Jon Lester

Welcome to the Tuesday, June 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome in to a monster 15 game MLB DFS slate where we have tons of aces, stacks upon stacks of big bats in warm weather and a game in Coors Field so go ahead and buckle in because this one is going to take some time!

Let me start here because any time we get a slate this deep, I think it is worth repeating – you need to minimize your player pool or you are going to get WILDLY overwhelmed.

I have already read Adam’s Starting Rotation and Jared’s Aces and Bases and guess what – they are right and I nodded along to every play they outlined.

That’s the thing – there are a TON of good plays today, more than you are going to be able to play and if you are a single entry player like me, these slates can seem insane at times but if you anchor back to your core strategies, you will find a way through to strong builds.

So what is OUR core philosophy here in Picks and Pivots? Any time we can anchor to a double ace build with high strikeout arms, that is where we want to start and here today that is exactly where I want to start my path with both Brandon Woodruff and Robbie Ray.

Over the last month of action, there are only NINE qualified arms in baseball that have both a 30%+ K rate and a 30%+ CSW rate (called strikes plus whiff rates) – and four of them actually take the hill tonight with Woodruff, Ray, Lucas Giolito and Kevin Gausman.

Now take the same time frame and look at the bats in baseball and who is striking out a lot – over the last 30 days, no two teams strike out more than the Cubs (29.8%) and Mariners (27.3%) – who both just so happen to be facing Mr. Woodruff and Mr. Ray.

This is an instance where the recent performance AND the match-up align for ceiling games and when that happens, I want to find ways to simply anchor to that path.

Now, going for two arms that cost you around $11K on DraftKings each means we have to get creative with bats and finding stacks that offer high/low salary stacks is where I want to start.

Now, Adam already touched on the fact we have Shohei Ohtani in Yankee stadium and I think this is a spot that may allow us high/low stacking in an advantageous spot. James Taillon is an arm we have attacked all year long in the right spots – those spots being when he faced left-handed power because his .227 ISO and 50% fly ball mark are big-time red flags!

Now put Taillon in Yankee Stadium with the short porch in RF and you wonder why the metrics spike to a 58% fly-ball rate and a 2.6 HR/9 rate against lefties. So yeah Ohtani is the big bat – but how about the fact we have multiple $2K punts from the left side in Scott Schebler and Luis Rengifo that you can use to balance out the cost of someone like Ohtani while still attacking the same splits we want with the bigger Angels bats like Ohtani or Jared Walsh.

The other spot that stands out to me – well, it ain’t gonna surprise you – but it came out in my research on Taillon that there is another arm that has similar struggled against left-handed power – Joe Ross of the Washington Nationals. Guess who he faces today? Yep, the left-handed heavy Tampa Bay Rays.

If you look at all qualified starting pitchers this season, Ross ranks as one of the top 5 in all of baseball in terms of hard contact allowed to left-handed batters with a whopping 49.3% rate. Much like Taillon – take those marks into his home park and his 50%+ fly ball rate and 2+ HR/9 rate to LHB stands out.

Take it one step further and Ross, who throws his splitter nearly 40% of the time to LHB has to take on Austin Meadows – who jumps off the page with a .240 ISO and average distance of over 340 feet on that pitch type. Meadows is going deep tonight and we will get him under 5% owned as we always do. Keep fading – we won’t.

Much like with Ohtani and the Angels, we have punt options on the Rays side we can pair Meadows with – including $2K OF Kevin Kiermaier. Again, much like Schebler, this is a spot where you can take a pure punt you are attacking with the same splits and pair them with a high-dollar bat from the same team which helps you afford the big arms we want to anchor to.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have a really strong MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate today and one that I think we need to stay disciplined on in our builds as casting our net too wide, could mean we over extend ourselves.

The key to me on this slate and a spot where I think we can help keep ourselves condensed in our process is to anchor to both aces in Woodruff/Ray tonight who get the perfect on paper upside match-up.

That will require value but as I outlined above, I think we have paths to that early and that is before we even get the 30 MLB teams confirmed lineups.

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, June 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a solid 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday, as we have strong top-end pitching, a clear top stack, and some potential lingering rain concerns in the Minnesota Twins/Chicago White Sox game that could impact how we attack tonight’s slate.

At first glance on this slate, there are two very clear over-arching themes – first, the Houston Astros are going to be heavy chalk with a 6+ IRT at home against the Orioles, and secondly, our pitching pool is incredibly thin and top-heavy.

As Adam laid out in Starting Rotation, there is a clear need to look up to Trevor Bauer & Freddy Peralta and Kenta Maeda looks like the default SP2 pairing against the White Sox.

Honestly, you can almost end the pitching pool right there and move on to the offenses.

Listen, we hit on some risky punts yesterday here in Picks and Pivots with Muller/Max (shown above) in the $4K range, but I am not going to force it today. The pitching pool today has far more landmines than options I want to actively roster and anytime that is the case, I would argue to let other’s make the mistake and we take the clear path to points.

The clear path in my mind is to go with Bauer OR Peralta and pair them with Maeda, which gives you the salary flexibility to anchor to the Astros stack.

The key then is how do you want the value stack(s) to make it all fit?

The Detroit Tigers against RHP Eli Morgan is an ideal way to not only get value but to do so by attacking an arm that checks all the boxes for pitching we want to attack. Morgan so far at the big league level has surrendered a 3.2 HR/9 rate, a 50% fly-ball rate and a 46% hard contact rate, and a bloated 10.32 ERA.

The Tigers bats are insanely cheap – as we have SIX bats at $2.6K or lower in the projected starting lineup and you get the added benefit of them being the road team and a guaranteed 9 innings of at-bats. Literally, 4-9 in the projected lineup is priced near-minimum salary, I am not sure the last time I have seen that much value in a lineup, especially against a pitcher that has struggled this much!

Now, you did not come here JUST for the clear path – you come to Picks and Pivots for the off-the-wall ideas and while this slate largely seems like one to play straight, we have to find ways to be different.

On some slates, like yesterday, pitching is where we pivot- today though, that is NOT the case, my pitchers are ONLY Bauer, Peralta, and Maeda – period. stop. The one thing to mention – this could become a two-horse pitcher pool real quickly if Maeda is rained out as his game is the clear weather concern. Now all of a sudden you are looking at a double ace approach and my recommendation today – build lineups this way just so you have a back-up plan if/when Maeda is rained out so you do not have to scramble later.

So if we are going to play popular arms, can we pivot off the popular stack with the Astros? Listen, the spot is great no doubt but baseball hitting is the most variant aspect of the sport and so what if we simply find another strong offense to attack?

My favorite pivot stack tonight is the Kansas City Royals against RHP Garrett Richards who has become one of the most hittable pitchers in baseball since the crackdown on sticky stuff has changed the course of the season.

Over his last three starts, Richards has only gone 11 innings, with 21 hits, 15 runs, a 54% hard contact rate and just an 8% swinging strike rate.

After giving up 5 runs and 2 HR’s in just 1.2 innings his last start versus the Rays, he vented to Chris Cotillo of MassLive.com, that he is essentially being asked to change how he pitches on the fly and the results have been – well, terrible.

Richards inability to get any control on his curveball has turned him into a fastball only arm and the results have shown – with 47, 55 and 65 percent hard contact rates trending over the last three games.

I think this is a spot we go all-in on Kansas City in GPP’s because the match-up simply screams upside in Fenway Park where it is hot, humid and the wind is blowing out at 15 MPH.

The Royals are going to go totally ignored, largely because of pricing – Salvador Perez, Whit Merrifield and Carlos Santana as an example will cost you $15.2K on DraftKings – that kind of average salary most are going to reserve for the big Astros bats. Yesterday, when the Blue Jays were the chalky stack, we saw the Royals are sub 5% ownership against Jordan Lyles, and today, I think we could see similar ownership as everyone flocks to the Astros 6+ IRT.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This is a fascinating 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate because the player pool, specifically on the pitching side is SO condensed. If Kenta Maeda is ultimately rained out – you are looking at double ace type builds with Peralta/Bauer which is where the Tigers value will be key to unlocking the big bats we want.

Make no mistake the big bats are the selling point on this slate and while the Astros will be cash game staples, the Royals I think are where we make GPP headway against a pitcher that is flat our broken right now.

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, June 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

When opening up this Sunday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, we are met with a 12 game slate that has some serious top end pitching on it and I think that anchoring to at least one high end K arm will be necessary on this slate.

Max Scherzer ($10.7K) looks like the ideal pay up today pitching against the Marlins in Miami as his 36% K rate will match-up against a Miami projected line-up that has a 24% K rate and a .150 ISO mark against RHP since the start of last season.

The last time Mad Max faced Miami, he went 9 innings, with 9 K’s and 39 DK points but keep in mind the entire top of the Marlins order (Jazz, Aguilar and Marte) did not play that game.

One of the reasons I think we can and should anchor to a “known” quantity as an SP1 is that we have a plethora of cheap, albeit risky SP2’s we can sort through in the value range.

The one name that jumps out to me is $4K Pirates right-hander Max Kranick who makes his major league debut today against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Yeah – that’s right – we are taking it to the MAX with a Double Max Stack!

Kranick is a bit of a mystery as injuries derailed his minor league career initially but a change in approach has allowed him to make it to the majors with consistent velocity being added and now topping out at 98 MPH and has upward trajectory.

Kranick used the pandemic to really change his approach and this included changing his arm angle to throw harder up in the zone to play off his curveball that break down and out of the zone. This is a great article from Baseball America that outlined his pitch change working with former major leaguer Vic Black and with this new pitch approach, we could see a player who was a top 100 prospect out of high school finally make a big league impact.

In this video you can see this short arm angle that Kranick has gone to and I think that the limited tape on him could play to his advantage the first time through the bigs. If he can use this short arm angle with his velocity to play off his breaker, it could produce some serious swing and misses as batters try to pick up the ball from a pitcher who has reinvented himself. At $4K on DK – he could be a massive GPP pay off especially with all the bats we want!

If you want another option in this range- take a look at LHP Kyle Muller ($4.7K) who made his big league debut against the Mets and showcased a high velocity heater and nasty breaking stuff.

Main Slate Breakdown – Hitting

The main storyline on this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is how much offense we have and it all starts with a near 7 run total for the Blue Jays against Jorge Lopez and the Orioles.

One of the reasons I spent time on the $4K punt arms is because the Jays offense is SUPER expensive and finding a way to get to them is going to be key on this slate. Going with a Max/Muller double punt build gives you all the bats, specifically all the Jays you could possibly want.

The thing is – as good as the Jays offense is, it is not like this is the only good hitting spot on the slate, in fact we have 7 total teams as of this writing with 5+ IRT’s.

The Yankees will be in Fenway Park today with warm & humid temperatures, the wind blowing out 15-20 MPH and LHP Eduardo Rodriguez on the mound who has struggled mightily to the tune of a 6+ ERA this season with 5+ runs allowed now in 4 of his last 10 starts.

The Yankees bats are set up perfectly for this match-up with their right-handed heavy lineup and while the big bats like Judge, Stanton and Voit are pricey, you can balance it out with cheaper options like Torres, Ursehla, Andujar and Frazier who offer you some serious salary relief.

My favorite tournament offense today is the Kansas City Royals against RHP Jordan Lyles – arguably the worst arm on this slate. Lyles sits among the worst arms in baseball this year against right-handed hitting line-ups as his 2.59 HR/9 rate is second-worst in the bigs and his 39.7% hard contact sits bottom five.

Lyles relies on a slider nearly 40% of the time to RHB and this is a pitch type that all of Salvador Perez, Jorge Soler and Hunter Dozier all hit with 200+ ISO marks and 50% hard contact rates.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate is interesting because I think there is the potential for some serious chalk with the Blue Jays offense sporting such a massive total and it allows us to find some pivot paths that still give us high ceiling offenses.

Going high/low at pitching is really the key because we need to open up salary to find the big bats and using a mid-range stack the Royals at low ownership against Jordan Lyles is an ideal way to pivot off the field and the same core team 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 Friday, June 25th 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 in to a 13 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where at first glance, we have some serious stacks, a few top end arms in play and three games in Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis that have some rain risk we need to navigate through.

When looking at the pitching, while we have Carlos Rodon up top as the clear SP1, I find myself more intrigued by the $8K range on DraftKings when looking at my player pool.

Chris Paddack ($8.8K) is the first arm that stands out as his last two games have seemingly unlocked the ceiling we were waiting to utilize in our MLB DFS lineups.

Through his first 11 starts of the season, Paddack scuffled with just a 22% K rate, 11% SS rate and threw just 63% of his pitches for first pitch strikes. IN his last two starts, behind a 72% first strike rate, he has jumped to a 43.5% K rate and 21% SS rate while also seeing his swing rate outside the zone jump from 30% to 40%.

Paddack has not seen any material changes to his pitch mixes, with a slight uptick in his change-up usage being the only discernible difference but attacking the zone has really been the biggest key and it is getting ahead in counts and then getting swings and misses on his nasty change-up. Additionally, he has also seen his fastball velocity tick up from 94 MPH on average to 95.6 MPH which is helping him get more swing and misses on the fastball which he can then play off his change-up at a 10 MPH drop in velocity.

At this same price point, Mike Minor ($8.7K) gets to take the mound against the K heavy Rangers in Texas and has pitched extremely well with 20+ DK points now in 5 of his last 8 outings.

There are a couple things I really like about Minor here tonight – he is consistently going deep into games with 90-100+ pitches in every single outing and his 27% K rate on the season is quietly elite with his 37% K rate against LHB being the real key to ceiling.

Left-handed pitchers have had recent success against Texas as well, with 5 of the last 10 southpaws to face Texas to put up 20+ DK points including Kershaw, Wood, Kikucki, Dick Mountain and the venerable Austin Gomber.

The other arm in this range I really like is Alex Manoah ($8.1K) as the K pedigree is there and the match-up with the Orioles is great but man, there is some risk here. Manoah faced this Baltimore team last time out, giving up 4 HR and was tossed after throwing at Maikel Franco and is now appealing a suspension.

Listen, the K stuff and ceiling is there – he showed it in his first start, but I do think there is risk the “moment” could play against the rookie tonight and if he is overly amped and let’s last game bleed into tonight, all it takes is one inside pitch and the umpires could have a quick hook. I get the play but it worries me.

Now to the bats – oh the bats!

Let’s see – checks notes, sees a starting pitcher that ranks among the worst in baseball with a HR/9 rate of 1.96, a 42.4% HC rate with a fly ball rate that ranks among the top 25 in baseball and gets to face the Tampa Bay Rays. Good luck Mr. Canning.

I swear guys, I don’t set out to do this but if the Rays face RHP that give up HR and power, I am going to be on them EVERY DAMN DAY especially when we see them sub 5% owned every single night.

You want to go deeper?

Canning relies on his change-up nearly a third of the time against LHB and the Rays, well they feast on that pitch type, with all of Meadows, Lowe, Choi, Wendle and Kiermeir sporting .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type.

This Rays team has a .210+ team ISO and 45% HC rate against RHP with the 6 of the 9 being high fly ball hitters. It’s the same thing I tell you guys every time – there is MASSIVE power for this Rays team when the profile matches up and while they can strike out a TON they are also leaving a ton of batters on base lately – 12 last night, 16 the night before and 27 the night before that.

With all that base running traffic and all that power in the line-up – this team can (and oh by the way – has) the ability to take down a GPP when they can get those big base hits. The base runners have been there, now we just need the HR’s to follow.

Wait – can it be?

Are you saying it is a Rays night AND Jon Lester?

Insert dancing bears GIF here Ghost.

Lester continues to flirt with disaster, with a 5 ERA and xFIP that are a full run over his ERA, and that variance mark between metrics ranks among the highest in baseball this season – say it with me kids – REGRESSION!

Lester is giving up a .210 ISO mark to RHB this season and here come a right-handed heavy Marlins team with some serious pop in the middle of the order as both Starling Marte and Adam Duvall have .250+ ISO marks this year against lefties while Jesus Aguilar has a team-high 42% HC rate against lefties since the start of last season.

The cutter is what is killing Lester when he gets hit – as he has given up a .590 ISO mark on a pitch he throws nearly 30% of the time. Seriously – a third of the time hes throwing a pitch that has traveled an average distance of 310 feet and nearly 50% hard contact.

All of the RHB I mentioned above have at least a 42% HC rate against the cutter and Marte specifically stands out as an elite play with a .375 ISO, 57% HC rate, and average distance of 317 feet. HR Call of the Day right here – it’s a Marte Party!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Strong arms, the Rays stack and Jon Lester on the hill – imagine having a better MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate? I can’t.

Lock. Load. Profit.

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, June 24th 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 small slate Thursday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have just an 8 game Main Slate with some pitching options that are gross, horrible, and downright poo. You excited yet?

As far as starting pitching goes – there really is not much to say beyond what Adam broke down in Starting Rotation and to tell you there are better paths as pure plays than Walker Buehler and Luis Garcia would be lying to you.

The thing with MLB DFS is, especially on small slates, are we have to find ways to think strategically if we want to pivot off the field and while Buehler and Garcia are good plays – they also do not posses the ceiling that I think is insurmountable if we fade them and let our bats do the talking.

Going past these two tonight is dicey but I do think we have some paths and one of my favorites is Carlos Martinez ($6.3K) against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Martinez is not a high K arm, the reality is – nobody in the mid to low range on this slate is – but he does have a match-up that he can take advantage of and has already this season. Back on May 2nd, C-Mart went 8 shutout innings, allowing just 5 total hits on 12 ground balls with 3 K’s on his way to 22 DK points – a total which would smash his salary at tonight’s price point.

The Pirates line-up is the ideal match-up for Martinez in that they hit for essentially no power against right-handed pitching, in fact they rank dead last in team ISO at .123 against RHP this season. Not surprisingly they also rank as the highest soft contact rate (20.4%), lowest hard contact rate (27.3%) and have a 44% ground ball rate which all plays into Martinez’s style.

The path for Martinez is all about ground ball outs, soft contact and easy outs – that is really it. The risk any time you play a path like this is if BABIP is not on his side, he does not have the swing and miss stuff to make up for it, but you could argue there is no better match-up if you are playing this type of arm tonight.

You want to get nuts? Let’s get nuts.

Jean Carlos Mejia ($4.7K) against the Minnesota Twins.

Listen, this one is not going to be an easy sell and I get it – but we all know my stack tonight is going to be the Tampa Bay Rays so let’s not act like we need to rush to get to the next part – OK? Cool.

Mejia has converted from the Indians bullpen and has now made a series of starts and they, well, have not gone well. In fact, he is coming off his worst outing of the year where he gave up 6 ER’s and 7 hits in 5 innings to the aforementioned Pirates who cannot hit right-handed pitching.

I promise – there is a selling point here.

Mejia is a strikeout arm from his minor league profile with 26-27% K rates over the last two years in the minor league system as a result of a darting fastball/sinker that generates ground balls and a plus slider that gets swing and misses as you can see below.

Mejia has been crazy unlucky so far, and his 6.11 ERA is FAR higher than his 3 xFIP – in fact, it is one of the most extreme ” positive regression” marks of any pitcher in baseball this season. In the last two starts, he has a .333 BABIP despite the fact he is giving up minimal hard contact and has just a 2.8% walk rate.

He is not as bad as these few starts have shown and while I can quote “sample size” like some moronic touts in the industry do – I do not want to get Adam Strangis all fired up and have him body slam me when I argue the appropriate sample size amount.

That slider is going to be what gets us profit – its the biggest swing and miss offering he has and it comes mostly to right-handed batters. The Twins are only projected to have 3 righties – Cruz, Sano and Simmons – in the line-up tonight so that does limit his ceiling but let’s keep an eye on the line-up they roll out because the more righties the better.

There is massive risk here but there is a pedigree that I think we need to understand and the advanced stats tell us there is positive regression coming his way – this is the kind of first or last play in GPP that could make our break our night.

Part of the reason I want to look at cheap arms – is because I want bats – ALL OF THE BATS.

Let’s get this out of the way –Nick Pivetta against the Rays.

Lock. Load. Rays. Go.

Pivetta has a .200+ ISO mark to both sides of the plate since the start of last year and this Rays team has a .205 ISO mark against RHP – and that is before you add in the power of Wander Franco.

The Rays drew minuscule ownership the last two days even with Wander Franco being a popular one-off – but now he is up to $3.8K on DK this is a spot where everyone goes back to ignoring them and we get the stack at single-digit ownership AGAIN.

The other spot that is hard to ignore tonight is the Toronto Blue Jays against RHP Dean Kremer. Kremer’s metrics are just awful to both sides of the plate – arguably the worst of any arm tonight – with a .250 ISO, 50% fly ball, and 50% hard contact combo that has resulted in a 2.4 HR/9 rate this season.

With George Springer ($3.8K) now back – this Jays line-up is insane and I am not sure how any pitcher, let alone a terrible one with a bad bullpen behind him, is able to navigate it.

Bats win you this slate – and the Jays/Rays combo is the high upside path I want to anchor to tonight!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

At first glance you may look at this 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate and think it is a night to avoid because of the lack of pitching, but these slates tend to be my favorite because it forces you to think outside the box.

On a night where bats are going to win you the slate, finding a path to cheap arms is key and I think between Adam and I – we have laid out some solid, albeit risky, plays that get you all the bats your heart desires!

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, June 23rd 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 to a split slate Wednesday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have six early games which kick-off at 12:35 PM EST to get us rolling for the day.

The over arching theme on this early slate is how loaded the pitching is – and it is not just loaded at the top with Kevin Gausman and Brandon Wodruff, this slate is DEEP with arms which means two things – 1) We have tons of viable pitching options and 2) the hitting stacks become far more limited and strategic.

If you take a step back and look at the trends of this slate, one thing that jumped out to me was how cheap the Detroit Tigers bats were against RHP Jon Gant. I bring this up because it is one of the few attackable spots with bats and their cheap price tags will make a Gausman/Woodruff double ace approach, really easy to do!

Short slates like this are always far more about strategy to me than simply finding the best plays, so how can we find ways to pivot with our plays and more so with our builds.

I think Adam Strangis nailed it in Starting Rotation that the aces paired together or with a far too cheap German Marquez as an SP2 will be the chalk builds and the aforementioned Tigers I think become the default cheap stack that holds it all together.

So what if instead of spending up for arms – we opt to spend down and stack the big bats that the Gausman/Woodruff builds cannot afford?

Adam mentioned German Marquez but there are two other arms down in this range that I have my eye on – Caleb Smith ($7.2K) and Matt Manning ($5.4K).

Smith has been under the radar from a DFS perspective since his return to the rotation just four games ago but with a 26% K rate and his pitch count now comfortably up to 90-100 in his last two starts, it is time we start to take notice.

We were all over him in his last start against the Dodgers where he racked up 20 DK points and he now gets the same match-up with a Brewers team he faced back on June 6th, striking out 8 and knocking down 22 DK points. This Milwaukee projected line-up has a 27.4% K rate against LHP this season and has 4 of the 8 hitters with 30%+ K rates individually so the ceiling is once again incredibly high for the former Marlins left-hander.

The other arm Picks and Pivots were all over in their previous start was Tigers RHP Matt Manning ($5.4K) who is one of the big-time prospect arms the Tigers have coming to the majors with a high 90’s fastball and two nasty off-speed pitches in a change-up and 12-6 curveball.

Manning was solid in his debut against the Angels with 5 innings of work, 2 runs allowed, 3 K’s and 8 ground ball outs and this match-up today against St. Louis is sneaky good.

Over their last 15 starts against right-handed starters, we have seen 9 of the 15 go for 20+ DK points so the path for success is clear for Manning, who despite the lack of K’s in his first start is still a ~30% K rate arms throughout the minors and I do think this being his first start at home will have him amped to bring some more punchouts.

If you live down in this Smith, Marquez, and Manning range – what you are hoping for is 20 DK point type outings that give you paths to the big time bats that the ace builds cannot afford and my favorite spot today is in Philly with the Nationals and Phillies against Velasquez/Fedde.

Vincent Velasquez is in the midst of one of his customary downswings where he is not missing bats and the fly balls and home run tendencies come back to bite him – and with 15 runs allowed in his last 16 innings of work, well the Nationals bats looked primed for a day-time beatdown.

The top of the Washington order is pricey but again this is where paying down for arms opens a path to pay for Trea Turner, Juan Soto and Kyle Schwarber. No matter the pitch type for VV, hitters are hammering it from both sides as there is not a single offering this season that Velasquez throws that have gotten under a 40% hard contact rate. The fact that his swinging strike rate is also in single digits the last four starts tells you this is an arm that is not missing bats and the hard contact is coming back to bite him – HARD.

Erick Fedde on the other side of this game has pitched well for the Nationals and even has done so against these Phillies but boy oh boy, does Bryce Harper look like an ideal one-off play or key part of a Philly mini-stack.

Fedde is a sinkerball arm, that is his bread and butter offering, and well – Harper, LOVES that pitch as evidenced by his .329 ISO, 57% HC rate and averaged distance traveled of 330+ feet. You guys know I despise BvP as a stand-alone stat, but when you see a division match-up like this and a pitch type that stands out like the sinker does to Harper – I wanted to see if there was BvP history, and yikes – how does 5 for 13 with 3 HR’s sound?

If you take it a step further, Fedde will fall back on the cutter to lefties as a secondary offering- again Harper has a .200+ ISO against that pitch type and this is the same pitch Fedde threw him last game and Harper deposited in the OF stands. It is hard not to look at the pitch data here and see Harper getting us a bomb on the early slate in a game stack here in Citizen’s Bank Park with a massive hitters umpire behind the plate!

Main Slate Breakdown

The main slate pitching options are well – not nearly as kind, and taking risks here could blow up in our face in a major way. I hate simply piggy-backing on Adam’s starting rotation but goodness, I just don’t see a path here off the Robbie Ray and James Kaprelian pairing on DK.

The match-up for both against Miami and Texas is elite and when the other options are all in risky spots – Bauer against SD, Musgrove against LAD, Hill against Boston and Duffy against the Yankees – there are so many more paths on the main slate that seem like they could end poorly.

One of the reasons we can just take the path to the high-end at arms is well, because DraftKings decided to keep Wander Franco at $2K. Yep.

The kid was near 50% owned in single entry GPP last night – and tonight, it will be even higher on a short slate but it is hard to argue with the talent at this price.

What was fascinating to me was that the Rays outside of Franco were all sub 5% owned so if people are only going to use him as a one-off, stacking around him could pay big dividends and I would argue that tonight – Garrett Richards is one of the best arms to attack against.

Richards metrics are exactly what we look for in MLB DFS – as he is giving up a 48% hard contact rate this season with the last five starts being where the wheels have really fallen off with a 50% HC rate allowed and in 26 innings has surrendered 36 hits and 18 runs.

You guys know the deal – the Rays are always going to be my favorite stack when we get arms that do not have swing and miss ability and give up hard contact – that is who Richards is right now. The non-Wander Rays have 5 bats with .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season with Austin Meadows, Brandon Lowe and Mike Zunino offering massive power alongside the $2K free square rookie. Stack em again guys – it is just too easy.

The Rays were money last night but I didn’t have them paired with the Oakland A’s – tonight against Folty, well, I am not making that mistake again!

Poor Folty has given up an absurd .348 ISO, 47% FB rate and 51% HC rate and 3.3 HR/9 to left-handed batters – so Matt Olson, Mitch Moreland, Tony Kemp, and even Jed Lowrie (yuck) have the advantage of the split here. The Oakland bats correlate well position-wise with the Rays and while this path may end up popular – my hope is the “non-Wander Rays” bats remain under-owned and give us the different path we need for GPP glory!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have two solid MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slates today that have some really intriguing options and some really clear strategic decisions.

I think the early slate is the one to take chances on because of the deep pitching pool while the main slate is one where I think we play it straight and let other’s make mistakes.

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, June 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 back to a loaded Tuesday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where we have 14 games to sort through, a ton of aces and what looks to be an all-clear on weather which is helpful on a slate this large.

When opening up this slate, what stood out to me at first glance was how top-heavy the arms seemed with multiple high-end strikeout arms including Gerrit Cole, Max Scherzer, Zack Wheeler, Freddy Peralta and Lucas Giolito.

As Adam Strangis does every day here at Win Daily – he absolutely nailed the pitching breakdown in today’s Starting Rotation and we are in lock step with our pitching pool – well, with one exception.

Now this is not to say Adam did not write this man up, he did – but I do not think Adam beat the table enough for one Tarik Skubal. Now, maybe it is because Adam is just genuinely less aggressive than me, maybe because he also writes his articles at 1 AM when he is tired – but screw that noise, I am here bright and early with some strong coffee to tell you Tarik Skubal should be in your SP1 discussion while priced as a bargain SP2!

Want to play a fun game? Of course you do! And honestly, even if you don’t we are doing it anyways because it is my article and you are required to keep reading. See, I told you Adam was nicer.

Since May 1st – want to guess who the top 5 strikeout arms in baseball are with a minimum of 40 innings pitched?

Some of the names are going to be likely guesses including studs like Mad Max and Tyler Glasnow but there is a trio of lefties in the top 5 including Carlos Rodon and Robbie Ray and one Tarik Daniel Skubal, whose 33.7% K rate is higher than other names on tonight’s slate like Wheeler, Peralta, Kershaw, Giolito and Mr. Gerrit Stickytack Cole.

This is not me skewing numbers, literally you are getting one of the BEST strikeout arms in baseball tonight for $6,600 on DraftKings. Seriously, that is actually cheaper than playing Vladimir Guerrero Jr. tonight who is $6.7K.

Since May, in this most recent 8 game stretch, you are seeing the strikeout stuff spike for Skubal with a near 34% K rate and 13% SS rate and you can actually argue that he has been wildly unlucky as his .348 BABIP is significantly higher than the league average of .290.

What really has taken Skubal to new heights recently is his slider which has been a dangerous weapon against right-handed heavy line-ups and in games recently where he threw it over 20% (versus CWS twice, Seattle and Cleveland) – he racked up 6, 9, 9 and 11 punchouts.

What is interesting with Skubal is that his slider grades out as his best put-away pitch, and while his recent success you may think is because he is using it more – actually the inverse is true – he is using it less than he did to start the season but he is throwing it more effectively as in April this was graded out as a negative pitch type for him and now it has flipped to his most valuable pitch since May 1st.

The addition of a change-up has really helped keep hitters off balance on the right side and his increased use of the splitter has seemingly taken his game to new heights and with all 3 pitches sporting 40%+ whiff rates against right-handed batters, the path to ceiling is once again there for the Tigers lefty.

I am spending this time on Skubal because of the context I want to lay out – this is a slate now where you can get the Picks and Pivots favorite – DOUBLE ACES – but you are doing so basically with a punt SP2 as one of those aces.

This is very similar to the slates we have had with Shohei Ohtani, where he is priced in the $7-$8K range despite being one of the best K arms in baseball and we can pair him with a high-dollar stud to get two “aces” without having to pay the market price. Today with Skubal we are getting an even steeper discount so using him as your SP2 and pairing him with a $10K type arms gives you a path to locking in two 30%+ K rate arms with all the salary you want to stack bats.

Now with a high/low ace pairing – where oh where do we go with our bats.

14 game slate so we probably have a lot of paths right?

Totally not going to go to the usual suspects – let’s mix it up right?

WRONG.

Hello once again Tampa Bay Rays bats.

Now the reason I started here was that I was excited to see where the #1 prospect in baseball, Wander Franco would be priced in his MLB debut tonight and I go to find that DraftKings was asleep and left him at $2K. Seriously- $2K.

This is likely to bring some ownership the way of my favorite stack in MLB DFS but I simply do not care – against LHP Eduardo Rodriguez, I want to get me some Tampa Bay Rays stacking!

E-Rod is giving up a .200 ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate with a 44% hard contact rate to LHB and a 38% HC rate to RHB and with the addition of Franco to this Rays line-up you get an amazing combination of power/speed and R/L bats at all different price points to take advantage of this match-up.

From the right side – Randy Arozarena and Mike Zunino stand out with .255 and .320 ISO marks respectively against southpaws since the start of 2020 and Zunino specifically has MASSIVE fly ball tendencies (55%) which is exactly the kind of batted ball profile you want against a lefty who is trying to get ground ball outs.

We mentioned the struggles with power and hard contact for E-Rod against lefties and this is where you make stacks different by playing L/L as MLB DFS players will almost always over-look these plays in their stacks. We saw this last night as an example where the Reds bats from the right side were major chalk and then Joey Votto was there in the middle of the line-up and came in at 5-10% ownership.

Remember – if this stack goes off and is hitting, thus knocking E-Rod out, the “splits” you anchored to no longer matter as you get into the bullpens and now it becomes a totally different ball game! Over the last two weeks – the Red Sox bullpen has been one of the worst in all of baseball, giving up a league-leading 14 HR’s and sitting in the bottom 5 in runs allowed.

However back to E-Rod, I would argue his approach versus lefties is a reason to attack here as Brandon Lowe has a .210 ISO mark, with a 40%+ plus FB and HC rate against lefties since the start of last season. Austin Meadows, the Captain of the Picks and Pivots ship, absolutely hammers the splitter from lefties which is what Rodriguez will throw nearly a third of the time and Meadows has a .267 ISO and 40% HC rate against!

The Rays bats are always going to be one of my favorite stacks because of their ability to hit for power and the pricing tonight, as a result of the Wander Franco free-square makes this an easy stack to anchor to without having a high average salary per player.

The other stack that really stands out to me tonight is the Chicago Cubs against RHP Eli Morgan of the Cleveland Indians. Morgan simply looks like he was rushed to the Major League level after throwing just 20 innings above AA and has struggled in his first two big-league outings with 9 ER and 3 HR allowed in just 6 innings of work across two starts. My focus here would be at the top of the Cubs order where all of Joc Pederson, Kris Bryant, Javy Baez and Anthony Rizzo have .200+ ISO marks and 40%+ hard contact rates against RHP.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Stepping back and looking at this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots stack, the build coming into the day seemed really clear and the Win Daily Discord crew knew it was coming – double aces and a Rays stack at the core.

However, the approach may not be as cut and dry as I think we can go double aces in a whole new way today as a result of the under-pricing on Tarik Skubal. Anchoring to him as a high K SP2, gives us the ability to go high/low with 30%+ K rate arms and still loading up on big time bats and 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!