Jon Lester

Welcome to the Monday, June 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!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into a 6 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Monday Night slate where we have some top-tier arms, multiple big offensive totals, some rain in Baltimore and the wind blowing in at Wrigley! Personally, I love these smaller slates because we get to dig in to each game and option in the player pool at a more granular level than we would on a traditional larger slate.

Narrowing our Pitching Pool

The pitching pool on this small slate has a very clear line of delineation for me tonight and as such, I will likely be living in the higher dollar price point as a result of the bargain arms being far more bust than boom. It all begins with Yu Darvish ($10.2K), the only arm on the slate over $10K at home against the Los Angeles Dodgers for the third time this season.

Darvish in his previous two outings against the Dodgers was dominant, racking up 29.4 and 30.4 DraftKings points with nearly identical lines of 7 innings pitched 1 ER allowed, and 9 punchouts.

Right now this Dodgers line-up is overly right-handed heavy with only 3 of the 8 projected hitters being from the left side, which works perfectly into the splits for the Padres right-hander as his 32% K rate against RHB is 5% higher than that of his mark to LHB.

The other top-tier strikeout arm that I love tonight is Frankie Montas ($9.4K) against the Texas Rangers. Montas has even more extreme splits with a 30% K rate against LHB versus just an 18% rate against RHB so the more traditional “splits” he gets with this Texas line-up, the better. With a Rangers projected starting 9 that has 4 lefties in it and overall a team with a 27% K rate versus RHP this season, the path for Montas to have a ceiling game is clear.

Now, we have strikeout arms up top today which provide pivots but the match-ups have far more paths to red flags than I see for either Darvish or Montas.

Tyler Mahle ($9.8K) has the strikeout upside based on his 28% K rate this season but a match-up a right-handed heavy Twins line-up does not seem overly appealing. Mahle’s splits are far more traditional, with a 32% K rate against LHB and just a 24% K rate against RHB, of which he is expected to face six!

Julio Urias ($9.1K) has similar splits with just a 26% K rate against RHB this season versus a 31% mark versus lefties and will have to navigate through a right-handed heavy Padres line-up with 5 of the 8 batters hitting from the right side.

Lastly, Adbert Alzolay ($8.9K) takes on the Indians in Wrigley Field with the wind blowing in and while his K splits are relatively even, the batted ball profile is most certainly not. Against RHB this season, Alzolay has surrendered just a .125 ISO, a near 50% ground ball rate and a sub 30% hard contact rate. However, flip it to the left side and the .273 ISO and 46% hard contact rate spell trouble especially when you consider that this Cleveland line-up will likely have 6 of the 8 batters hitting from the left side.

Now, would it surprise me if arms like Mahle, Urias or Alzolay were able to match or exceed Darvish/Montas tonight? Of course not, it is baseball and the match-ups/line-ups could change as we get closer to lock which softens our stance. However, at first glance, I would argue the match-ups for Darvish/Montas have a far more clear path to success and on a short slate, I am simply unwilling to take “risks” with my arms when we have the ability to anchor to known outcomes.

Bats and Stacks and Stacks and Bats

One of the reasons, I think we can live in the top-tier of arms tonight on DraftKings is that we have “soft-enough” pricing to anchor to the bats we want, without having to pay down for arms.

One of the first stacks that jump out to me are the Cincinnati Reds against LHP JA Happ in Minnesota. Happ’s splits this season are really clear with a .263 ISO against RHB with a near 50% fly-ball rate and a 40% HC rate which has led to a 1.8 HR/9 rate r right-handed hitters in 2021.

This Reds team is loaded from the right side, with 7 of the 9 batters expected to bat from the right side and we have a good mix of high/low salary plays.

Nick Castellanos is the premier play with a .370 ISO mark this season against southpaws and a massive 65% hard contact rate but do not overlook Tyler Stephenson who has a .351 ISO mark and a 55% HC rate of his own. The best part about Stephenson is that he has C and 1 B eligibility on DK, so while you may want to use him at catcher, putting him at 1B and using a dual catcher build on DK could be a way to make your lineups look different for tournaments on a small slate.

The other stack that seems like it could go nuclear today is the Houston Astros against LHP Keegan Akin. Akin is coming off a dreadful start against the Indians where he gave up 8 ER in just 5 innings and his 43% fly-ball rate and 45% hard contact rate to right-handed batters this season seems troublesome with how right-handed heavy Houston can get.

Jose Altuve, Chas McCormick, Yuli Gurriel and Martin Maldonado all have .200+ ISO marks from the right side since the start of last season and when you look at the batted ball profile of this line-up, every single hitter has a 40%+ hard contact rate against lefties this year with the exception of Myles Straw.

The one option that really unlocks essentially anything you want is the red-hot Abraham Toro ($2.1K) who was called up with Alex Bregman sidelined and went 7 for 11 with a HR and 5 RBI’s over the weekend. Now it means leaving Eugenio Suarez out of your Reds stack, since he is only 3B eligible, but his salary flexibility may make him a core piece to unlock the ceiling across the rest of your lineup.

Also guys – PLEASE, do not overlook the left-handed batters for the Astros here tonight, as you know with a L/L spot to start they will go over-looked but this is where you can really make waves. Think about it this way – if and when the Astros knock out Akin, where do they go next – a right-handed heavy Baltimore pen and that is when the guys like Alvarez, Brantley and maybe even Kyle Tucker who is due back any day – can do serious damage as low-owned parts of the stack.

The Reds and Astros correlate really well together on DraftKings and this two-team stacking approach gives us the ability to lock in with two high-powered offenses, both on the road and that means 9 innings of guaranteed at-bats!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

With some really strong tournament options tonight on DraftKings, this is a great slate to go heavy with our MLB DFS Picks and Pivots plays and I think the path is incredibly clear.

Going with two aces, anchoring to Darvish and Montas, in elite match-ups, and doing so around a Reds/Astros two-team stack is where my core mindset sits to begin the day and I think it leaves us a path to massive ceiling potential!

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 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 Sunday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate and for all the Dad’s out there – Happy Father’s Day! We have a solid 9 game slate here today with a 7 inning game for Atlanta/St. Louis as part of a double-header and some late-day rain concerns at Wrigley Field we will need to manage around.

As I always do, I sit down before I start writing Picks and Pivots and I jot down my player pool for arms to see if there is any overlap between what I like and what Adam likes in Starting Rotation. Well, my top three arms I wrote down were Taijuan Walker, Lance McCullers, and Kenta Maeda – so safe to say, we see things similarly at first glance. My initial builds all had Walker-Maeda and my guess is – that is a cash game pairing today.

Now, nobody wants to read my poor imitation of Adam’s well-articulated analysis – so rather than simply re-focus on the same arms, let me give you some GPP options specifically around the price point of Kenta Maeda, who I would expect is going to draw massive ownership based on price, name recognition, and match-up. If you are using Maeda to get to the same big-dollar stacks, it becomes really hard to find any pivot ownership-wise and so maybe swerving at pitcher is the right way to be different.

Alec Mills ($7K) gets a second straight spot start for the Cubs due to injury after his solid outing against the Mets the last time to the mound. Mills threw 57 pitches in that game, with 6 K’s, and what really stands out to me is the 80% first-strike rate in that game – a key metric for an arm that is not all the way stretched out.

Attacking Miami recently has been a profitable strategy as 9 of the last 13 arms have put up double-digit DK point outings and 6 of the 13 arms have struck out 6 or more in their outings.

Mills has primarily pitched out of the pen for the Cubs this year, but they sent him to AAA earlier in June to stretch him out and he threw 6 innings of shutout ball in his last minor league start before re-joining the big club so I think he can go deep enough to be relevant here today on a slate that is lacking the elite pitching options we want.

Bryse Wilson ($6.9K) is another arm that has been working in AAA and gets a spot start on Sunday in a double-header affair with the St. Louis Cardinals. Wilson is fully stretched out, going 5-6 innings in each of his last 4 AAA starts and we saw his him succeed in his last two starts at the MLB level before the demotion with 20 and 15 DK points against the Jays/Pirates.

Wilson’s splits favor right-handed heavy teams as he has a 21% K rate, 50% ground ball rate and a just a 30% hard contact rate against RHB since the start of last season. The Cardinals will have 5 of the 8 hitters in their line-up hitting from the right-side with a projected line-up that has a 23% K rate and 40% GB rate against RHP, so this is a spot where I think Wilson has a path to success.

In this price range, I think everyone is going to push to Maeda and I understand why but Wilson and Mills have similar paths to 15-20 DK point outings in my opinion and if Maeda struggles, you have immediete low owned leverage in this price point. Even if Maeda hits, I do not think he outperforms either of these arms but a material enough amount to warrant the massive difference in ownership.

One of the reasons Maeda is going to be super chalky today – everyone is going to load up on the Blue Jays versus Matt Harvey and for good reason. You do not need me to wax poetic about why the Jays offense is in the ideal spot today in Camden Yards with 9 innings of guaranteed at-bats against Harvey and Co. The chalk is going to be chalk for a reason – and while I would argue you need to eat it, that is why I also argue that using them with Maeda becomes far too “similar” of a build for GPP’s and why I think we need to pivot somewhere to make our builds different.

Staying in this game could offer us the ideal game stack with the Orioles power bats against Ryu and the Jays pen. Attacking Ryu is simple – you go after him with RHB as he has given up 11 HR’s in 60 innings versus RHB with a 1.65 HR/9 rate.

Behind Ryu is where I think this stack really pays off as the Toronto pen has been among the worst in baseball over the last 7-14 days with a near 6 ERA over the last 7 games with 17 ER’s in 26 innings of work including 6 HR’s. Ryu himself has been at his worst form recently as well, giving up 12 ER and 5 HR’s over his last 3 starts and this Orioles lineup is arguably one of the hottest in baseball ranking top 10 in runs scored and HR’s hit over the last 2 weeks.

We have two high-powered offenses in one of the best hitter’s parks in baseball with 90-degree temperatures, humidity, and the wind blowing out to CF – game stack city!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This 9 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate seem like a strong one but I also think it could end up very chalky with Maeda and a Blue Jays stack being at the core. Finding ways to slightly pivot with our arms or secondary stacks is the key to making waves in GPP’s today and that is where the focus will be as we get clarity on lineups and ownership.

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 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 massive 15 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate on Friday Night where, well – get ready to get uncomfortable. The pitching options on this slate are tough to navigate and while the stacks are plentiful, nailing the arms is really what is going to separate us in our tournament builds.

First and foremost – Adam Strangis does a great job of breaking down the pitching in Starting Rotation so I implore you to start there.

Stepping back and looking at the context of this slate, the issue you are largely going to find is that the stacks are plentiful and pricey and so when we have “high-priced” arms that we are not in love with, the question becomes do we force them in for some level of perceived safety?

In cases like this, one thing I like to do is to try and gauge the chalk early on and see if there are pivots at similar price points we can move to at a fraction of the ownership. I think Adam nailed it on the head when he looked at the Robbie Ray/Jose Berrios combination and as the day goes on, it will be interesting to see if this is where the masses land.

Sitting right in this price range, one arm I love is Luis Garcia ($8.9K) who gets a perfect match-up for him against the right-handed heavy White Sox. Garcia has extreme splits when it comes to his strikeout ability with a 32% K rate against RHB versus just a 23% rate this season against lefties and that 10% jump is largely due to his pitch mix against right-handed batters.

This season, Garcia throws a cutter 35% of the time to RHB and a slider another 25% and it is that 60% pitch mix that generates over a 53% whiff rate from opposing hitters and when you see the movement it generates you can understand why.

The White Sox lineup is one all year we have stacked against lefties and avoided against rigthies and the fact that they have 6 of their projected 9 batters hitting from the right side tonight is largely why we would avoid them but even more so why we should be all over Garcia in this spot!

The other spot tonight is where I want to go low to give us some salary savings and this one, I will be honest – I did not expect to land on at first glance but hear me out.

LHP Caleb Smith ($6.5K) is seemingly a forgotten man in Arizona, as his days of bring a front line starter in Miami seem so long ago and honestly, I had kind of glossed over him as an option at all this season and it was only when I dove into tonight’s slate that he caught my eye. I won’t lie – initially, it was because I thought we could stack the Dodgers bats against him but the more I looked, the more I liked Smith.

The reality is, the Dodgers are a top ten strikeout match-up for LHP this season and if you look at this view from Statmuse, you will see how consistent the success has been for lefties against the Dodgers this year.

The Dodgers have faced 20 LHP this season and in that time 12 of them have gone for 16+ DK points, with 3 of them going for 20+ DK points and 11 of the 20 have struck out 6 or more batters in those starts.

There has been an oddly consistent range of outcomes for even mediocre left-handers this season and with Smith working his pitch counts up to 84 and 103 the last two starts after being held under 60 all season, I think this is the spot to take advantage of the price discount and find a cheap arm with a 15-20 DK path tonight.

Going this route gives you significant salary flexibility and on a slate with Coors Field in the fold, that is going to be a key part of many peoples builds but I would argue there are tons of other good spots that present just as high of a ceiling.

My favorite is the Blue Jays against LHP Bruce Zimmerman, a lefty who is giving up a .200+ ISO mark and 46% hard contact seems like a match-up nightmare for the Jays right-handed heavy HR squad. 1-5 in this Toronto line-up with Semien, Bo, Vladdy, Grichuk and Gurriel seems like the perfect pivot off Coors and the fact they are in Camden Yards and get 9 innings of guaranteed at-bats is ideal for stacking.

The other team I love tonight is the Cleveland Indians against RHP Chad Kuhl, who has surrendered a .264 ISO and 49% HC rate to LHB this season. Kuhl relies heavily on his sinker to lefties and considering he has surrendered a .538 ISO mark and 57% HC rate, maybe he should try something new.

The Indians lefties – hit this sinker extremely well – with all of Jose Ramirez, Eddie Rosario, Bobby Bradley and Josh Naylor sporting .200+ ISO marks and 40-50% HC rates. The other key offering is the slider, which he throws 40% of the time and while JRam is the target, here again, do not overlook Cesar Hernandez ($4.8K) as a pivot at 2B as he has a .289 ISO and 48% HC rate against that pitch type.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Stepping back and looking at this MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate for Friday, I think the one thing we know is that we are going to love our bats and feel super uneasy about our arms.

With that context, understand we are all in the same boat when it comes to sorting through the mess of arms so do not be afraid to take risks on slates like this where the pitching is murky but I would also say the flipside is true – do not get cute with offenses, the bats are going to go off tonight and there are simply too many good spots to target, so make sure you have offenses at the core of your build that can match the big boys.

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 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 in to a solid, albeit smaller, 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate on Thursday where we have another night in Coors Field, some high K arms and five teams already with 5+ IRT’s which will make picking the right stack a key on this small slate.

When looking at arms today, we have a very clear upper echelon of K arms with all of Brandon Woodruff, Joe Musgrove and Shohei Ohtani sporting 30%+ K rates and SS% rates of 13% or higher since the start of last season. The difference on DraftKings continues to be that Shohei Ohtani ($8.1K) is simply never priced at the level he should be when you consider his K upside alone which gives us the chance each and every time to get an ace arm priced as an SP2.

My man Adam Strangis made a great case in Starting Rotation for Woodruff in Coors and even why Musgrove may not be ideal, but there is one arm he did not mention that I want to dive into on this slate and that is Tigers right-hander Matt Manning ($4.7K).

Manning is a former first round pick, 9th overall, and is currently the 18th overall prospect in all of Major League baseball who received his promotion to AAA this season after finishing the 2019 season as the Eastern League Pitcher of the Year.

Manning is a big 6 foot 6 right-hander with a mid to high 90’s fastball, a change-up that dives out of the zone, and a NASTY 12-6 curveball that were all on display in his most recent AAA start where he struck out 8. If you are a person who needs to see the analysis – go watch the highlights of that outing here and tell me you are not intrigued.

Now, Manning has had his bumps in his first go-round in AAA and maybe people see the 8+ ERA and his 3 HR/9 rate which both rank dead last among qualified minor league pitchers and they think this kid is a gas can to pick on rather than use – but you don’t get drafted in the first round and have top 20 overall prospect status by mistake – this kid has the goods.

Manning was one of the “big 3” arms in their minor league system alongside Casey Mize and Tarik Skubal and most prospect evaluators had Manning as the best of the bunch. The Tigers have really worked to develop these young arms and while we saw Skubal specifically have a rough start to the year, we are seeing the Detroit organization really work to develop the secondary pitches on these young arms and they have largely been as advertised, especially recently.

It is not often we get a top prospect debut, priced under $5K on DK, facing an Angels team that is banged up and has demonstrated high K ability – and what is weird, I think the 8+ ERA player note on DraftKings is going to keep people away, not realizing how supremely talented Manning really is. Going with an Ohtani/Manning build means you get every single bat you could ask for!

Well, it is a day that ends in Y and so that means it is time once again for a Tampa Bay Rays stack to be featured in Picks and Pivots!

The Mariners will throw out RHP Justin Dunn, who has been torched by LHB over the last 2 years with a .235 ISO allowed and a 48.5% hard contact rate to go along with a 2+ HR/9 rate allowed. There is no pitcher in baseball this season that has given up higher hard contact to left-handed batters than Dunn, who at 43.8% sits dead last among qualified Major League arms and well, if you do not think this is a prime Rays stack day, you do not even know me.

This is kind of a nightmare spot for Dunn with the Rays getting to deploy their left-handed heavy brigade of Brandon Lowe, Ji-Man Choi, Austin Meadows, and Joey Wendle in the heart of the order as they all have .200+ ISO marks against RHP since the start of 2020.

The other spot that I love here today is the Atlanta Braves against RHP Jon Gant, the poster boy for regression this season who the last two starts have finally started to see the advanced metrics swing back with 12 ER allowed in just 5.2 innings of work.

Gant is a heavy sinkerball pitcher, especially against the right side of the plate, throwing it over 50% of the time and giving up a near 50% hard contact rate. Now when you profile against a ground ball pitcher like Gant, you want to try and find hitters that not only make hard contact but do so with fly ball tendencies and that is where Ronald Acuna Jr. jumps out to me as his fly ball rate is 10% higher than his ground ball rate against RHP.

The other right-handed batter that stands out – Dansby Swanson, as he has a .210 ISO, 43% HC rate, and a 55-45 FB/GB rate against the sinker – against trying to find guys that can make hard contact but also elevate the ball.

The issue for Gant has been the walks, with a BB:K ratio of 8:3 the last two starts, and any time we see a pitcher struggling with command, it sets up well for a full-on stack where you get base runners and crooked numbers as the offense get in favorable hitters counts – this Braves line-up even without Ozuna, is still loaded with power and they make for an ideal stack alongside the Rays tonight.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have a solid 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate tonight and while Coors Field may be a starting point for some, personally I feel like it is not a necessity like it was yesterday and that goes for both sides of the ball. With a belief that Brandon Woodruff is not a need at $10K in Coors and the Brewers bats against German Marquez is a spot that has an equal downside and frankly, if the game was in Milwaukee we would all be arguing to use the Rockies RHP.

Today, I think we have under-priced elite K arms that will allow us to build around strikeout ceiling while also going “double-stack” with two power laden offenses against low K opposing arms that have struggled with the advanced metrics saying we have more room to regress!

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 16th 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 in to a split slate MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have 6 games on the 2PM EST Early Slate including a Coors Field affair with a near two touchdown IRT that will rule the slate dynamics!

To be perfectly blunt, small slates with Coors Field are not my favorite – I think you basically have to play them all in or all out as the ownership will be so widely concentrated.

So the question becomes – to Coors or not to Coors?

What stands out to me on the game in Colorado today with Blake Snell and Kyle Freeland on the hill, is how the pricing sets up here, specifically how the Rockies bats are so cheap and help you easily afford the core big Padres bats.

The simple reality is, we have two left-handed arms that have been rocked by right-handed batters this season pitching in Coors Field against right-handed heavy line-ups and if you have to pick a lane today, I saw we go all in and game stack!

Kyle Freeland has given up a .335 ISO to RHB (and a .412 mark to LHB) while Blake Snell has surrendered a .200 ISO mark with a massive 52% hard contact rate and this game is projected to have 13 of the 16 position players batting from the right side.

The reason this game is so appealing – and it may sound odd to start on the Rockies side, but what is with this Colorado pricing? Five of the eight projected starters for the Rockies are priced at $3.2K or lower on DK with pure punts like Connor Joe ($2K), Elias Diaz ($2.5K), and Brendan Rogers ($2.9K) all offering you insane value for a game in Coors Field with 100-degree daytime temperatures and a beatable lefty on the mound.

The value that sits on the Rockies side of this game is what directly allows you to click the big bats on the San Diego side that are Coors Field must-haves from the right side in Manny Machado ($5.6K), Fernando Tatis Jr. ($6.1K), Tommy Pham ($5.8K) and Wil Myers ($4.4K) while Eric Hosmer ($4.9K) & Trent Grisham ($4.6K) remain in play in the L/L match-up with Freeland’s struggles with lefties this season.

I love the idea of using Hosmer/Grisham here in Padres stacks as people may think more traditionally with Freeland’s splits and not realize that he has surrendered 6 HR’s to LHB over his last 18 innings of work spanning back to last season.

Taking this one step further – not only does the Colorado value allow you to game stack Coors, but it allows you enough salary flexibility to still pay for a high K SP1 like Freddy Peralta ($10.3K) who has a massive 37% K rate and 15.5% swinging strike rate on the season.

The sticker shock for Peralta is real, but frankly, it is warranted. Take his name out for a second and realize you are getting an arm with the second-highest strikeout rate in baseball behind only Jacob deGrom. His swinging-strike rate and CSW% rate both rank in the top 10 in all of baseball and the simple fact we can game stack Coors Field and get one of the best strikeout arms in baseball in the same build – is well, a path that seems far too straightforward to pass on a small slate.

Main Slate Breakdown

The 8 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots Main Slate starts and ends with you clicking on Jacob deGrom at $11K as your SP1.

No, seriously, like go do that now.

I’ll wait.

As Adam Strangis said in Starting Rotation, deGrom right now is like Russell Westbrook in NBA DFS – until the sites price him out of play, you just lock him in and figure out the rest every single slate.

I am in lockstep with Adam with how this slate looks to play out and I suspect our Matchup Tool, which is one of the best tools in our Win Daily Sports suite will also help underline just how clear this slate is – as we continue to attack Jordan Lyles with opposing bats.

Among qualified pitchers this season, Jordan Lyles ranks among the worst arms in baseball with a 1.6 HR/9 rate that is the 6th highest in the league, and his 39.4% hard contact rate allowed is the single worst mark in all the land. Flip it around and his 11% soft contact rate is the third-lowest of any pitcher – meaning no matter how I slice the data, Lyles is poo. (for you Ghost).

I am sure Lyles is a perfectly nice guy, and hey listen – he has actually pitched “well” recently with minimal damage allowing 3 or fewer runs in 7 of his last 10 starts, so the blowup potential maybe doesn’t materialize as much as the metrics would indicate.

All that said, on a short slate like this with more good arms than bad, I think you have to attack the spots the metrics highlight and that means building around the Houston Astros batters.

Lyles is overly reliant on a low 90’s fastball to LHB that has surrendered a .304 ISO and 50% HC rate allowed and he throws it over 50% of the time. To right-handed batters you see much of the same with a .315 ISO and 51% HC rate against his fastball but he does throw it a tad less, at just 40%.

Not surprisingly, the Astros batters all profile well against a low 90’s fastball because well, they are Major League Hitters. All of Altuve, Brantley, Bregman, Alvarez and Tucker have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type.

Oddly enough, the one bat that actually stinks against this fastball velocity is Carlos Correa with a .162 ISO and just a 26% HC rate which is crazy low and while I would still say he is a fine play in the stack at a weak SS position, I thought it was odd to see a major league hitter with such a poor profile against a low veocity fastball.

Much like the early slate where the “clear path” is to anchor to Coors/Peralta – the main slate has the same basic outline with deGOAT and the Astros 5 man stack at the center of our builds.

What it means is finding cheap secondary stacks and SP2’s to make it work but I think we continue to have to path due to the punt pricing of the Baltimore Orioles bats.

I am not sure what Baltimore did to the DK algorithm but why exactly are 6 of the 9 projected hitters in this line-up once again all priced under $3K?

When you consider that Aaron Civale has a .202 ISO mark and 41% HC rate allowed to LHB with a 1.8 HR/9 rate and this Orioles line-up has 5 hitters batting from the left side (STRONG SIDE – sorry had to do it), why exactly is Baltimore still so cheap?

Civale relies heavily on his cutter to LHB, nearly a third of the time, and Cedric Mullins ($3.4K) stands out with a .227 ISO mark and 48% HC rate against that pitch type. Interestingly enough, for you BvP truthers, Mullins is also 2 for 3 off Civale with 2 HR’s which both came back on June 5th when Civale faced the O’s and gave up 3 HR’s in total including a duo to Mullins – one off the fastball and one off the sinker – which by the way Mullins has .225+ ISO marks against both those pitch types as well.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have a double dose of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots today and the two slates play very similarly for me today in how I plan to attack my GPP builds.

We have clear high-level ace arms in Peralta/deGOAT on both slates with high K upside that we simply need to anchor to and we can do so easily while still getting the best hitting stacks on each slate including Coors Field and the Houston Astros. Any time we have that kind of build staring at us in the face – I think we take the most direct route to the cash line and beyond!

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 15th 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!

After a big night on Monday Night where our Picks and Pivots core build anchored around Glasnow/Manaea and a Reds/Pirates stack hit for big money – we are back at it again tonight!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome in to a Tuesday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where we have 15 games on tap including a spot for the San Diego Padres in Coors Field that is going to go a long way in determining our roster construction.

Typically we start with the arms, but when we have a team like San Diego with a near 7 IRT against RHP Chi Chi Gonzalez and a slate with no real must-have arms, I think the prudent thing to do is work backward in our builds.

Gonzalez is a total disaster against right-handed batters, with a .252 ISO mark allowed and a massive 52% HC rate allowed and the middle of this Padres order with Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Wil Myers is a gauntlet that I think we almost have to anchor to tonight despite the likely insane levels of ownership.

Building a Padres stack is an expensive building block and I would argue that 3-4 San Diego pieces will be a core component of winning builds – it really then is about what you do next that differentiates you.

On a slate without any obvious elite arms, I think the general feeling from the field will be to pay down for arms and that is where I do think we can get different and instead use two top-tier studs with our Padres stack.

The match-ups for LHP Trevor Rogers against the Cardinals and Yu Darvish in Coors Field are clearly not the most ideal spots to attack but from a pure metrics perspective, it is hard to argue that there is any better pair of arms on the slate.

This duo ranks 15th an 16th in baseball in K rate and both sit in the top 20 in CSW% on the season as both give you 30%+ K rate upside despite the difficult on paper match-ups.

My man Adam Strangis already broke down the path for Trevor Rogers in today’s Starting Rotation so let me pivot to why I think Darvish is an ideal double ace SP2 on DraftKings.

Darvish has two pitches in his arsenal that has proven time and again to be effective in Coors Field – with a sinker/slider combination that is able to still work in the thin air. If you want to nerd out – and frankly, we know you do – this is a great article I found on the pitch types and how they can be effective in Coors Field.

In his first start this year in Coors Field, Darvish went heavy on his slider, 32% of the time which was by FAR the most he used it in any start this season while still anchoring to his cutter as his dominant offering.

The next start Darvish faced the Rockies in San Diego and his pitch type breakdown was wildly different – relying on his cutter and fastball while his slider was used far less frequently.

If you look at both games, what stands out to me is that his horizontal and vertical breaks on his cutter in Coors versus at home were nearly identical so the thin air really did not impact his primary pitch at all. In the secondary offering, however, we did see a stark difference.

In the slider metrics, you did see a big difference in Coors versus home, where he was getting a significantly less horizontal break on the pitch versus at home.

The fastball in both cases saw similar spin rates and actually was getting more vertical break in Coors and if you read the article above, that formula of using the fastball with low spin/high break is a formula for sustained success.

What does this all mean? Well – if Darvish opts to employ a similar pitch type strategy against the Rockies today that he did in his home start, using the fastball and cutter, he has a seriously high upside path awaiting him as he had a 37% CSW rate in that game and 10 K’s.

So going Rogers and Darvish and a Padres core stack probably has you saying – wait, don’t we have a salary cap? Where are you finding all this value?

Welcome to the Baltimore Orioles tonight my friends where the bats are cheap and the positions are plentiful!

The Orioles will take on RHP Cal Quantrill who has moved to the Indians bullpen after his last start on June 6th where he lasted just 1.1 IP, gave up 7 runs, and did so against – the same Orioles team he faces tonight.

The Indians bullpen will be needed in this game since Quantrill is not stretched out and this is a pen that ranks among the bottom 10 bullpens in terms of ERA the last 2 weeks while also ranking bottom 10 in HR’s allowed. This pen also has been recently taxed as Triston McKenzie was unable to get out of the first inning on Saturday, Shane Bieber was unable to make it through 6 innings and JC Mejia only made it 4 last night as the starter.

The Orioles bats are not plays in a vacuum that would stand out, but pricing matters to me in MLB DFS builds and the fact that this lineup has 5 of their projected 9 batters priced in the $2K range and the fact they are the road team with guaranteed 9th inning at-bats – makes them the ideal secondary value stack to give you a Padres/Ace path this evening.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Opening up this Tuesday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate on Tuesday, the easy comment would be it is a “San Diego Padres slate” – and well, that is true for the most part.

The key is how you get different from there and I think paying up for both arms, especially arms that are not in “perfect spots” will make your build wildly different than those who opt to pay down for salary relief and with that, more risk.

When building MLB DFS rosters, I am always going to anchor to the known commodities and that is pitching, especially high K arms like Rogers and Darvish. If that means rolling the dice with a punt Orioles mini-stack, so be it, hitting is the most variable part of DFS baseball and this O’s lineup has already seen and hit Quantrill hard!

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 14th 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!

Before we dive into this Monday Slate – a huge THANK YOU to our NASCAR DFS lead here at Win Daily, Matt Vecchio, for continuing to bring absolutely amazing content and advice and help NASCAR novices like me win big!

Main Slate Breakdown

Welcome into this Monday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate where we have some rain concerns across this 13 game slate with some serious offensive firepower and a relatively murky pitching pool to wade through!

Despite the fact we have 26 pitchers to choose from, this feels like a really condensed player pool for arms and as such, I think you need to have a really tight focus on getting your arms right on this slate because my feeling is that more arms will hurt you than help you on this slate.

Tyler Glasnow ($10.7K) is the obvious top dog on this slate with an elite 36% K rate and 17% SS rate and on a one pitcher site like FanDuel, consider yourself lucky you can basically stop there.

On DraftKings, we need an SP2 and honestly this is where much of your night’s success will be determined as I think the most likely ownership is that people go high low with Glasnow and a cheap SP2 to fit in better bats.

I think there is a strong argument however to pay up for our SP2 with a floor/ceiling combination for LHP Sean Manaea ($10.1K) against the Angels in Oakland. Now, there is massive sticker shock here with Manaea, as he has seen his price spike from the mid $8K range last start to being nearly on par with Glasnow salary wise.

The reality is, Manaea’s performance this year has warranted the price hike, especially at home where the lefty has historically seen better results and 2021 is no different. Manaea in Oakland sees his K rate increase 2-3% while the hard contact rate drops and the GB rate increases.

The match-up tonight against the Angels is an exploitable one especially without Mike Trout available and it is one that Manaea has already navigated with success twice since Trout was sidelined in mid-May with an injury.

Manaea has faced the Angels twice, once on the road where he threw 5 innings of 1 run ball and struck out 6 on his way to 17 DK points and once in Oakland where he went 6.2 IP with just 1 ER allowed and K’s with 24 DK points.

In both cases, the swing and miss stuff was there and we have seen other LHP have similar success recently against the Angels where Yusei Kikuchi struck out 8 and Justus Sheffield struck out 7 batters.

Now putting up 20-25 DK points at over $10K of salary is frankly an over pay and I get that but honestly that perceived floor for Manaea may be worth the investment on a night where there are more potential landmines behind Glasnow than arms we want to play.

The other aspect of a Glasnow/Manaea pairing that is appealing is that the salary constraints when it comes to building your bats, really are not there as you have $3.7K per batter for the rest of your line-up and there are some stacks on this slate that seem significantly under-priced.

The first one that stood out to me today was the Cincinnati Reds against LHP Eric Lauer who is getting the start for Milwaukee as they move to a 6 man rotation in the middle of 16 straight games with no off days.

Lauer has extreme splits and splits that do not work in his favor today against a right-handed heavy Reds teams as he has surrendered a massive .300 ISO mark and 52% HC rate against right-handed batters this season.

This Reds line-up is constructed perfectly to attack these splits as they will have only two LHB in the line-up with Joey Votto and Jesse Winker, so loading up the righties here is the most direct path in this MLB DFS stack.

Lauer’s pitch mix no matter how you slice it has been hit hard by RHB this season as his fastball (.206 ISO), cutter (.520 ISO) and changeup (.400 ISO) have all operated as batting practice offerings in 2021.

Nick Castellanos and Eugenio Suarez are the primary options here that both have massive power metrics against LHP and both have similarly high marks against the cutter/fastball combination that Lauer depends on.

Tyler Stephenson ($3.9K) may have limited sample numbers here with just 40 plat appearances against LHP but his .351 ISO and 55% HC rates ranks behind only Casty this season for the Reds right-handed batters.

The bottom of the order gives you a nice wrap-around stack with Scott Heineman and Kyle Farmer who have .400 and .200 ISO marks respectively with 45-50% HC rates and with the Reds being the visiting team we get guaranteed 9th inning at-bats for this bottom of the order.

You didn’t think I would end Picks and Pivots without the public recognition of today’s holiday – yes, it is in fact Lester Day and we get a dirt-cheap Pirates stack against LHP Jon Lester to help us pay for the big arms on Monday.

The Pirates are never a team we wake up and get excited to stack but the top 4 in this order specifically, offer some serious pop against LHP with every single one having .225+ ISO marks against southpaws this season including Adam Frazier, Ke’Bryan Hayes, Brian Reynolds and Jacob Stallings.

We have documented this multiple times but the cutter to RHB has been Lester’s undoing with a .576 ISO mark against him and that was the exact pitch that Manuel Margot took him deep on in the first inning of the Rays game his last time out.

The pitch data is limited for the Pirates hitters, but Stallings does stand out with a 60% HC rate against that pitch type and a massive 350 foot average distance traveled against the cutter.

The one issue with the Pirates/Reds correlation is that we have two catchers we want to use in Stallings/Stephenson but with Stephenson have 1B eligibility on DK – you can actually slide him there to use a dual catcher line-up which will make your stack incredibly unique. Now if only Eugenio Suarez still had SS eligibility to we could put him and Hayes in the same build!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Stepping back and looking at this Monday Night MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, we will need to be mindful of some wet weather in the northeast and I think most importantly, we need to see how ownership plays out.

On DraftKings, the SP2 decision and the fact we have all these big dollar offenses, including a game in Coors Field, may lead to chalky punt SP2 builds and I think that could be where we get different – paying up for our second arm alongside Glasnow while taking advantage of cheap stack with the Reds/Pirates.

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 11th 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 Friday MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have a monster 13 game slate staring us in the face with a plethora of aces, big dollar stacks, and some weather threatening once again the game in DC with Max Scherzer on the mound for the Nationals.

Any time we have a slate with this much top-end pitching, I think you need to understand that your builds are anchored first in this strikeout heavy upper echelon of arms. As Adam Strangis laid out in today’s Starting Rotation, the fact we have Max Scherzer, Jacob deGrom, Lucas Giolito, Brandon Woodruff and Shohei Ohtani all on the same slate – you are anchoring to a subset of arms here all with 30%+ K rates and 13% swinging strike rates.

I would argue strongly that every single build you make tonight on DK has two of these arms in your build – period. Full stop.

Well let me take it a step further, every build should have Jacob deGrom in it first – and then, you pick which SP2 you want from the rest.

I say this all the time in Picks and Pivots but K’s are King and anytime we get this many elite K arms on a slate, I want to build around that certainty and ceiling as you simply cannot miss on arms when it comes to MLB DFS. I am far more willing to take the high-end arms when we have them and take chances on the high variance of batters.

The thing is – you really do not even have to look all that hard to find powerful stacks tonight that fit within the salary constructs of a “double ace” build. This is even more so the case if you opt to use Shohei Ohtani ($8.1K) as your SP2 alongside deGrom – as you have two of the best strikeout arms in baseball and still just under $4K per batter to spend on your hitters.

So where do we look for bats tonight?

Well, you clicked on this article and it is a day ending in “Y” so that means, as usual, we can go right back to the Tampa Bay Rays who never see their prices change on DraftKings, they never are owned and all they do is hit for power.

LHP Keegan Akin will take the hill in Tampa tonight and this is a lefty that has just a 17% K rate against RHB with a 44% fly ball rate and 49% hard contact rate allowed. Akin relies heavily on his change-up to RHB nearly 30% of the time and this is a pitch that has resulted in a 61% HC rate from right-handed batters this season.

All of Manuel Margot, Mike Brosseau and Mike Zunino hit the change-up from lefties well with a combined .200+ ISO mark and 40%+ HC rates. The issue for Akin is that he essentially is a two-pitch pitcher against right-handed heavy teams and his change-up actually grades out as a below-average offering so when all you have is a low 90’s fastball and a change-up AND you give up a ton of hard contact, this feels like a spot where the Rays could just put the hammer down with their right-handed heavy lineup.

Staying in this game, the Orioles makes for an intriguing mini-stack to attack the HR tendencies of LHP Ryan Yarbrough. Listen Yarbrough is coming off his best outing of the year against the Yankees and this is a ballpark downgrade for the O’s but the pricing on DK specifically has really over-adjusted in my opinion with 5 of the 9 projected starting batters on Baltimore priced below $3K.

Yarbrough for all his merits has one very clear issue – the HR ball – having surrendered 2 HR’s to the Yankees and 3 HR’s in each of his previous games against Toronto and Baltimore. As my man Jared, our FanDuel DFS expert here at WDS, pointed out in Discord – Yarbrough has given up these 8 HR’s and amazingly they are all solo shots!

So what does that tell us – this is not a spot to all-in stack the Orioles but instead you are going home run hunting with a mini-stack.

Yarbrough throws two primary offerings to RHB – a cutter nearly 50% of the time and a change-up that he tosses 35% of the time. Against the cutter, Trey Mancini (.444 ISO), Ryan Mountcastle (.500) and Freddy Galvis (.296) all stand out. Against the change, Maikel Franco (.256) and Pat Valaika (.438) jump off the page where their power metrics.

The nice part about this Orioles line-up is that really outside of Mancini, the rest of these right-handed batters noted above are all super cheap and it allows us to get the big name arms we covet.

The other spot here tonight that stands out for cheap bats in Minnesota against RHP Jose Urquidy.

The Twins have a near 5 IRT tonight and you have FIVE batters in the projected line-up priced at 2.6K or lower on DK which gives you an opportunity to stack here like we did last night with seemingly an abundance of value.

Urquidy is actually a reverse splits arm, giving up a .223 ISO to RHB versus just a .112 ISO to LHB and he is coming off his worst start of the year, his second start since coming off the IL with a shoulder injury, in which he allowed 6 ER and gave up 2 HR’s in just 4 innings against Toronto.

Urquidy relies heavily on his slider, nearly 33% of the time to RHB and this is a pitch they have hit hard – with a .333 ISO mark this season. Josh Donaldson is the bat from the right side that really jumps out as he has a .307 ISO and 43% HC rate against this pitch type from RHP.

The value really comes from a few specific bats – the combination of Trevor Larnach ($2.1K), C Ryan Jeffers ($2.5K) and 2B Nick Gordon ($2.6K) who are projected to bookend Nelson Cruz in the middle of the Twins lineup and give you some really interesting stack options that will allow you to get guys like Cruz or Donaldson alongside these cheaper pieces of the stack.

The hitting environment in Minnesota tonight looks to be elite, with 80-90 degree temperatures and 11 MPH winds blowing out and the fact you can stack this team with a combination of big bats like Cruz, Donaldson and Polanco by using the punt value in Jeffers, Larnach and Gordon – it gives you a really balanced and elite stack.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

Stepping back and looking at this Friday Night MLB DFS Picks and Pivots slate, the outlook for me is simple and it starts with pitching. Even with the Nationals game likely a washout, we have no shortage of arms and it starts with Jacob DeGrom as our SP1 – with really my decision for SP2 likely coming down to Woodruff or Ohtani based on salary needs.

The nice part about both paths is that we have so much value in our bats to choose from across the spots in Minnesota, Baltimore and the Win Daily favorite – Tampa Bay.

Mix and match, stack it up – let’s start this weekend off with a bang!

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 10th 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 in to a split slate Thursday of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have 4 games starting on the Early Slate at 12:35 PM EST and with all games kicking off by 1:10 meaning we should have all the lineup news we need before lock.

These daytime slates are always tricky to write up because these tend to be the days where lineups are littered with bench players getting the start on “getaway day” and so lineup release could have a drastic impact on ownership. We actually saw this yesterday on the three-game slate where the Giants line-up came out really weak and it pushed Kyle Gibson’s ownership up and over 50% as a result.

What we know we have on this slate is strong pitching with multiple options that offer us high K ability and do so at a bargain price relative to their ceilings.

The best pure strikeout arm on this slate may be Freddy Peralta ($9.4K) who has a dominant 37% K rate and 15.7% swinging strike rate this season. Peralta has the highest ceiling on the slate based on his ability to get swing and misses and go deep into games as he has put up 30+ DK points now in 3 of his last 4 starts and has thrown 100 or more pitches in 3 of those 4 outings as well.

Zack Wheeler ($9.7K) has has flashed similar upside with two double-digit K outings in his last three trips to the mound and with a 31% K rate and 13% SS rate. The match-up against the Braves is not the easiest one as the top 5 in the Atlanta offense have serious pop, but with only Albies/Freeman on the left side – I tend to worry less about guys like Swanson/Riley since Wheeler has been able to dominate RHB this season with a .091 ISO and 53% GB rate.

The fact that we can get two elite K arms under $10K on DraftKings to anchor our builds today seems like the ideal path on this slate and even before we get official line-ups, I think there is enough value to make this work with ease.

The Dodgers against Mitch Keller look to be the early slate hammer with a 5+ IRT and with Max Muncy expected back in the line-up, you can focus first on the left-handed batters against Keller as he surrenders a 54% HC rate and .218 ISO to LHB this season.

So go ahead and start with Cody Bellinger, Max Muncy and Gavin Lux as the primary core plays based on the splits but you can expand to the right-handed batters like Mookie/Turner/Pollock to round out arguably the best stack on the board. Betts actually profiles really well against Keller as he sports a .242 ISO and 41% HC rate against the slider which is Keller’s primary weapon to RHB.

The fact is – you can 5 man stack the Dodgers with Wheeler/Peralta and you still have $3K left for your mini stack around them – seems far too straight forward and I have a hard time arguing against this path at first glance.

Main Slate Breakdown

The 6 game Main Slate has similar high K arms that are going to dominate our builds with Max Scherzer and Trevor Rogers standing out as an elite pairing on DraftKings.

If you look at the metrics, Scherzer and Rogers rank 1-2 in K rate and SS rate – as Mad Max leads the slate with a 36% K rate and 16.7% SS rate while Rogers 29% K rate and 15% SS rate is not far behind.

The fact of the matter is – I am not even worried about looking elsewhere because the pricing on the bats/stacks I want are so under-priced that I simply do not need to pivot off the top arms.

The Twins/Yankees game is the ideal stacking spot on this main slate with RHP Michael King and LHP JA Happ taking the hill and you may be thinking – how on Earth can I stack the Yankees and Twins with Max and Rogers?

Well my friends, welcome to some serious mis-pricing. You want bargains? We got ’em!

The Twins have multiple punts projected in their line-up tonight with C Ben Rortvedt ($2K), OF Gilberto Celestino ($2K) and OF Trevor Larnach ($2.2K). The Yankees meanwhile have 1B Chris Gittens ($2K), Clint Frazier ($2.3K) and Miguel Andujar ($2.6K) all sitting in the same range and now all of a sudden – you have all the salary you could need.

You want Judge/Stanton/Donaldson/Cruz etc – go get ’em – because we have the opportunity here to game stack this spot with high dollar plays as a result of multiple punt plays that make this build far too easy!

Go ahead – give it a whirl. You will like what you see.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

We have two slates of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots action and both slates have a similar look and feel in that we have stud strikeout arms we can anchor to on both slate and the pricing is soft enough that we are still able to get the elite bats/stacks from the Dodgers, Twins and Yankees.

Sometimes you take the path the slate gives you and today, I am not overthinking it.

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 9th 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 to Wednesday’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we have a 12 game Main Slate that sets up perfectly for GPP play with some really intriguing strategic decisions sitting before us.

The decisions really start and end at pitcher because for all the strong names – there are seemingly more reasons NOT to play guys than to roster them. My man Adam Strangis does an incredible job with today’s deep dive in Starting Rotation so I do not want to simply regurgitate his analysis but rather, to expand on it in the context of our roster builds.

The three highest-priced arms on this slate in Gerrit Cole, Lance Lynn and Alex Manoah all have elite swing and miss ability which we need when building our MLB DFS lineups but they have serious questions marks that could make them under-owned.

Adam did an amazing job of outlining Cole’s issues and match-up and that video/interview from yesterday I think will be mainstream enough to impact his ownership. Listen – the metrics would tell you Cole is the best K arm on the slate by a considerable margin – the narrative though is what is going to keep people away. If Cole is chalk you can make a clear case to fade, but if he does not get the ownership he should – it could be an elite GPP spot.

The next two here are where I think it could get really interesting as Lance Lynn and Alek Manoah face off against each other and two strong offenses in Toronto and Chicago.

Let’s start with Lance Lynn ($10.4K) – from a pure metrics perspective, you could argue that he sets up well with 6 projected right-handed batters in the Jays line-up which plays to Lynn’s splits with a 32% K rate to RHB versus just a 21.7% rate to LHB.

Lynn relies heavily on his cutter to right-handed batters, over a third of the time, and every single bat RHB in the Jays lineup has a .150 or lower ISO mark against that pitch type. Lynn thrives on limiting that hard contact/power and with a .093 ISO and just a 28% hard contact rate to RHB, this is actually a spot I think he could do well in.

I know picking on the Jays is not something we ever want to set out to do, but the truth is, SP’s have had success and high K output in this spot recently.

• Carlos Rodon – 20 DK and 8 K’s
• Luis Garcia – 29 DK points and 8 K’s
• Zack Greinke – 27 DK points and 3 K’s
• Pablo Lopez – 19 DK points and 9 K’s

Those are four of the last five arms to take on the Jays and so there is a path here for Lynn to have a ceiling game and I simply do not think there will be any appetite to pay $10K for him against Toronto’s line-up which makes him really interesting for tournaments.

Alek Manoah ($9.7K) was super chalk last game against the Marlins and proceeded to go out and get his teeth kicked in by Miami after his electric MLB debut against the Yankees where he struck out 7 batters in 6 innings.

If you played him last game, every reason still exists today – the elite pedigree, the insane swing and miss stuff and guess what – all those who played him likely won’t today because they remember the Miami HR derby. So now I can get all that K ability at a fraction of the ownership? Sign me up!

Now, maybe people see the White Sox and have the same reaction they did with Lynn – but the reality is, Chicago has been a team we can and should attack with right-handed pitching!

The projected line-up tonight has just a .168 ISO mark against RHP since the start of last season, with a 50% GB rate and a 24% K rate so there are frankly more reasons to attach them then I think people will realize.

Right-handed arms have seen success against the Sox this year – both at the ace level and in the fringe range. True top-tier arms like Cole, Gray and Bieber (2x) have gone for 25+ DK points with 7-8 K’s per game so the ceiling is there for the Jays young right-hander.

Even mid-range arms have seen success with guys like Zach Plesac (24), Brad Keller (21), Brady Singer (19), Casey Mize (19) and Trsiton McKenzie (18) all having strong games.

The reality is, Manoah is an arm with a 40% K rate in the minors who had one bad start – one – do not let that overshadow the ceiling this kid has!

My preferred path tonight is to anchor to one of these top-end K arms and pair them with Casey Mize ($6.8K) as my SP2 as Adam mentioned, he is simply far too cheap.

Now – if we pay up for at least one high-end K arm, how can we get high-powered stacks to build around them?

Let’s see – checks notes see a left-handed pitcher who gets smoked by right-handed batters and a team that is not priced up (again). Can you guess?

Yeah, hello Tampa Bay Rays against LHP Patrick Corbin!

Literally, every reason we went here yesterday is back on the table as Corbin is giving up a .251 ISO and 44% HC rate to RHB this season with 2.5 HR/9. So all the same cast of characters is back in play with Randy Arozarena, Manuel Margot, Mike Zunino, Yandy Diaz and Mike Brosseau getting the splits advantage.

If you watched that game like most of us in the WDS Discord did last night, this was a game the Rays had an opportunity to just carry us to the top but they left 12 men on base and had multiple HR’s go just foul including a grand slam from Margot that Kyle Schwarber caught over the wall on the foul side of the pole.

Literally feet difference in the other direction and that stack drops a massive number last night.

Tonight they get an elite starting spot and because they knocked Lester out early on Tuesday, you get one of the worst bullpens here tonight that was forced into extended duty and has to turn around and do it again this evening.

I am not going to wax poetic here – you guys now the deal by now – the Rays will be single digit owned, they can strike out with the best of them but they also have crazy power up and down the line-up and I am going right back to them tonight as a core stack.

The other spot I love here tonight is similar – taking the right-handed Reds bats against LHP Brett Anderson.

Anderson has given up a .216 ISO and 54% hard contact rate to RHB and has to face a Reds line-up in Great American Smallpark that is getting healthier and is loaded with RHB.

Nick Castellanos and Eugenio Suarez are prime plays in a mini-stack here – both of whom absolutely destroy the sinker from LHP which is what Anderson throws about half of the time. Casty has a .370 ISO and 70% HC rate while Geno has a .250 ISO mark and 73% HC rate and both players have 90% contact rates with an average distance hit over 315 feet. Yikes.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This slate for me is one where I think our MLB DFS Picks and Pivots tournament outlook can give us an advantage, especially as we pick our arms at the top end as we could see ownership really help us find a low-owned SP1 up top.

Going high-low at pitcher will give us a path to big time bats and that is where a Rays/Reds stack comes into play against two left-handed arms in Corbin/Anderson who give up boatloads of power to right-handed bats!

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.

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