Welcome to the Tuesday edition of the Stack City, where I’ll be going through the top MLB DFS Stacks on DraftKings and Fanduel.
Tonight we have a big 13-game slate of MLB DFS. With it being a large slate of games, we have plenty of options to choose from.
Always make sure to read Adam’s Starting Rotation when setting your lineup. It’s hands down the best pitching article in the MLB DFS business.
Let’s dig in and see if we can find some stacks to use today!
The Pirates have shown that they can put up some runs in the right environment. Last night they put up a 12-spot vs. a struggling pitcher in Caleb Kilian. They get just as juicy of a matchup going against Matt Swarmer tonight. Swarmer has really struggled so far in the big leagues. Through just 20 innings of work, he’s already surrendered 10 homers! He’s given up a 54% flyball rate and a 44% hard-hit rate. That’s a combo that’s going to cause you a lot of headaches and a lot of visits from the pitching coach. With Swarmer, I’m not going to be overly concerned with splits as so far he’s been pretty bad against both sides of the plate.
We’ll start off this stack with the still min-priced Oneil Cruz. Cruz had a solid 2022 debut, going 2 for 5 with 4 RBI and 2 runs scored. Last night he was 33% owned in most contests. I suspect after the debut that he had last night that he will be way more popular, but at this price and matchup, he’s the free square type of play that we’ll want to take advantage of. It’s a big enough slate that we’ll be able to differentiate ourselves in other ways.
Next up will be Jack Suwinski. Suwinski had another productive night at the plate last night, scoring both times he got on base. Over the last month, Suwinski has a .319 ISO and a .369 wOBA vs. righties. Swarmer is going to through a heavy dose of fastballs and sliders tonight. Although it’s a very small sample size, Suwinski so far has done well against sliders. He’s been hot at the plate, and he’ll continue to be hot tonight in a great matchup.
Other guys I like here will be Bryan Reynolds and Daniel Vogelbach.
The Cardinals take on one of my favorite pitchers in the game tonight, Chi Chi Gonzalez. Anytime that Gonzalez is on the hill, I make it a point to stack against him. More often than not, it’s been a successful strategy as the guy is just not a good pitcher. After just 2 starts for the Twins this season, they realized the error of the way and placed him on waivers. The Brewers, struggling with pitching depth decided to claim him and start him tonight vs. a lineup that is clicking on all cylinders. Over the last 2 seasons, Gonzalez has essentially been a reverse splits pitcher. Righties have a .430 wOBA vs. him, while showing some pop with a .323 ISO.
Any Cardinals stack right now needs to start with Paul Goldschmidt. He is currently on a heater. Over the last week, Goldy had 4 homers and 6 barrels. He also drove in 11 runs while scoring another 7. This is a matchup that Goldy should absolutely take advantage of. His price is up there at $5.4k on DK tonight, but we’ll have more than enough value with the Pirates to pay up for Goldy.
Next up will be Brendan Donovan. Although he’s tailed off a bit over the last couple of games, he had himself a solid last 7 games. Over the last week, Donovan had 12 hits in 31 AB. While the power hasn’t been there, he did combine for 14 runs and rbi. He’s been productive at the plate and that should continue tonight with a great matchup vs. Gonzalez.
Other Cardinal bats I really like are Tommy Edman, Nolan Arenado, Harrison Bader, and Dylan Carson.
The Orioles have been playing some solid baseball recently. They are no longer the laughing stock of the league and have started beating some good teams. Today, they face a bad team and a bad pitcher and should do well. Over the last month, Erick Fedde has pitched to a 6.26 ERA. In his last 4 starts, teams have scored 34 runs.
With Fedde, you want to go either full-stack or no stack at all. He doesn’t give up many homers but he puts a ton of runners on base as he has a 1.74 WHIP over the last month. So you won’t be able to necessarily count on a random homer, you’ll want to count on runners getting on and then a base hit knocking them in. The Orioles are priced in a way tonight where going full-stack is very affordable. Only Austin Hays is over $4k on DK.
I’ll start my Orioles stack with their hottest hitter, Ryan Mountcastle. Over the last week, Mountcastle has 11 hits in 30 AB. 3 of those 11 hits have left the park and he’s combined for 15 runs and RBI. He’s also done very well against righties over the last month, with a .295 ISO. At just $3.9k tonight on DK, he’s very affordable and should be productive. Your decision here will be do you pay up at first and play Goldy or do you go with the value of Mountcastle?
Next up will be Adley Rutschman. The top prospect is starting to show off the bat that made him the first overall pick in the draft a few years ago. Over his last 4 games, he’s driven in 4 runs while garnering 5 hits. In there he also has a pair of doubles and a homer. He’ll look to continue with the momentum he’s been building as he gets more comfortable at the plate.
Other Orioles bats I like here will be Cedric Mullins, Anthony Santander, Austin Hays, and Trey Mancini.
Other places I like for offense tonight will be the Royals vs. the lucky one Reid Detmers, Seattle Mariners vs. James Kaprielian, and the New York Mets vs. Jose Urquidy. Should Jordan Lyles start for the Orioles tonight, I would also like the Washington Nationals a ton. He’s been bad of late and the Josh Bell and Juan Soto would instantly become top bats.
Good luck and hope to see you in the green.
Make sure you follow me on Twitter at @rangerzfan79 and be sure to sign up for an ALL ACCESS GOLD ACCOUNT here at Win Daily Sports. Gain access to our Projection Models and jump into our Discord where we will have our experts talking plays across every sport and slate!
These are the kind of slates that we dream about because there are a ton of options for just nine games with a loaded Ace tier tonight. We also still get some intriguing options in the lower their and I’m very excited for some of these matchups. Let’s try and decipher which two pitchers we’ll need the most in the MLB DFS: DraftKings and FanDuel Pitching 6/20!
Cole does face Tampa for the second time in a row but this is a team that couldn’t hit the Baltimore bullpen yesterday and has been one of the worst offenses in baseball across the last 30 days, which basically coincided with the Wander Franco injury. The K rate in that span is 24.9% and Cole is at a 30.6% K rate, a 14.9% swinging-strike rate, and a 2.80 xFIP. Even though he can sometimes give up a long ball or two (or five), the hard-hit rate is 24.1% and when he’s on his game, he’s tough to beat. Tampa is also down to 22nd when facing a fastball and the slider, which is almost 70% of the arsenal for Cole. Those two pitches have 78 of 91 strikeouts for him on the season and they both have a whiff rate of at least 33.5% and the only real issue with the fastball is it has allowed five home runs. With Tampa sitting 23rd in ISO in the past month and the Rays have been lefty-heavy. That’s perfect for Cole with a .217 wOBA, 35.9% K rate, and a 0.79 WHIP so in my eyes, he’s deserving of the top salary on the slate.
It feels odd to see Burnes under $10,000 even though the production has been a little up-and-down lately. He’s taken over the lead in the swinging-strike rate at 16.4% and that bodes well for his 32.1% K rate to keep up. It’s a little funny to be critical of the production when the ERA is 2.52, the xFIP is 2.77, and the barrel rate is just 6.3%. A righty-heavy lineup like the Cardinals in theory is better for Burnes since he has a .258 wOBA against them and a 0.85 WHIP but even the lefties are only at a 2.31 xFIP and both are over 31% for the K rate. The cutter/curve mix is the main mix for Burnes and St. Louis is 13th when facing the cutter and 27th when facing the curve. Additionally, his slider has a whiff rate over 54% and that’s the secondary pitch against righties. I have him behind Cole as far as priority up top but really, the top three are very difficult to separate.
This is basically a carbon copy of five days ago on this side because he faced the Yanks and surrendered four runs, but only one was earned. Shane O’Mac got through six innings and only gave up three hits (two homers) and he struck out seven, totaling 22 DK points yet again. He’s still leading all qualified starters in 35.2% and the next closest is Dylan Cease at 32.9% while he has fallen to second in swinging-strike rate by 0.3% behind Burnes. His curve/change/slider mix continues to dominate and they all have at least a 33.9% whiff rate with the change/slider sitting at least at 43$. They have accumulated 79 of 105 strikeouts and the ERA of 1.84 matches up with the 2.13 xFIP. The ground ball rate remains over 48% and even with a 1.15 HR/9, the upside is palpable. He is third among the big three just based on the matchup with the Yankees, but you can make the accurate argument that he’s been the best pitcher in the majors this season.
Honorable Mention
The Giants are ninth in K rate against lefty pitching and that opens the door for Max Fried to have a bigger game and his K rate is up over 23% and the FIP is 2.80 to back up the 2.94 xFIP. Fried could also neutralize the high fly-ball rate of San Francisco’s offense since he generates a ground ball rate over 52% but on paper, he does not have the same upside as the big three tonight.
I will not likely stray from these three pitchers when I’m spending up but Jose Berrios seems to be finding his stride. As much as I may not be a huge fan, even I knew that he wasn’t as bad as he was pitching early on and in five of the past six games, he’s scored at least 18 points. The White Sox are 20th against the curve and Brio’s is down to a 4.13 xFIP, which isn’t bad considering it was over 5.00 in May. The K rate is back up over 20% and on another slate, I might be more interested.
I was prepared to fade Mikolas after he threw a massive 129 pitches in the last start, falling one out short of a no-hitter. That’s so many pitches that I would expect Mikolas to be a little bit limited here although he threw 115 pitches on May 29th, then threw 107 in his next start. Not only is that encouraging but once again, the DK algorithm completely dropped the ball and Mikolas is only $7,800. He was $8,400 in the last start, has two straight games of at least 32 DK, and his salary dropped by $600. There’s no real excuse for that and Milwaukee whiffs over 24% of the time. Mikolas mixes his pitches well and doesn’t throw anything over 28.1% and even though the 3.75 xFIP is well above the 2.62 ERA, it’s hard to not look to Mikolas as an SP2 candidate at this salary. My biggest fear is a repeat of the last time when he was in Milwaukee and scored under seven DK points and he is worse against lefties with an xFIP over 4.00 and a K rate under 19%. Overall though, Mikolas has been a strong SP2 through the season and I’d be a lot less enthused if he was n the $9,000 range.
Is he getting right as the season goes on? Since the start of May, the ERA has dropped under 3.00 and even though the K rate isn’t spectacular around 20%, Darvish has held teams to a 1.35 ERA at home and the K rate climbs over 25%. He’s been especially dominant against lefties at home at a .164 wOBA, 0.52 WHIP, and a 2.22 FIP and he’ll likely face at least seven lefties tonight. Arizona can hit some games but they also have a K rate of 24.9% and that is fifth when facing a righty. I don’t think the salary has caught up with Darvish pitching much better across the past ~50 IP or so and in the last 10 games, he’s averaging over 21 DK points. Arizona is up to seventh in ISO so this isn’t a sure thing but Darvish or Mikolas should be the SP2 and I think I might actually lean toward Darvish as my choice.
He could be sneaky on the other side of the Darvish matchup and this would be no sure thing. However, the Padres almost will surely be missing Manny Machado after a scary-looking ankle injury yesterday and even with Machado playing at a very high level, San Diego is 20th in OPS and wOBA, 25th in ISO, and 17th in wRC+. Davies is really nothing special but he does have a 26% K rate when facing a righty and a 3.67 xFIP to go along with a .290 wOBA. The left side is at .309 and the K rate plummets to just 13% and his changeup is likely the reason. The whiff rate is 35.6% and that’s used more when facing a righty and it has the most strikeouts of the arsenal at 29. The matchup wasn’t scary with Machado and obviously gets so much better without him.
Logan Webb – This spot profiles about as well as it could for a pitcher facing Atlanta but Webb has been very hard to get a grip on this season. Sure, the 33 DK start last time out is great but in the two previous games, he didn’t clear 10.9 DK. The Braves are third in K rate when facing a righty pitcher at 25.6% and Webb has been excellent against the left side of the plate with a 2.46 FIP, a .245 wOBA, and the K rate is over 22%. Still, there has been no stability with Webb in the least and he’s been worse on the road.
Lance Lynn – He’s super cheap this time around and his xFIP from the first start was only 3.64, a stark contrast to the 6.23 ERA. Lynn also threw 88 pitches so that aspect is encouraging and he was good against the seven righties he faced, typical of Lynn. Still, this is a really good offense and I can’t get behind going against the Jays at this point.
Josh Winckowski – I wanted to go after him against the Tigers at such a cheap salary and I believe you can in larger-field MME style. The main issues are he should face five lefties and through 17 hitters faced, LHH has a 50% fly-ball rate, 6.64 FIP, and a 5.21 xFIP. I grant you, it’s not a large sample size at all and that’s why he’s not totally out of play. We all know the Tigers offense has been horrid, although you wouldn’t know it from the past two games.
Angels
Red Sox (heavy LHH)
Cubs
Blue Jays
Pirates – Oneil Cruz is back up with the big boys and he has immense power in that bat and he swiped 11 bases in AAA this year. The team overall is DIRT cheap and Caleb Kilian for the Cubs has an xFIP over 6.20 against each side of the plate. They could be key to fitting everything we want.
Thank you for reading my MLB DFS: DraftKings and FanDuel Pitching 6/20 and make sure you follow me on Twitter at @bucn4life! 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 9th edition of Formula 1 Race Week: Montreal, Canada, June 2022.
Due to Covid restrictions Formula 1 has not been on the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve since 2019. This Circuit is 2.710 miles long in the middle of a seaport. The track is surrounded by water and rain usually plays a role in this race. Which again it did today. Between the weather and other factors, this preview will be slightly different from my normal articles. Keep reading and find out how.
Max Verstappen, Red Bull $16,800
For our F1 DK lineups, we must decide to be with the field and play Max w/ Red Bull for $11,500 in the constructor position or be contrarian. We have to make this decision right off the bat because Charles Leclerc $15,300 who is a staple in the top captain position, will have a grid penalty and start in the back of the field.
Along with Charles’s absence from the top captain options, we have to add Sergio Perez $15,900 to the same category as Charles. Sergio has just looked off the pace this weekend. They say there are “horses for courses” unfortunately for Sergio, this is not a that suits his driving style. He starts P13. One caveat for Sergio is that due to rain during qualifying and conditions that won’t be reflective of the conditions on Sunday, he could move up the field and gain bonus points. If it works out, he would make a great contrarian captain option and overall play.
Mercedes
With somewhat random teams and drivers in the top 10 positions for qualifying, looking at you Zhou Guanyu, team Mercedes $9300 makes for a very interesting play. George Russell $9000 gambled and lost by going out on slick tires while the circuit was still wet. He ended up spinning off track and will start P8. Lewis Hamilton $8400, sits in P4, and I think is worthy of a roster or two if he can hold or exceed his position.
Alpine
Fernando Alonso $6800 and Esteban Ocon $6000. This Circuit historically was not a great one for Fernando Alonso, however, he has seemed to put it all together this weekend. He was a top 10 car all weekend and ended up on the front row with Max Verstappen, starting P2. Ocon starts p7 and could pick off the drivers around him to gain positions. Alpine $5000 makes for a fantastic value in the constructor position.
Valtteri Bottas $7400 and Kevin Magnussen $5200. While these two drivers are usually staples in the top 10, this weekend they find themselves there on outside factors, not so much their performance. As both cars have Ferrari engines, I think the weather, which was cold and wet, played right into the natural performance of the Ferrari engine. I say that because neither the Hass nor the Alfa Romeo showed any sort of pace all weekend. The rain enhanced their positions. With no rain being expected on Sunday’s race, I hesitate to use either one or their teammates who are also over-qualified.
Looking below the DraftKings price tag of $5000, there are a few options for the cheap 5 points.
$5000 Sebastian Vettel. The older drivers showed out on Friday and FP3 with Fernando performing well, and Sebastian right there with Fernando. Then the rain came. All the pace of the Aston Martin just disappeared and after being in the top 10 all weekend, Sebastian found himself not getting out of qualifying session 1. He will start in p16. I do think this lights a fire under his ass and he shows us his pace over the weekend was no fluke.
Alex Albon $3800 is a better wheelman than his teammate Latifi. Being in the worst car on the grid doesn’t help either, but as the last guy in, Albon is fine.
I went into Saturday expecting to write about Sergio Perez, Sebastian Vettel, Fernando, and Pierre Gasly. Then the skies opened up and through the whole weekend into a frenzy. I don’t think we will see many duplicate fantasy lineups this weekend. I do think the field will start their lineups with Max and Red Bull. However, after that, selecting Alonso or Carlos makes your other options vastly different.
On Friday Sebastian Vettel was a top 10 car. The Alpha Tauri of Pierre Gasly was showing amazing speed. Both Aston Martin showed pace. Haas and Alfa Romeo were both an afterthought. I think as teams saw that it did not make sense to sacrifice the weekend’s setup, adding downforce to counter the rainy conditions, was the way to go, teams left setup for Sunday. For this reason, I think we will see a massive change from the starting order and a driver or two no one was expecting on the podium this weekend.
If you have questions please feel free to hit me up in discord @tcuz86, or on Twitter @tcuz86. Have fun and thanks for reading Formula 1: Race Week Canada June 2022.
"*" indicates required fields
