this season – and this is not me maxing poetic, the statistics are startling. Garcia has the highest swinging strike rate of any pitcher in baseball using the cutter, even higher than Corbin Burnes, and that pitch ranks among the top 5 in baseball in lowest opponent batting average alongside the deGrom slider and the Ohtani splitter.

When you start to see the difference in how the cutter reacts versus the fastball, you can understand why this has become such a dominant weapon for Garcia who will face a Mariners line-up with 4-5 right-handed batters in it, which plays to his K upside as RHB have a 31% K rate against him this season.

The other elite K arm on this slate is Shohei Ohtani ($9.2K) who after a slight hiccup in NY a few starts ago, was back to being dominant on the mound against Oakland where he struck out 8 batters on his way to 27 DK points.

Ohtani gets a starts against the Rockies in California and any time we get Colorado away from home, we have to look to attack them – especially considering they will likely have 4-5 RHB which gives Ohtani even more ceiling with his massive 38.6% K rate against right-handers.

Ohtani went to his slider nearly 21% of the time against Oakland, a massive spike in its usage – in fact, it was the 2nd highest mark for that pitch type this season for Ohtani and it baffled the Oakland bats and played exceptionally well off his fastball.

What is fascinating about the Ohtani pitching game logs is how different the pitch mix can be game to game and we saw that against Oakland where he went slider heavy, getting a 30%+ chase rate outside the zone, and conversely he used his splitter a season-low 8% of the time.

The fact Ohtani can use all these secondary pitches off his high 90’s fastball must be a horrendous guessing game for the opposing batters and with the Rockies outside of Coors, I think pairing Ohtani with Garcia gives you the best combination of K upside and ceiling for our MLB DFS picks.

UPDATE: Now normally, I tend to write my articles and provide updates in Discord but I wanted to make some updates mid-day today because ownership is well – wild. I love Shohei Ohtani as much as anyone but his ownership projections right now are pushing 70-80% which is a spot where you really have to question whether it is worth eating the chalk.

The issue is, the pivots um, well – don’t exist – at least not in any way you feel comfortable.

There is one arm I have interest in and frankly, I am surprised at his ownership and the fact that the opposite lineup looks to be the chalk stack and that is Matt Manning versus the Minnesota Twins.

Manning is coming off the best start in his young career, throwing 6 innings of 1 run ball with 4 K’s on his way to 19.9 DK points. Manning is a former first-round pick, a top 20 prospect in baseball, and a top 5 pitching prospect, and yet – he looks like someone the field is going to stack against as chalk.

Manning in the last two starts in which he has gone 11 innings with 7 K’s and just 3 runs allowed has made a significant change to his pitching approach – using a slider 20% of the time that he was not using at all through his first three outings at the big league level.

The guys at SB Nation did a really nice job of diving into this new approach for Manning and I highly recommend the read if you are interested. Manning is using the slider almost entirely against right-handed batters and it has generated a 50% whiff rate in each of the last two outings where he threw it 11 times in each game to RHB.

The Twins tonight are projected to have 5 right-handed bats in their lineup and every single one of them has a 40% or higher whiff rate against the slider from RHP so this could be a sneaky spot for Manning to build on his recent changes.

The fact Manning is sub 5% ownership and the Twins are projecting as chalk bats could be the ideal time to dig deeper and rock him as a punt SP2.

Main Slate Overview – Hitting

If we pivot to the bats, what stands out to me is a few stacks on DraftKings that offer us high/low salary points that make going double-aces an easy build type.

First up is the Chicago White Sox against LHP Mike Minor, who since last season has given up a .202 ISO, 43% fly-ball rate, and a 45% hard contact rate to right-handed batters.

The White Sox come loaded with right-handed power and will look to active Eloy Jimenez ($2.5K) who sits at a price point that is simply laughable and gives you the salary flexibility to go up and get the big bats like Tim Anderson and Jose Abreu.

Minor uses a low 90’s fastball and a slider over 60% of the time to right-handed bats and those two pitches are allowing a .235 ISO and 40%+ hard contact rate this season with Anderson, Abreu, Andrew Vaughn, and Adam Engel all sporting high ISO marks and HC rates against those pitch mix this season.

The White Sox have obvious high dollar bats in Abreu and Anderson over $5K but really – look at the rest of the line-up and all the value you can use with Vaughn/Eloy sitting in the mid $2K range and you have pure punts with Billy Hamilton and Danny Mendick to give you added salary flexibility.

The other stack that has similar high/low appeal is the late-night hammer of the Houston Astros against RHP Darren McCaughan, a low K, low-level prospect in the Mariners organization who relies on a sinkerball to get ground ball outs and does not miss bats.

Now, this kid went to Coors Field for his MLB debut and threw 5 hitless innings but man, this line is wonky – the kid had a 61% ground ball rate with a ZERO percent soft contact rate so you cannot even say he was getting weak contact off the bat. The 70% medium contact and the 1.6% swinging-strike rate is likely not a combination that will pay off long-term and the Astros set up nicely tonight as a way to attack the young arm.

McCaughan relies heavily on the sinker and there are some serious bats in this Houston lineup that do damage against it – none better than Yordan Alvarez ($5.4K) who has a massive .451 ISO, 58% hard contact rate, and an average distance traveled of over 325 feet. Alvarez may be my favorite bat on the entire slate and one that could be the late-night hammer with double-dong upside.

The other “big bat” that stands out is Kyle Tucker ($3.4K) as his batted ball profile sets up nicely against a ground ball arm. Tucker has a team-high 44% fly-ball rate against RHP and his 35% GB rate against sinkers is the lowest on the team – a key metric when looking at bats that can get the ball up in the air.

Just like the White Sox, we have value in this line-up with the 7-9 batters of Diaz, Straw and Maldonado all sitting at a near-minimum price and giving you the opportunity for a wrap-around stack with a road team and the guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats.

Aldemys Diaz ($2.1K) is a really intriguing swiss army knife on this slate, expected back off the IL tonight and giving you SS/OF eligibility on DK. Against the sinker, Diaz has a .217 ISO and 45% HC rate and with dual position eligibility – he becomes a core play for me tonight as I look to correlate Houston and Chicago together once we get lineups.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

The key focus for me on this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is getting the two high K ace level arms in Luis Garcia and Shohei Ohtani because frankly, every other arm seems overpriced and overly risky. However, as I outlined, with Ohtani standing out as massive chalk – I think there is a GPP path to moving off him and punting with our SP2 secret weapon!

All this revolves around a Astros/White Sox double stack that can be used with double aces or can be easily pivoted to all the biggest bats if you opt to drop down at SP2.

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, July 22nd edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

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

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into an 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate on Thursday where we get an all-clear weather day and well, another disgusting pitching slate. Seriously, Jacob deGrom goes on the IL and you realize how you never want to play a single pitcher in MLB DFS these days!

Even when we have big names as we did last night with McCullers/Ray and listen, we have it again tonight with Buehler/Manaea – the question we have to keep asking is if they are really worth it? Night after night, slate after slate, we are seeing value arms that drive 15-20 DK point outings and when the “ace” arms are underperforming – you simply don’t have the same opportunity cost to miss at your pitching spots.

With that being said – can we look to the bottom of the player pool tonight with Luis Patino ($6.5K) who is getting called up to make the start against the Indians.

Patino is one of the top pitching prospects in baseball and was the centerpiece of the Blake Snell deal that sent him to San Diego and when you dig into Patino’s stuff – you can see why.

In AAA this year, Patino has 41 K’s in 29 innings of work, a 33.7% K rate, and in his most recent start for the Bulls, he went 6 innings, threw 90 pitches, and struck out 7, so we know he is stretched out.

If Jose Ramirez remains sidelined, this Indians opposing lineup is one I think we can and should attack, and with the K pedigree of Patino at this price point, I could argue he is one of the best pure pitching plays on the slate.

Let’s stay right here because not only do I love Patino but today my friends – is a Rays day!

With Cal Quantrill on the mound and the Rays being on the road, we get 9 innings of Tampa Bay at-bats which you know is a Picks and Pivots favorite. Quantrill’s splits are significant – as he has a .263 ISO, 45% fly-ball rate, and 41% HC rate to left-handed batters.

Pitch type-wise – Quantrill is going to rely heavily on his sinker, which he throws 35% of the time to LHB and is giving up a crazy high .400 ISO mark against. Guess who hammers the sinker? Yep – Austin Meadows – who has a .256 ISO and a team-high 342 average distance batted ball on that pitch type. Bombs away captain!

The other left-handed batters here today for Tampa also have massive hard contact rates against the sinker – with Brandon Lowe (47%), Ji-Man Choi (57%), Kevin Kiermeir (40%) and Taylor Walls (67%).

Want a hot take? Skip Wander Franco in your Rays stack today and use Taylor Walls instead in a wrap-around stack to be different. Franco has a ZERO ISO mark against RHP thus far and his 30% HC rate is the lowest on the team. Walls meanwhile has a sneaky strong batted ball profile, with a .308 ISO and average batted-ball distance of 327 feet against the sinker.

Adam Strangis mentioned the Twins as his favorite stack against Andrew Heaney and it is hard to argue considering the left-hander is giving up a .207 ISO mark and a massive 50% HC rate to right-handed batters.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the correlation that the Twins right-handed batters offer around a Rays stack and this is the exact path I intend on rocking today!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

I love how this 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is coming together and this slate size and the contest offerings on DraftKings make me really excited for what we can build!

The Rays/Twins correlated stack alongside a cheap SP2 in Luis Patino gives me the ability to pay up for an SP1 while still loading up on all the bats I want – and that is the path that seems to be proving success in recent weeks on a consistent basis.

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, July 21st edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

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

Early Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a split slate Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we kick things off with a 6 game early slate that locks at 12:10 PM EST with a game in Coors Field, a 7 inning game between the Padres/Braves, and some well, let call it – interesting pricing.

Have you ever been out to eat at a new place, you sit down and open the menu and go wow, these prices are high but hey as long as the food is good right? Then the food comes and it is underwhelming and now you are annoyed you not only had a bad meal but you also paid a premium for it?

Well, get ready to step into that overpriced restaurant today for lunch where you have to pay $10K for Marcus Stroman and Madison Bumgarner. But hey, at least they are good, right?

The pricing is egregious for both arms, but can I say I actually love it? They are making you think about how much you are really willing to pay for perceived safety in your MLB DFS builds and kudos to DK for that. The flip side of this pricing equation is that DraftKings made the hitter pricing incredibly soft, with nearly 30 batters in the projected player pool priced under $3K and so we have 25-30% of our player pool in value territory.

The issue with paying up for Stroman and/or Mad-Bum is that they simply do not offer you the K ceiling to pay off that price tag and when the overall landscape in baseball right now is that offense is running the show, I am not sure we can allocate that much salary to arms that are going to pitch to contact and we hope “don’t hurt us.”

The key then is building on this early slate around offense and taking calculated shots on our arms and I think we have a few options that allow us this route.

Max Kranick ($7K) will make the start today in Chase Field against Arizona and if you are a Picks and Pivots reader, you know we were all over the Pirates top prospect in his first start back in June when he did this –

If you remember in that first start we detailed how Kranick re-invented himself during the pandemic with that short arm action delivery you see above and it has, in turn, brought significantly more velocity sitting in the mid to upper 90’s that he can use to play off his plus slider.

The Arizona projected line-up has 6 batters with 20%+ K rates against RHP this season and we have seen 7 of the last 10 RHP against Arizona go for 15+ DK points. When you add on the NARRATIVE alert that Max Kranick is celebrating his 24th birthday today – well, how do you pass on him at just $7K?

Brad Keller’s ($6.9K) season-long metrics are not going to entice you but his last two games have been arguably his best, with 9 and 7 K’s and a 14.5% swinging-strike rate. What fascinates me about him is that he is changed his pitch mix drastically in these last two starts and so for that reason, I think we have to take notice.

Prior to his last two starts, Keller had thrown 63% fastballs and 31% sliders – the last two starts however, Keller has thrown just 47% fastballs and ratcheted up his slider usage to 50%.

The slider is Keller’s swing and miss offering – it has a 35% whiff rate against left-handed batters and against a lefty-heavy Brewers team today that all have 30-35% whiff rates against that pitch type, I think we have another sneaky path for Mr. Keller who has seemingly reinvented himself.

The bats are when you are going to win your money today and with Coors Field on the slate, my guess is most go there – but I am more than happy to anchor to the New York Mets here today against Jeff Hoffman and the atrocious Reds bullpen.

Hoffman traditionally is a reverse splits arm with more of his power struggles coming against RHB which puts the red-hot Pete Alonso firmly back on our radar today alongside a left-handed heavy Mets line-up. Against left-handed batters this year Hoffman has struggled significantly with command, sporting a 18.6% walk rate which is 4 points higher than his K rate – never a good sign.

Any time we have a pitcher who struggles with command, you want to stack even more because you are looking at attack up and down where we get multiple base runners and big hits and crooked numbers.

The other spot here today that I want to use as a secondary stack, despite the fact that it is just a 7 inning game, is the Padres against LHP Kyle Muller.

Very specifically, I want the Fernando Tatis/Manny Machado combination.

The reason I bring them up alongside the Mets is how well they correlate because with Lindor on the IL, you can fill in the SS/3B in a Mets stack with arguably the two best bats on the slate. And while a 7 inning game is never ideal, the fact they are the road team guarantees us the 7 innings of at-bats and I think they have the individual ceiling that no other bats have on this slate.

Main Slate Breakdown

The MLB DFS Picks and Pivots main slate, mercifully is far more intriguing on the pitching end of things with two aces up top that have high K ceiling in Lance McCullers and Robbie Ray. The more I look at the options, I tend to agree with Adam Strangis in Starting Rotation, this is where we anchor to.

Now as he mentioned, it likely means having to avoid the Blue Jays – or does it?

Listen, the Jays are the best stack on the Main Slate against Garret Richards and while they are pricey, I think there is a path to stacking them up alongside double aces here tonight!

The key is the Texas Rangers against RHP Matt Manning as the Texas bats are basically free on DraftKings. 5 of the 9 projected batters in the Texas line-up are under $2.6K and while Manning has a pedigree, he has also struggled thus far with a near 50% hard contact rate allowed.

The Rangers bats correlate so well with the Blue Jays too as you can slot in a punt catcher like Jonah Heim at $2.2K in the heart of the order, allowing you to fill a spot you don’t want to “waste” with a Toronto catcher.

The simple fact, you can get the two best arms on the slate and the best stack in Toronto all as a result of the dirt-cheap Rangers bats makes the main slate a really clear build at first glance.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This MLB DFS Picks and Pivots day is a tale of two slates – one that requires some serious beer goggles and one that well, requires you to follow a really clear path.

The early slate is the one where you are going to struggle to feel comfortable but listen, everyone else will too – we all have the same horrendous options. Don’t be afraid to take chances and as we see ownership, allow yourself to think strategically.

The Main Slate – my advice, don’t overthink it. Just don’t.

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, July 20th edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

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

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a 13 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where we once against have major rain concerns in Atlanta for the Braves/Padres and some additional rain risk in the Red Sox and Blue Jays game.

After last night’s wild MLB DFS slate, I do wonder how much recency bias plays into tonight and if folks opt to go back to many of the same spots hoping for a repeat of big-time hitting performances. I also found it interesting that yesterday, with the top-priced arms in tough spots most of the ownership settled in the next level down and I wonder if we see similar trends here this evening.

To me, I still think anchoring to elite K arms is the best route, despite the inconsistent returns and with elite K arms like Yu Darvish and Aaron Nola both under $10K, I love the price discount we are getting on them as SP1’s (understanding that Darvish may never pitch due to rain).

There is one low-end option I have my eye on though and that is Dodgers right-hander Josiah Gray ($4.7K), the Dodgers #2 prospect and a top 40 overall MLB prospect.

Gray has sported 30% K marks at all minor league levels and has a 38% K rate at AAA in his first 15 innings and while he may need more seasoning he will get his first taste of big-league action tonight serving as the long man after the Dodgers use an opener.

Now there is always risk in these non-traditional settings and even more so with a rookie arm, but this is a top K, high-pedigree prospect with a high 90’s rising heater and a nasty breaker he uses to play off it. For under $5K on DraftKings, he could pay massive dividends if you want to go dumpster diving here tonight.

If this high/low route is too risky – once again the $8K range is STRONG and I could see going far more balanced with this range as Adam outlined in Starting Rotation.

Tarik Skubal ($7.7K) gets the ideal spot with a lefty against the Rangers, a match-up we just targeted with Hyun Jin Ryu. In the last three starts, lefties have made against Texas, both Ryu and Robbie Ray dropped ceiling 30+ DK point match-ups and Skubal has the elevated K rate, seeing his strikeout rate rise to 34% in May and 31% in June that gives us elite K upside in a match-up that has paid off all season long.

The other arm I have my eye on in the mid-range is Shane McClanahan ($8.7K). It is funny how these prospects come up, we get hyped and then move on and for a first-rounder like the Rays lefty, all he has done is deliver – with a 28% K rate thus far.

Past the top 3 in the Baltimore lineup, the rest of this Orioles lineup has all hitters with 23% or higher K rates against lefties and we have seen since the beginning of June, 4 LHP have put up 20+ DK outings with Ryu (2x), Anthony Kay and Ryan Yarbrough. After Yarbrough failed as a popular option yesterday, we could even get an ownership discount here on a high K arm with elite pedigree.

Now to the bats!

If you look at the big IRT’s for the offenses today and you assume the Padres are rained out, all of a sudden it’s the Rockies in Coors Field and the same crew from yesterday that went nuts with the Red Sox, Mets, and Reds. Pure speculation but I think we see inflated ownership in those spots due to recency bias.

Moving off them could be a great way to make waves in GPP’s and the Philadelphia Phillies are the team that really stood out to me at first glance against Domingo German and the Yankees. German has given up serious hard contact this season with a .200 ISO and 43% hard contact rate and with the Phillies gaining the DH and playing in a hot Yankee Stadium, we could see the ball fly here.

The Phillies by and large are a cheap stack too – sure you have Hoskins and Harper as pricey plays but you also get cheap lefties to balance the stack with Didi Gregorious (back in Yankee Stadium) and Brad Miller ($2.6K) with 2B/OF dual position eligibility.

The other mini-stack I really like here is the Minnesota Twins against Dallas Keuchel. Now Keuchel is not an arm you typically stack against due to his high ground ball rate but this is also a pitcher with just a 12% K rate and 45% hard contact rate to right-handed batters and well – that is one thing the Twins offer at an elite level with Nelson Cruz, Josh Donaldson and Mitch Garver who is back and only $3.6K on DK.

If you look at Keuchel’s pitch type – he relies heavily on a change-up to RHB and all three hitters noted above have elite profiles against it, with Cruz sporting a team-high .408 ISO and 55% HC rate. The sinker becomes the next option and Garver has a monster .741 ISO, 68% HC rate and a 390+ foot average distance traveled.

To me, this is the ideal spot to go mini-stack HR hunting versus the all-in stack and when we look for correlation – they sit nicely alongside an all-in Phillies barrage today!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Tonight’s slate has weather risks and I think we will see a ton of recency bias impact of MLB DFS picks across the industry which gives us the opportunity to pivot and make GPP waves.

The Phillies/Twins stack offers you power and balanced salary builds that will open up really any pitching path you want – either high/low or balanced. Keep an eye on ownership today and stay in Discord so we can update our thoughts as the day goes on!

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, July 19th 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 an 11 game Monday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we kick-off the week with a solid slate that has some fascinating GPP appeal due to the fact that we really lack the “obvious plays.” Any time we get a slate where the top arms are not in ideal match-ups or we don’t have a gaudy 6+ Coors Field type total, it makes things far more interesting and likely far less chalky.

We have three elite strikeout arms on today’s slate with Kevin Gausman, Yu Darvish and Shohei Ohtani and I start here because we saw it yesterday, K’s are still king in MLB DFS as ceiling games from Carlos Rodon and Corbin Burnes were anchors to winning GPP line-ups. The one concern today is the weather in Atlanta with serious storms that could threaten this game and really change the landscape.

Now, I know – the last month and a half since the sticky stuff breakdown, many have been hesitant to pay up for pitching as admittedly, the returns are far less consistent, but I still argue that this is the best path for single entry type builds.

When you layer on the fact that the mid to low range of pitching on this slate is flat-out ugly, I tend to side with Adam Strangis in Starting Rotation where we anchor to the top K arms, even in match-ups we may not love.

One of the reasons, I think we take this path is that the stacks I love today are simply – not that expensive and I have the opportunity to go double ace with my favorite bats, so why get cute?

Let’s not overlook the obvious – it is Jon Lester day and my friends, this spot is absolutely gorgeous. Lester is giving up a .242 ISO to right-handed batters and this Marlins lineup is loaded with right-handed and affordable power with the projected line-up sporting a .210 ISO and 40% HC rate against LHP since the start of last season.

The one “issue” writing this early is that the projected line-up we see this morning may not look anything like what gets rolled out later on due to both Jazz Chisholm and Garrett Coopper leaving Sunday’s game with injuries that require X-rays and MRI’s.

What you can anchor to is the trio of big right-handed bats in Jesus Aguilar, Starling Marte and Adam Duvall and when you dig into pitch type you see some premium bats pop. We know Lester’s cutter has been the pitch to attack this year with an absurd .502 ISO mark and 43% hard contact rate against it. Both Marte and Aguilar stand out with .375 and .235 ISO marks respectively, and Duvall leads the team with a .247 ISO mark versus southpaws this season.

Where it could get interesting, and allow us a path to pay for the double aces with ease, is if Jazz/Cooper end up sitting and we get some added value in the Marlins lineup and it sure sounds like Chisholm is headed for an IL stint we need to watch this Miami starting lineup for value today!

The other spot that stands out to me today for value, well, may not normally be a spot I look for value but take a peek at San Diego for a second. The match-up versus LHP Kyle Muller is not one I set out to target but I also cannot overlook when we get a team with multiple punt projected starts as the Padres have with Webster Rivas and Ha-Seong Kim.

Now, these guys are not the reasons you start with the Padres – but their inclusion is what all of a sudden allows you to get Fernando Tatis and Manny Machado into a Marlins/Padres stacking combination.

I preach roster correlation all the time – and guess what the Marlins do not have – strong 3B and SS options – paving the way to load in arguably the two best bats on the slate into our line-ups today in an ultra Stars/Scrubs type build.

Now, Muller is an arm I have argued we should use early in the season due to his minor league K pedigree but flip the script here a second and this is the same arm that has had strong fly ball tendencies and HR issues at AAA, and has given up a 60% fly-ball rate to right-handed batters in his short big league time.

This is not an indictment of Muller’s talent, it is an opportunity to potentially get Tatis/Machado who have .330+ ISO marks against both of Muller’s primary pitch types in the slider and curveball.

In both of these cases, we get to anchor to one of my favorite strategies – stacking road teams with guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats. I know it may seem like a throw-away comment but when I know I can anchor to stacks that will get 11% more at bat’s, it becomes a slight edge for those who stack home teams and when every at-bat is a chance to make a difference in tournaments, I want any edge I can get.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Walking into this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, I think the path for a “double-ace” approach with elite road stacks is really clear and becomes even more doable pending the Marlins line-up post-injury news.

Personally, I think you need to anchor to the top arms due to a combination of K upside and the opportunity cost of fading them. If guys like Gausman, Darvish and Ohtani have ceiling-type 30+ DK point games, the reality is they could lap the pitching field by double because there are far more floor arms today than those who have GPP ceiling. So anchoring to those builds and being able to do so with some punt value that still allows us the big bats, is a path I am all about 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 Sunday, July 18th edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

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

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a Sunday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have a much more clear weather slate ahead of us however we do have some unique aspects of this 10 game slate as the Jays/Rangers game is a 7 inning double-header and the games in Washington and Philadelphia will start delayed as they need to resume the games from last night first.

The one thing we know for sure – pitching is STRONG on this slate, like really strong. You could make the argument for half the arms on this slate as viable pitching targets and as such, the takeaway for me is that we cannot take unnecessary risks with arms today and need to ensure we hit on our two pitchers on DraftKings.

Now that does not necessarily mean we have to pay all the way up for the likes of Burnes, Max or Wheeler – all strong plays, but I think the next tier down provides more point per dollar upside.

Sonny Gray ($8.2K) is coming off the All-Star Break IL with a rib strain, and assuming we hear of no pitch count issues, we simply need to go right back to him at this price point. In his previous two starts before the break, Gray struck out 7 and 8 batters and his 30% K rate on the season gives you elite strikeout upside at a mid-range price point.

The match-up against Milwaukee sets up perfectly as well, with 5 of the 8 projected batters hitting from the left side where Gray has a 34.4% K rate this season and this is a line-up overall with a 25% K rate against RHP since the start of last season.

The other mid-range arm in an elite match-up with Hyun Jin Ryu ($7.6K) against the K-happy Texas Rangers in a 7 inning double-header contest. Five of the eight batters in this projected Texas line-up have a K rate of 28% or higher against LHP since the start of last season including 3 left-handed batters with Gallo, Dahl, and Lowe who have a combined 30%+ K rate against southpaws.

When pivoting to the bats, yeah – it has been a while but boy oh boy – today is the day we go back to our Tampa Bay Rays stacks against LHP Drew Smyly.

If you look at the metrics for Smyly this season, his sub 5 ERA actually tells you he has been lucky as compared to his 5.26 xFIP and his .200+ ISO and 46% hard contact rates allowed along with a 2 HR/9 rate, tells you this is a blow-up spot that could happen at any moment and we know the Rays are the kind of offense that can win you a GPP when the bats are clicking.

What I love about this Rays stack is how balanced it is from the right/left side and I think having lefties like Austin Meadows and Brandon Lowe in the middle of the order, will keep folks away in the L/L spot. However, here is the thing – Smyly, has given up a .303 ISO mark to LHB this season with a 51.8% hard contact rate and when you dig deeper into his pitch type you start to fall in love even more with the spot.

Smyly relies over 30% of the time on his curveball to lefties, the only real secondary offering he uses and it is one that left-handed batters have hit with power to the tune of a .240 ISO and average distance traveled of 347 feet. Meadows and Lowe specifically have elite batted ball profiles against this pitch type with Meadows sporting a .290 ISO while Lowe has a .200 ISO and team-high 50% hard contact rate.

The Rays are the road team, so we know we get a guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats and with Smyly’s penchant for hard contact and it being hot and humid in Atlanta today – the ball could fly as our Rays stack takes us to the top of the GPP leaderboard.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Looking at this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, the pitching is where you need to start and frankly, it is where you have to get it right but I also think with so many good options, the ownership will largely be spread out and allow us to pick from a large player pool.

The flip side is with so many good arms is that there are far less stacks to build off of, so if all of a sudden we see chalky bats forming – that to me is where we pivot off and my hope is that the Rays go over-looked against an arm that is giving up tons of power in a hitter’s ballpark.

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 Saturday, July 17th 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 the 10 game Saturday Night MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate where we have continued rain concerns we need to navigate through another Coors slate, and a whole lot of high-priced arms.

The biggest issue on this slate is working through the considerable rain risk we have up and down the East Coast tonight as the game in Washington and New York (NYY) seem like the biggest trouble spots. The issue with those games – we have arguably the best stack on the board with San Diego and one of the top aces in Gerrit Cole. Fun times.

If I step back and look at this slate, I think the offense is where you need to anchor to again – and it feels like the paths are SUPER chalky. We have the Dodgers in Coors Field and the Padres right-handed heavy line-up against Corbin and the Nats bullpen.

These two teams combined for 30+ runs last night. They are going to be super popular and honestly, it is hard to argue it.

The best part about these two teams is how they correlate and also how much value we have.

The Padres will give us a punt catcher with either Caratini or Rivas at $2.2K or $2K respectively and that becomes a massively important part of getting the big bats we covet. Now, we have also seen them give Jurickson Profar and or Ha-Seong Kim spot starts against lefites and with Mad Max pitching tomorrow, this would be the likely spot if they choose to go that route.

Even if they do not utilize some of the pure punts – the reality is, across both San Diego and LA, you have underpriced bats. In fact, the Padres are projected to have 4-5 bats under $4K and the Dodgers are likely to have both Albert Pujols and Austin Barnes under $4K with LHP Kyle Freeland on the mound.

The value at the low and mid-range here is why you can so easily afford to lock in the Betts and Tatis and you get your choice of Justin Turner or Manny Machado at 3B.

All of this means you are living in the $7K range for arms and honestly – that feels totally fine.

The player pool in this range in my opinion is vast with Max Fried ($7.8K), Luis Castillo ($7.5K), Blake Snell ($7K) and Brady Singer ($6.6K) standing out as great mix and match options depending on the lineups we get from LAD and SD.

As he always does – Adam Strangis nails Starting Rotation, so I am not going to wax poetic about arms he already talked about – with one exception, Blake Snell.

Listen, I get the little IL red sticker next to his name gives you pause after bouts with COVID-related fatigue and stomach issues, but we are getting a 30% K arm at $7K. Think about that – a 30% K arm – at $7K. As long as we have no pitch count confirmation ahead of the game, at $7K you are getting a massive discount on an arm that was priced at $10.2K just two months ago.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate feels super straightforward and maybe even chalky, but as a single entry player – I really cannot argue the path. The Dodgers/Padres bats are in amazing spots and you can stack them so easily with the $7K arms we have available to us tonight.

The only concern is really the rain and making sure they get the game in because in both cases we get elite offenses on the road and 9 guaranteed innings of at-bats. Buckle up because tonight is all about the offense again!

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!