Jon Lester

Welcome to the Thursday, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Early Slate Breakdown

Welcome in to another day of split slate all day MLB DFS where we kick off at 12:10 PM EST with a 5 game slate that includes a 7 inning double-header between the Mets and Rockies.

Unfortunately when we have these shortened double-headers it means that at least for hitters, one game gets taken out of our player pool since we put ourselves behind the 8 ball if we use hitters that have just 6-7 innings of at bats compared to those that play a full game.

Now, the good thing is that at least the early slate pitching is straightforward as Adam Strangis broke down in his Starting Rotation today. I agree that the best path is to anchor to Shane Bieber and Pablo Lopez as both arms are in high K spots and the lack of similar high strikeout arms makes this a spot where I think we narrow our player pool for arms and look to get different with our bats.

The reality is – the bats on this early slate are not overly appealing, and Vegas kind of backs this up with only 3 teams even breaking a 4 IRT today. As such, I think we will have the chance to take shots with our bats today and focus on highly correlated stack with power that still allow us to pay for the two top arms.

For me – it starts with the Milwaukee Brewers against LHP Ryan Weathers. Weathers overall numbers look solid but his numbers against right-handed batters really give us a look into how to attack him as he is giving up a .180 ISO mark with a 45% fly-ball rate and a sky-high 54.7% hard contact rate since the start of last season.

The Brewers can get really right-handed heavy when they need to with Lorenzo Cain, Avisail Garcia, Keston Hiura, Willy Adames, and Manny Pina all expected to start today. While the right-handed bats are the priority and how you start your stack, I would not shy away from Christian Yelich ($5K) in a L/L match-up as he has a .288 ISO against LHP since the start of last season and my guess is people avpid him with the lefty on the hill and the slow re-start since returning from injury.

The other stack that has my eye is the Cleveland Indians against Matthew Boyd as this an instance where the larger sample size gives me a reason to take a shot on Boyd with a right-handed Indians line-up.

This year Boyd has been much better against RHB with a .114 ISO allowed while still giving up a 40% HC rate but those numbers are a stark difference from last year where he allowed a .304 ISO to RHB. Now Boyd has made a change to his pitch mix this year, using his change-up to RHB nearly 30% of the time which is a 10% increase on his approach last year and considering that pitch is generating just a .080 ISO – it seems to be working.

Boyd’s last two starts have been his worst – allowing 10 runs to the Cubs and Royals and in those he has become more reliant on his fastball/slider which is more indicative of his 2020 struggles.

So which pitcher is it? Is this one that can rely on the change-up to keep RHB off balance and making soft contact or can this be a spot where we jump on the Indians bats before the underlying metrics spike towards full-blown regression? Any time I see an SP with an ERA near 3 but an xFIP and SIERA that are 4.5-5, it tells me that the blowup is coming and this could be the slate we take advantage of it with the Indians RHB.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Main Slate

The six-game Main Slate has another 7 inning double-header game with the Nats/Reds and some serious rain concern in Chicago with the White Sox and Orioles we are going to need to monitor. That weather is incredibly significant because to me this slate is going to be determined by whether or not I can roll out the White Sox right-handed stack against LHP Bruce Zimmerman.

Zimmerman has allowed a .233 ISO and 40%+ HC rate to RHB this season and well, the White Sox are arguably the best stack in baseball against an LHP. Stacking up Jose Abreu, Tim Anderson and Yermin Mercedes is expensive but you can balance it out somewhat with Andrew Vaughn ($2.5K) remaining far too cheap in the OF with his power against southpaws.

The other decision point here is what on Earth we do with Shohei Ohtani on the mound tonight. Last start with Ohtani’s fastball velocity down 5 MPH, we saw the K rate plummet, the walks went back up to over 10% and the concern is very real tonight against a dangerous Oakland line-up.

Oakland has power up and down the lineup with 4 projected batters in the line-up sporting .200+ ISO marks against this season and if Ohtani is not right, this is the kind of line-up that could make him pay.

I think you can make the argument both ways here – both for using Ohtani with his high swing and miss ability but I also think stacking Oakland is viable if we think the Angels superstar has something fundamentally wrong that we can take advantage of.

You will notice, I have spent my time initially on the bats and that is by design – mostly because I think the arms on this slate are underwhelming and over-priced. Now, if the White Sox bats all of a sudden are not options due to rain, then sure – we may have the luxury to pay up for pitching but if the Chicago stack is all clear, I will likely look to save money with my arms.

My man Adam did a great job with his pitching breakdown but one arm I wanted to bring up was a $4K punt in LHP Kolby Allard. Allard’s metrics are strong out of the pen this year with a 27% K rate and 12% SS rate and a match-up with the Mariners is one that lefties can exploit as we have seen “stars” such as Tarik Skubal drop 9 K’s and 26 DK points against this Mariners team and true ace level arms like Julio Urias and John Means drop 40-50 DK point ceiling games.

Now Allard is not Urias or Means and maybe hes not even Skubal, but that’s a result of his pitch count concerns which I would argue are largely priced in here. If Allard can go 50 pitches, which he has done multiple times this season, I think he has a path to racking up K’s and providing you double-digit pitching points and all that does is allows you to stack the White Sox and A’s offenses and let your offenses carry you with a cheap SP2!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

I love any time we get split slate MLB DFS action and today’s slate’s are frankly not all that obvious which makes them ideal for GPP play. My biggest advice today – take the clear paths where they present themselves and then don’t be afraid to get different.

On the early slate, pitching is super clear with Bieber/Lopez while the hitting stacks on the main slate with the White Sox righties are the priority – after that, you have the ability to diverge and be strategic in how you attack tournament play!

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

If you are new to MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, the goal of this article is not simply to list out the “best plays” but rather 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Early Slate Breakdown

What day is it? What day is it? That is right my MLB DFS friends it is hump day and that means split slate baseball for us with a 4 game early slate to attack starting at 1PM EST.

This four gamer actually has some solid starting arms with high swing and miss stuff while also offering us some high powered offenses we can stack so I think this is a worthy day slate to take some shots in GPP’s.

Carlos Rodon ($10K) is the headliner on this slate from a SP1 perspective and it is hard not to make him a priority with a 37% K rate and 17% SS rate which are far and away the best marks on this slate. While the Cardinals do have some pop, the bottom of this order is something we can attack due to injury and even the Cards best hitters (Arenado/Goldy) struggle mightily against Rodon’s primary put pitch, the slider, as they have a combined sub .100 ISO with a 30%+ whiff rate.

James Kaprielian ($7.7K) looks like the ideal SP2 pairing with Rodon as we can get similar K upside with the A’s young righty who has sported a 33% K rate and 12% SS rate over his first two starts in the bigs with some serious swing and miss stuff using his change-up against LHB and his slider against RHB.

Kaprielian has been able to notch back-to-back 20+ DK point outings against the Red Sox and Angels and gets arguably his “best” on paper match-up against the Mariners today. Right-handed arms against Seattle have feasted all season and particularly in the recent games highlighted by Spencer Turnbull’s no-hitter while all of Casey Mize, Chris Paddack, Yu Darvish, and most recently, Frankie Montas has notched strong K outputs with all of them going for 20+ DK points.

If you are looking for a pivot or the opportunity to go “mid-range” at SP – I think you can consider Griffin Canning ($7.2K) as well against the K-heavy Texas Rangers.

Canning has largely been a “serviceable” arm this season with mid-range DFS output besides a meeting with the aforementioned Mariners, but the underlying metrics of a 25% K rate and 15% SS rate this season tell you there is upside to be had. The match-up against Texas is one we can and should exploit as well – as they rank top 5 in K rate allowed (26.3%) this season to right-handed pitchers.

From a bats perspective, it looks like we have a few spots we can attack but the most glaring is the Minnesota Twins against Jorge Lopez. Since the start of last season, Lopez is giving up a 43% hard contact rate and has really struggled with left-handed power to the tune of a .231 ISO allowed.

Lopez relies nearly 40% of the time on his sinker to both sides of the plate and this is a pitch type the Twins profile well against with 5 hitters in the projected line-up sporting .200+ ISO marks against it while every single hitter besides Andrelton Simmons has a 40% or higher hard contact rate against it!

Max Kepler ($4.3K) is the absolute priority play for me in this game as he profiles as the best hitter against all three of Lopez’s primary pitch types but this entire line-up from the left side is in play and both Miguel Sano/Josh Donaldson are right-handed batters that hit the sinker well and Sano in particular has a near 60% fly ball rate which is key against right-handers who rely on ground balls.

The other “big offense” on this slate is the Chicago White Sox against RHP Jon Gant and while we typically like the Sox against lefties, I think this is a spot where we need to attack a pitcher that is screaming regression!

Gant’s 2.14 ERA since the starts of last season may may it seem like he is an arm we should avoid but the underlying metrics tell a different story with a 5+ SIERA since 2020 and this season, his 5.4 xFIP and a 15% BB rate that nearly matches his 18% K rate – tell me that regression is coming soon.

The way I would attack the White Sox is a full-on stack or fade – no in between – and I say that because only Yasmani Grandal and Jose Abreu have .200+ ISO marks against RHP since the start of last year. So I think if you are playing the Gant regression route, you are banking on the lack of control, BABIP coming back in the hitter’s favor and big crooked numbers by stringing together walks and base hits as Gant has been able to avoid the long ball in his career with just a .74 HR/9 rate in over 300 innings of work.

If you are looking for a lower-owned mini-stack – the one team that intrigues me is the Baltimore Orioles against RHP Michael Pineda. Lefties have hit Pineda well this year with a .233 ISO and over 50% fly ball rate and the LHB in this O’s offense profile well against Pineda’s pitch types.

Pineda relies nearly 50% of the time on his slider/change combo to lefties and all of Cedric Mullins, Freddy Galvis, Anthony Santander and DJ Stewart have .200+ ISO marks against the slider while Mullins, Santander and Stewart all have similar power profiles against the change-up.

For me – there are two paths I think you can take today on this early slate – going Rodon/Kaprelian with a Twins/Orioles game stack or going mid-range arms with Kaprelian/Canning with a White Sox/Twins power stack. Having multiple paths is key on day slates like this because we often see unusual line-ups that make our early builds worthless if big bats get the day off!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Main Slate

Opening up the 9 game MLB DFS Main Slate we are met with two obvious stud arms up top with Tyler Glasnow and Trevor Bauer – both priced over $10K on DK and for good reason. It is not often we get a slate with two of the best K arms in baseball, as both of these pitchers sport 36%+ K rates this season and honestly, you can make the argument to simply stop here and just take the easy path with arms.

I say this because the pricing on bats is just flat out mis-priced and you can easily stack powerful offenses around these two top tier arms without sacrificing at all.

Going Glasnow/Bauer leaves you $3.6K per batter and once you start looking at the hitting pricing, you will realize quickly how easy this is to do and that is in large part due to the continued pricing discounts we get for the Yankee and Rays bats.

Let’s start from the bottom – if you use Taylor Walls ($2.2K) and Brett Gardner ($2.3K) in these stacks all of a sudden, you have $4K+ per batter and that means you can go high/low with the priority bats like Randy Arozarena and Aaron Judge who are both well over $5K tonight.

Now, the Yankees bats in particular let us down last night and as Adam outlined in Starting Rotation, the Jays are rolling out a talented RHP in his debut tonight with Alex Manoah – so this is a spot where they could struggle against a talented swing and miss arm or they could take advantage of an arm with first start jitters in Yankee Stadium.

While we may not know much about how Manoah will translate – what we do know is that the Yankees have power – tons of it – in fact the projected lin-eup tonight has a .200+ ISO team mark with a 42% HC rate against RHP since 2020 and that is without some of their biggest bats!

The Yankee bats are just simply too cheap as a stack – as you have 6 of the 9 batters at $4K or lower and I would expect that after their dud last night and the “shine” of a new prospect people want to play on the other side of this game, we have a shot to get a Yankee stack under-owned here tonight.

The Rays against Mike Minor are a simple stack in that we want the right-handed bats first and foremost to attack a pitcher who has given up a .200+ ISO mark and 47% HC rate against RHB since 2020.

Arozarena is the big spend and his .296 ISO mark against LHP since last season jumps off the page as an elite play but do not overlook the other right-handed batters here. Mike Brosseau ($2.8K) has a .264 ISO mark while Mike Zunino ($3.7K) leads the team with a massive .370 ISO mark against southpaws the last season +.

If you look at pitch type data, Minor uses his slider mostly against RHB and all three batters noted above have .300+ ISO marks against it. If he goes to the change, well Brosseau and Zunino have .250 and .400 marks against that pitch while Brosseau even has a .400+ ISO against the curve which Minor will use 20% of the time.

You get the gist – there is power here and it is wildly underpriced.

I am not getting cute on the Main Slate tonight – double aces in Glasnow and Bauer and give me all the under-priced power in New York and Tampa. See you at the top.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

I love these split slate Wednesdays for MLB DFS and I think the two slates play quite differently today. The early slate feels like we have more options we can pivot off of if we want while the main slate feels incredibly straight forward.

The key on both slates today though is locking in the high K arms as a priority and understanding we can do so while still capturing high power stacks that are priced in a way we do not have to make sacrifices at pitching.

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, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown

Happy Tuesday and welcome in to a monster 13 game MLB DFS slate where we are absolutely LOADED with top-end arms – some that are priced as such and others that seemingly got an unwarranted discount.

The overarching theme for me tonight is – we cannot get cute at pitcher because the opportunity cost is far too high to miss. You are going to need to nail both arms tonight because we have so many good options and so many high strikeout options that some combination/duo is going to hit for ceiling and we need to anchor to that mentality.

Tonight we have six arms with 30% + K rates and 8 arms with 13% or higher swinging strike rates since the start of 2020 so we know right off the bat that we have multiple arms with 30+ DK point potential and that swing and miss ability is going to be A) what we want to build around and B) will make finding stacks we want to attack that much harder.

In my mind, there is a tier of three elite arms up top with Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, and Corbin Burnes that from every and all metrics perspective stands out as anchor arms with their swing and miss ability, and what is fascinating to me on DraftKings is how the pricing is spread out. With deGrom at nearly $12K, Mad Max at $10.7K, and Burnes at a nice $9.1K discount – you have a path to mix and match these stud arms with totally different stacks & price points of hitters.

deGrom is the best pitcher on the planet and the only real “knock” on him tonight is the potential for a pitch count against the Rockies. Burnes meanwhile has a tough on paper match-up against the Padres but considering he struck out 10 “San Diego-ans” or maybe it is San Diegons – in his last start against the Padres, the concern may not be warranted.

The in between them is good ole Mad Max – kind of a forgotten ace in MLB DFS because hes not a new and sexy play like Burnes us to many and hes not putting up video game numbers like deGOAT which may leave him under-owned tonight.

The fact is, his 35.7% K rate and 16% SS rate remain elite marks and his 37.4% K rate against right-handed hitters stands out when you consider he will likely face a Reds lineup with just 3 left-handed bats.

Tonight is the perfect night in my mind to take a “double aces” approach with the key being that we can still get the high upside stacks around them – and well, I was shocked to find just how easy it all was!

The offense that immediately jumped off the page to me today was the New York Yankees against LHP Steven Matz. If you have been around Picks and Pivots this season, you know I have been beating the regression drum on Mr. Matz and this match-up is basically a nightmare spot for him.

Since his hot start to the year, Matz has fallen back to Earth HARD with a near 7 ERA over his last 6 starts with a 2.73 HR/9 rate and a single digit swinging strike rate with his biggest issues coming against RHB which could be a bit of an issue when you consider the Yankees will have 9 right-handed batters waiting for him in the Bronx.

Matz is relying nearly 45% of the time on his sinker to righties but this Yankee team profiles so well on this pitch type, that he may be in serious trouble. 6 of the 9 Yankee RHB have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type including DJ, Voit, Judge, Gleyber, Sanchez and Higashioka.

His secondary offering, the change-up, which he throws 30% of the time has similar profile troubles as 5 of the Yankee righties have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type with DJ, Judge, Urshela, Frazier, and Higashioka doing the damage.

The fact that the majority of the New York line-up can hammer 75% of the pitch repertoire of Matz spells disaster for him in this spot and my goal is to stack 5 Yankees here tonight at the core of my builds.

Now you may be sitting there and wondering how can you stack the Yankees offense, the one with the highest Vegas total on the slate, and still get two aces? Well, frankly its not hard.

You can lock in BOTH deGrom and Mad Max and stack the heart of the Yankee order with Aaron Judge, Gio Ursehla, Gleyber Torres, and Gary Sanchez with either Frazier or Andujar in the OF and you still have $2.3-$2.4K for a cheap mini stack around them.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

When you step back and think about this slate – you want to anchor to two key concepts. First and foremost is getting ceiling games from your arms but you want to do that in concert with the second principle which is anchoring to a 5 man stack that can win you a slate with power.

The pricing on the Yankee bats outside of Aaron Judge is laughably low and the fact you can live in this mid-range with guys like Urshela, Gleyber and/or Frazier/Andujar allows you the ability to not compromise – get your aces and the top stack all in the same build.

Finding that cheap three-man stack to build around these teams is going to be key but the one team at first glance that makes this work is the Cleveland Indians against LHP Tarik Skubal and the putrid Tigers pen. Skybal is giving up a .355 ISO to RHB this season and this Indians line-up have pop and value especially with $2K Owen Miller (2B) now in the line-up. Miller is one of the Indians top prospects acquired in the Mike Clevinger deal and was batting well over .400 at AAA before his call-up this week.

Locking in two of the top K arms in deGrom, Max or Corbin, and pairing them with a high-powered Yankee stack and the Indians value is a recipe for GPP success on this massive slate!

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, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Pitching

Welcome into a six-game MLB DFS slate here on Monday where it looks like we have a clear weather slate with one exception as you can see below, some solid pitching paths and come elite stacks that are priced affordably to anchor our MLB DFS picks to!

From a pitching perspective, we have four “ace level” arms in terms of name value/pricing but I question whether I need to pay the premium for any of them here tonight.

Brandon Woodruff ($10.6K) is the clear SP1 choice and likely cash game anchor with the K metrics to support it – as his 30.5% K rate and 13.2% SS rate give you the ceiling that no other arm tonight really offers. The issue is that the San Diego Padres line-up he faced tonight is a low strikeout lineup, with just an 18% K rate against right-handed pitching in their projected line-up.

Woodruff however faced this San Diego team back in April, striking out 7 on his way to 27 DK points, and depending on if Manny Machado is able to return to the lineup tonight due to injury, would end up facing likely that same starting 8 here tonight so the path is very clear and in cash games, he becomes a likely core play.

Blake Snell ($8.9K) on the other side of this game offers similar K heavy metrics- with a 33% K rate and 13% SS rate and gets arguably the better match-up against a Milwaukee team with a 25%+ K rate in the projected line-up and overall strikes out at a near 28% rate against LHP this season.

Snell has struggled with command this season but the last two games he has seemingly turned a corner with a 41% K rate compared to just a 9% walk rate and if you look at his pitch mix, there could be a reason for the turn around.

Last game in particular, Snell made a serious change in his pitch mix even from the game before against the same Rockies team, throwing just 13% sliders which was a massive drop from the 33% the previous game.

Snell has made the decision multiple times this year to lean far less on the slider and increase his curve and change-up use. In fact Snell has now had 4 games in which he threw the slider under 20% and in those games his K:BB ratios have been 11:1, 7:2, 7:2 and 8:2.

The pitch is an obvious high swing and miss weapon for Snell with a 50% whiff rate but he seems to have over used it at times and lacked the feel/command for it. If Snell can continue to pound the zone and limit the walks – we are now seeing an ace level arm ‘ pitch count was up to 97 last game and was able to make it through 6 innings.

If you look down in the SP2 range tonight, the name that jumps out to me is Frankie Montas ($6.2K) in Oakland against the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners are a high K team we can attack with right-handed pitching as they strike out at a 26% clip with is the 7th highest mark in baseball this year.

The projected line-up tonight for Seattle has a whopping 5 batters with 30% or higher K rates against RHP since the start of last season and this is a spot where I think the floor/ceiling combination for Montas relative to his price is a no-brainer.

Montas is at by far his lowest price of the season, a full $1,000 drop from his last three starts where he averaged 18 DK points per game, going 5-6 innings each time out and put up over 5 K’s per outing.

The one other “cheap” arm tonight that I think is in play either as a pivot off Montas or a possible “double punt” with Frankie is LHP David Peterson of the Mets at home against the visiting Rockies.

This is more of a match-up play than anything as the Rockies on the road are a DFS sticking point. On the season the Rockies are the third highest K team, 2nd lowest hard contact team and lowest ISO mark of any road team hitting wise.

Now you get them flying out of Coors into New York after playing on Sunday and I think this is a spot where Peterson pays off his too cheap price tag. Peterson has flashed his ceiling multiple times this year with 8, 9 and 10 K outings against Philly (twice) and Tampa Bay just two games ago and he gets arguably the weakest hitting road team in the sport now tonight in his home park.

My pitching pool tonight is likely limited to Woodruff, Snell, Peterson and Montas and I think mixing and matching any of those four is ideal for cash and GPP!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Stack The Bats

There are some simple team flow charts when it comes to MLB DFS hitting and the White Sox are one of the teams where the opposing arm makes all the difference. When the Chicago White Sox face a left-hander – you stack them up and down and twice on Sundays.

LHP Kwang Hyun Kim has been solid for St. Louis but this is still a lefty with minimal swing and miss stuff and one who has surrendered a 42% hard contact rate to RHB this season.

Since the start of last season, the White Sox have a core group of bats that simply hammer LHP with Tim Anderson (.333 ISO), Jose Abreu (.345), and Yermin Mercedes (.222) & Andrew Vaughn (.267) who have stepped up this year.

Kim relies on his slider to RHB and well, the Chicago bats would be happy to see him throw it as all 4 bats noted above have .250+ ISO marks against that pitch type from lefties.

The White Sox are a team I expect becomes a popular stack, so we want to find a contrarian mini-stack that correlates well with them and I think we can find that with the Oakland A’s against LHP Yusei Kikuchi.

Kikuchi is a solid pitcher but one who has given up power this year with a .200 ISO mark to RHB and much like the White Sox, this Oakland team up and down hammers LHP.

This season, the top 5 in this A’s lineup is just crushing southpaws with Chad Pinder (.625 ISO), Matt Olson (.322), Ramon Laureano (.296), Matt Chapman (.237) and Mark Canha (.237).

Kikuchi throws his cutter over a third of the time to righties – and well, the metrics say he probably should not. All of Chapman, Canha, Pinder and Stephen Piscotty have .250+ ISO marks against that pitch type!

Now add in the fact Kikuchi was bumped a day due to illness and is there the chance he simply does not have it tonight and the A’s can jump on him as the low owned late night hammer? Stack it up my friends!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

This six game MLB DFS slate tonight looks like a strong one and I think we will end up with multiple viable GPP paths as a result of a deep short slate pitching pool.

The key in my opinion is building around high upside power stacks like the White Sox and Athletics while still being able to capture high K upside in our arms and I think that path exists with some of the match-ups we have specifically for Snell, Peterson and Montas tonight!

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

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

Welcome to the Saturday, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Early Slate Breakdown

We have ourselves a nice split slate MLB DFS Saturday and one with some interesting GPP’s on DraftKings that I think we can make some serious noise in today!

The early slate has 7 games on tap and the first step is locking in the ace in Shane Bieber ($11.2K). Bieber is the clear top K arm on this slate and with Minnesota banged up, he could get the benefit of attacking a Twins line-up that would be without both Nelson Cruz and Jorge Polanco.

The tricky part on this slate is that the bats are all pricey and in great spots, so my goal is to figure out a way to get Bieber and two high upside stacks. Well that is where Jordan Yamamoto ($4K) can unlock a ton for us!

Now the Mets have not officially named him the starter for Saturday so we need to watch the news but it is expected he will start either Saturday or Sunday against his old Marlins squad in Miami.

Yamamoto has shown swing and miss ability in his career with a 25% K rate and he has flashed the same ability in the minors this season but let’s be real this is a simple price and match-up play. The Marlins have the third highest K rate in baseball overall and are 2nd in baseball with a 27.2% K rate against right-handed pitching.

Over the last two weeks, no team in baseball has struck out more than Miami – at a massive 30.7% clip – so with all due respect to Jordan, I would argue any pitcher at $4K on DK facing Miami is in play – add in the REVENGE narrative and we are off and running!

The bats are what is going to win you this slate and frankly, we have a ton to choose from. However this Nationals and Orioles game jumps out to me with our boy Jon Lester and LHP Bruce Zimmerman on the mound.

We have two arms with 5+ xFIP marks, sub 20% K rates and ideal hitting conditions in Washington which makes this a game stack that could pay off in a huge way.

Listen, we know the deal with Lester – the regression is coming and when it does it will come from the right-handed power bats. Trey Mancini, Austin Hays and Anthony Santander make for a high upside mini-stack in the heart of the Orioles order with the splits advantage and the power against LHP to make them pay off.

Mancini in particular jumps out like crazy – with a .356 ISO and 55% HC rate against LHP this season and some crazy pitch type data. Lester relies heavily on his cutter and Mancini has a .480 ISO and 50% HC rate against that pitch type!

On the other side of this game – the Nationals stack is pricey against LHP Bruce Zimmerman but considering that he has surrendered a .200+ ISO mark to hitters from both sides of the plate with 40%+ hard contact, they could easily pay off their price tags.

Any Nationals stack starts with Juan Soto and Trea Turner and frankly, adding them is the reason we need to pay down to a guy like Yamamoto as our SP2. My favorite way to make this stack different though is to work a wrap-around with Josh Harrison, Yan Gomes and Jordy Mercer at the bottom before you wrap around to Soto/Trea at the top of the line-up.

Going with a Bieber SP1 line-up and a Baltimore/Washington game stack gives you the ideal GPP upside path in that you have a 30+ DK point arm and two offenses facing wildly hittable left-handed contact arms.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown

The six-game MLB DFS Main Slate has a similar look and feel in that we have Walker Buehler as a seemingly must have SP1 and while we have some $4K SP2’s – I am not going to play Scott Kazmir in the year 2021 (even though part of me REALLY wants to.

Instead – I think living in the Adbert Azolay range as an SP2 makes sense and we have enough value in a game stack I love to make it all work – and that game is Toronto and Tampa Bay.

We have Shane McClanahan and Robbie Ray on the mound – literally, the carbon copy story – huge K upside and huge power allowed to RHB. That is why this game stack is so appealing to me – they either strike out a ton or give up a HR derby in Dunedin – GPP perfection if you ask me.

All the obvious stars on both sides are in play with Vlad & Bichette the clear top dogs on the Toronto side and on the Tampa side we have a loaded $3K range of hitters with guys like Yandy, Brosseau, Zunino and Margot which makes this a cost-effective stack to build.

The key could be some of the punts with $2K Taylor Walls and/or $2.3K Jonathan Davis that opens up a path to jamming in the big bats and taking the “clear path” with our arms.

With the Jays moving to their AAA stadium in Buffalo on June 1st, this may be one of our last chances to take advantage of a Dunedin game stack with warm temperatures expected and two pitchers that can serve up power – giddy up!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

I love these split slate Saturday’s for MLB DFS as we can really get creative in how we build.

Today these slates offer clear SP1 aces that feel like must haves but it comes with high dollar offenses that are going to be priority and as such it will mean getting creative with cheap SP2’s and/or finding value within our preferred game 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, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown

Happy Friday my MLB DFS friends and family – we have ourselves a monster 15 game slate here this evening and the best part is that the weather looks all clear so we can hopefully play this all straight up.

As my man Adam Strangis laid out in Starting Rotation today, this is a really strong pitching slate and it starts up top with a pair of aces that I think will determine our builds. Trevor Bauer ($11.9K) and Tyler Glasnow ($11.2K) are the clear top dogs on this slate, both ranking among the top 10 K arms in baseball this season as Glasnow’s 38.6% K rate ranks 4th and Bauer’s 35.5% rate ranks 7th.

The simple difference in opponent today is what makes this interesting as Bauer gets a road start in the cavernous park in San Francisco while Glasnow heads to Dunedin to face the loaded Blue Jays lineup.

That is it – that is really the only difference – but that opposing lineup is what is going to make Bauer the SP1 chalk and Glasnow an SP1 pivot.

If you have read Picks and Pivots before you know where this is going – so, I will ask – why not just use both?

Glasnow is the best pure K arm on this slate, with the 4th highest K rate and swinging strike rate in all of baseball and the 2nd highest CSW rate in the bigs.

The match-up may seem daunting but there is a path to success here for Glasnow, and one that frankly has been there for a while. As this view from Statmuse shows, there has been a relatively consistent 15-20 DK point output from RHP’s against the Jays in the last few weeks and when you look at the arms, they are far less talented than Mr. Glasnow.

If we opt to utilize a “double ace” approach, it still leaves us with $3.3K per batter for the rest of our build and there are some really strong mid-range stacks that I think make this path viable.

Note – there is a sneaky SP2 target I like for MME GPP play tonight we are talking about in Discord. Join us and get in on the fun!

The first is the Chicago White Sox against LHP Jordan Montgomery in Yankee stadium. Montgomery biggest struggles are with right-handed bats and the White Sox are best deployed as a stack against left-handed pitching which makes this the perfect marriage.

Montgomery on the season is allowing a .225 ISO and 43% HC rate to RHB with just under 2 HR/9 allowed and that power upside is what you are chasing with the White Sox hitters tonight.

Since the start of last season, the numbers against LHP for the key bats in this line-up are off the charts with Tim Anderson (.351 ISO), Andrew Vaughn (.308 ISO), Yermin Mercedes (.242 ISO), and Yasmani Grandal (.225 ISO) all with strong power numbers.

The power numbers may not stand out for Yoan Moncada, but the pitch profile most certainly does as he has a .316 ISO against the change-up and a .444 ISO against the cutter which is 50% of the pitch mix that Montgomery will throw to right-handed batters.

Now stacking the White Sox is going to be costly as you will need to invest the majority of your remaining salary cap in their infield bats and it will require some cheap OF stacks to make it all work.

Well, this is where the New York Mets OF comes into play. Now, nobody wakes up and says – I cannot wait to stack Cameron Maybin, Khalil Lee and Johneshwy Fargas – but attacking Jordan Holloway tonight is a path to success in my mind.

Of all the starting pitchers on this slate, Holloway ranks 2nd to last in SIERA at 5.55 which is a full THREE runs higher than his ERA which tells you regression is coming! His near 6 xFIP, anf 40%+ fly ball rate and hard contact rate also tell you this is an arm to attack and behind him is a Miami bullpen that ranks bottom 10 in baseball the last 7 games with a 5.5 ERA.

Being able to grab a full OF stack for near minimum price is a unique way to correlate with a double ace/ 5 man White Sox stack this evening!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap-Up

On a 15 game MLB DFS slate with Coors Field on it, we have a seemingly endless number of paths to explore when making our MLB DFS picks.

However, any time we can get two of the best strikeout arms in baseball and pair them together in our lineups while still anchoring to a high powered offense, well you know where my GPP mindset goes!

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, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Early Slate

Welcome in my MLB DFS friends to a split slate Thursday where we get 4 games on the early slate which kicks off at 12:35 PM EST. This slate is tricky because we have mediocre pitching options and seemingly endless hitting spots including what it appears to be a wind game in Wrigley Field with 17 MPH winds blowing out.

The “safest” route would be to go with a Tyler Mahle/Rich Hill duo or you can even slide down to Domingo German against the K happy Rangers however I think there are some other routes we can take in GPP’s understanding the risk.

Joe Ross ($7.1K) may have to deal with a windy Wrigley which is concern but the match-up against the Cubs is one that I think he can handle. The Cubs strike out at a 26% rate against RHP this season which is 7th most in baseball and the projected line-up without Anthony Rizzo in it, has a 27.3% K rate against righties this season.

Ross is a sinker ball pitcher, generating nearly 45% ground balls so the profile is there to pitch well in a windy environment with an added K boost. Now, Ross has also had two complete blow-up outings this year in Arizona and against St. Louis where he gave up 18 ER and 5 HR’s combined but outside of those outings he has been quite solid with 17.5 DK points per game in his other five outings.

Now if you thought Ross was risky – wait until you play Dane Dunning ($6.5K) against the New York Yankees. Take the names/teams out of it for a second and look at it this way:

Player A: 25.8% K rate this season, 3.43 xFIP against a projected line-up with a 23.6% K rate and .145 ISO.

Player B: 24.2% K rate this season, 4.27 xFIP against a projected line-up with a 24.5% K rate and .204 ISO.

Player A is Dane Dunning and player B is Domingo German who will likely draw considerably more ownership with his match-up and what Corey Kluber just did.

The risk for Dunning is obvious but this is an arm with a 56% ground ball rate overall, that jumps to a 64% GB rate against RHB which sets up well against a Yankees team that will likely only have two LHB.

Dunning outside of one really bad outing against the White Sox, has averaged 19 DK points per game in his other six starts which even includes a 1 point dud his last time out.

While Mahle and Rich Hill are the “safe routes” I also do not see them as must plays on this slate and I think prioritizing bats and taking some calculated risk at pitcher is the way to go!

The easier part with having such bad pitching is that finding the stacks is that much more transparent and with the Tampa Bay Rays in Camden Yards against Dean Kremer – we can go right back to one of our favorite spots!

Kremer this season has given up a 49% HC rate with 2.3 HR/9 and now has to face one of the most powerful lineups in baseball. The top of the order with Arozarena, Meadows, Choi and Lowe is stacked with pop but the bottom of the order with Wendle, Zunino and Kiermaier offers you the opportunity for a bottom of the order stack that will be far lower owned. No matter which way you go – this stack is at the core of my early builds.

The Reds are the other team on my radar early in Great American Ballpark against Johnny Cueto. The book on Cueto is a long one, but the story has always been the same and that has been we can attack him with left-handed power bats especially outside of San Francisco.

The Reds are loaded with left-handed pop – Jesse Winker, Tyler Naquin, Mike Moustakas and Tucker Barnhart all offer the splits advantage and guys like Winker (.327), Naquin (.275) and Moustakas (.225) all have huge ISO marks this year against RHP.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate

If you thought the four-game early slate pitching was rough, well the main slate might actually be worse! Zero chance I am paying a premium for Nick Pivetta or Steven Matz against Toronto and Boston’s offenses. Honestly, the arm I feel best about when we consider pricing is likely Vincent Velasquez ($7.5K) against the Marlins.

I normally would not go this route, but I do think the Dodgers bullpen game could be an interesting true punt option on this slate if Edwin Uceta gets the opening nod.

Uceta has operated as a long man out of the pen, throwing 54 pitches and 3 innings in his last outing and if we get confirmation that he is the “starter” today, I think he offers serious upside at $4K as he would operate as a multi-inning arm versus a true “opener.”

Much like the early slate, the main slate is all about offense and I am going right back to the match-up I highlighted yesterday with the Dodgers against RHP Merrill Kelly who got bumped back a day. Kelly is giving up a 51% HC rate this year with a 5+ xFIP and that hard contact and power is given up equally to both sides of the plate.

So let’s go right back to the well with Mookie, Muncy and Turner and if we get a cheap punt like Tsutsugo in the heart of the line-up like he was last night, it opens up a world of flexibility in our builds.

If you have followed Picks and Pivots this season, you know I have been on the Steven Matz regression train for weeks. Listen, Matz can be a solid arm when the match-up aligns but against a right-handed power team, he can be a batting practice arm – and well, the Red Sox are arguably one of the worst spots he could ask for.

With Enrique Hernandez, JD Martinez, Xander Boegarts, Christian Vazquez and Hunter Renfroe in the heart of this order you have .200+ ISO bats staring at you in every turn and Matz is an arm that has given up nearly a .300 ISO mark to RHB since the start of last year.

Pitching in Dunedin today against this line-up – yikes, good luck my friend.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up

To summarize these two four game slates – well, pitching is gross and you are going to want all the bats. Easy enough?

Honestly, I love slates like this because we all are dealt the same hand and picking from the same player pool. These are the ideal slates to take shots on arms in my opinion and fade the “safe” picks that lack slate-breaking upside and instead absorb risk for arms to build around the big 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.

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, May 19th edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots where we dive into the top fantasy baseball plays and slate strategy to help you take down tournaments all season long at Win Daily Sports!

If you are new to MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, the goal of this article is not simply to list out the “best plays” but rather 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown

Well hello, there my friends and welcome back to a 12 game MLB DFS Picks and Pivots for Wednesday Night where we are LOADED with aces and one trouble weather spot in KC which could take Corbin Burnes out of play.

On any normal slate, losing an arm like Burnes would change the slate dynamic but tonight with Kershaw/Scherzer as easy pivots in the $10K price range, it frankly does not change all that much.

It is not often we have four arms with 30%+ K rates on a slate but that is exactly what we have tonight with Corbin Burnes, Max Scherzer, Trevor Rogers and Shohei Ohtani. As Adam Strangis broke down in our Starting Rotation, the top end of the pitching pool is simply LOADED and I am not sure there is a reason to stray from the path he laid out.

Pricing matters in MLB DFS and the fact we can get Shohei Ohtani at $7.4K is laughable. We are getting one of the best arms in baseball and highest K DFS plays as a cheap SP2 and for that reason – I am going to argue strongly to take the path tonight in GPP’s of pairing him with one of the $10K aces because the salary constraints are not all that limiting.

The other option would be to treat Ohtani like an SP1 – which frankly all metrics would support and take the path of getting a $10K skillset for just $7K and then going cheaper with your SP2!

One SP2 in that scenario is Ryan Yarbrough ($6.6K) who is going to operate as a traditional starter for the Rays against the Orioles in Camden Yards. Yarbrough has primarily been a bulk reliever for Tampa but tonight he is working as a traditional starter and the last time he did that he threw 103 pitches in 6 innings against the Astros.

Since the start of last season, Yarbrough has allowed just a 25% hard contact which is one of the lowest marks on this slate, and in baseball and his 12.2% swinging-strike rate is almost identical to that of Mr. Ohtani. Yarbrough has the ability to limit the damage and still rack up swings and misses against an Orioles team with a 22-23% K rate against LHP this season.

The other cheap option we cannot overlook tonight is RHP Logan Gilbert ($4.7K), one of the best minor league arms in baseball who gets his second start against the Detroit Tigers. Gilbert showed you his talent against the Indians with a 28% K rate and 14% SS rate and I would argue, there may not be a better match-up for him tonight against Detroit.

On the season, the Tigers rank second in baseball with a 27.5% K rate against RHP – we just saw Justin Dunn (23 DK) and Kyle Hendricks (31 DK) put up strong scores against this same team and Gilbert has a pedigree that neither of those arms have. Imagine the damage you can do with your bats if you use him as your SP2!

Now going a path with Ohtani as your SP1 is going to mean you have insane money left to stack and well, if you pair him with Gilbert – you have nearly $5K per batter! Yeah – that will work!

The first stack that we come across is the New York Yankees against LHP Hyeong-Jan Yang who has given up a .239 ISO and 43% HC rate to RHB this season and here come the right-handed heavy Yankees bats!

The Yankees are expected to get Gleyber Torres back in the line-up tonight which means we likely have 9 right-handed batters in the Yankee starting line-up this evening. Aaron Judge is the clear top dog in any Yankee stack with his .382 ISO versus LHP this season but when you look into the pitch types, you find some interesting plays to use around him.

Gio Urshela has a .225 ISO and nearly 310 average distance traveled with a 41% HC rate against the change-up from lefties which is what Yang throws nearly a third of the time.

If Gary Sanchez is able to return to the lineup after leaving with cramps he also profiles well against both the change-up and slider from lefties but if we end up needing to pivot to Kyle Higashioka, remember this is a bat with a .350 ISO mark and 60% fly-ball rate against LHP so he could pay off with one swing.

The other stack that catches my eye tonight is the LA Dodgers as they take on RHP Merril Kelly and the DBacks. There is no pitcher on the slate that has given up a higher hard contact rate (41%) since the start of last season than Kelly. This year he is giving up a 50% HC rate to hitters from both sides of the plate with a .200 ISO to LHB.

The nice part about the Dodgers is they are priced quite nicely where you have the obvious elite bats in Mookie Betts ($6K), Max Muncy ($5.3K) and Justin Turner ($5.2K) but after that, you will find a ton of value with guys like Gavin Lux ($3.3K) and Matt Beaty ($3.4K) hitting in the heart of the order behind them.

Tonight – I love the GPP appeal of going Ohtani/Gilbert and then stacking the big Yankees/Dodgers bats in what could provide a MASSIVE MLB DFS ceiling!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up

This slate looks like a ton of fun as we have so many elite arms to choose from and big dollar stacks. The Shoehei Ohtani mis-pricing is going to define this slate but it really is what you do from there that will make or break your night.

You have every ability to pay for a $10K arm with Ohtani or you can use Ohtani as a discount SP1, pay down for Logan Gilbert in an elite match-up against the Tigers and use that salary to stack the Dodgers and Yankees together!

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, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown

Well hello, there my MLB DFS friends, and welcome into a monster 14 game slate here on Tuesday Night where we have some rain concerns at first glance in MIL/KC, PIT/STL, WAS/CHC and CWS/MIN.

We have a ton of arms on the hill but frankly not many we are clamoring to use and that likely means far more stacks we like than pitchers we feel like we need to have. Are you ready to dive in?

As a GPP player, I love slates like this where there are no “obvious” plays – we do not have a deGrom on the hill and there is no game in Coors Field. In fact, as of this writing, we have just one team with an IRT over 5 so this could be the kind of slate where ownership is wildly spread out or it could inflate a few players/spots as groupthink and optimizers drive MLB DFS lineup builds.

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Arms

As Adam laid out in Starting Rotation, I think this is the kind of day to live up top with your arms – more for safety/floor than “true ace ceiling” and the fact that our preferred stacks are on the cheaper side and allow us the ability to spend up on arms.

Rather than simply echo what our pitching GOAT Adam wrote up, I want to take a different spin on the top end of the range and how I think we can attack it.

First and foremost, I do not think any of the arms are “must haves” – not Woodruff, Wheeler, etc – so rather than build with pitchers first, work backwards in your builds today and build the stacks you want and see what arms fit into your build at the end.

Adam made strong cases for most of the guys at the top – but the one guy I wanted to dive into was Julio Urias ($9.6K) against the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Urias is the 4th highest priced arm on this slate which when you consider some of his advanced metrics, makes him quite the steal. The Dodgers LHP ranks top 10 in baseball in CSW% (called + swinging strike rate) and CSTR% (called strike rate) and ranks top 25 in K% among all qualified arms.

Much of this is driven by a 77.7% first strike rate, by far the highest in baseball and a key driving force in Urias success as he is able to get ahead of hitters and then use his absolutely nasty curve ball as a put away pitch.

If you look at pitch type values, the curve from Urias sits among the top in all of baseball, sitting only behind Brandon Woodruff, Lance McCullers Jr., and Yu Darvish. Urias has anchored to this curve more and more, throwing it 25% last season, and now this year he is leaning on it nearly a third of the time.

Not only does Urias have demonstrated K upside, but he also has the ability to limit the damage as his 24.2% soft contact rate ranks second in all of baseball this season. Even better – Urias ranks among the top 5 in all of baseball with just a 3.6% walk rate. So a pitcher who attacks the strike zone does not walk batters and then either gets you to whiff or make weak contact.

All this sounds pretty darn good to me!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Time to Stack

Now the fact that we do not have a ton of must-have arms on tonight’s slate means we will have our pick of big-time bats and my favorite tonight is the Tampa Bay Rays against Matt Harvey.

Harvey is coming off his worst outing against the Mets his last time to the mound where he gave up 7 runs in just 4 innings of work and his pitch to contact approach/lack of swing and miss stuff finally came back to bite him in 2021.

The Rays are the type of line-up that I think could make this a trend as they are able to get very lefty-heavy with Ji-Man Choi and Francisco Mejia back in the line-up and that could spell serious trouble in Camden Yards for a pitcher like Harvey who has been fly ball heavy to lefties this season.

The Rays lefties like Austin Meadows (.307 ISO), Brandon Lowe (.258 ISO) and Joey Wendle (.209 ISO) all have demonstrated power and Meadows to me is the one player that jumps off the page and anchors this stack.

Harvey is relying on his fastball/sinker to get ground ball outs, but where he has had trouble is against left-handed batters who can get the ball in the air to counter act that – enter Meadows who has a team leading 58% fly ball rate against RHP this season.

The way to beat the Rays is with strikeout arms that can take advantage of their high swing and miss rates – and the issue is, Harvey simply is not that guy. The top of this Rays line-up is just loaded with power – as you have Randy Arozarena at the top, followed by a parade of lefty power.

Now the last time we stacked the Rays was Thursday against Jameson Taillon and we had ourselves a little GPP takedown. Tonight, Taillon goes back to the mound in Texas against the Rangers and this is the mini-stack I want to load up around my Rays bats tonight!

We talked about this with the Rays that night, but Taillon right now is struggling mightily keep the ball on the ground and is especially struggling with left-handed power – to the tune of a 50% FB rate and .305 ISO mark.

So – a pitcher who is struggled with left-handed power and fly ball issues heads to Texas and faces Joey Gallo. I think you know how this ends.

Gallo is arguably one of my favorite plays on the slate as he is by far the most fly ball heavy bat in this Texas line-up, with a near 50% FB rate against RHP since 2019 and has a .300+ ISO mark against the fastball/curveball which are Taillon’s main weapons to LHB this season.

The other bat I love here is Nate Lowe who has been mashing RHP this season to the tune of a .256 ISO and matches up quite well against Taillon’s pitch types with a .522 ISO against his fastball velocity and has a 50% hard contact rate against the curveball.

If you look at the stacks I mentioned here in the Rays and Rangers – I think they get you DFS ceilings but in two different ways. The Rays are going to be by stringing hits and runs together – which means you want to go 4-5 deep with them to maximize your DFS output. The Rangers on the other hand is more home run hunting – so mini-stacking with Gallo/Lowe gets you the ceiling in what you hope pays off with just a few swings of the bat!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up

The more I dig into this MLB DFS slate on Tuesday the more I really like it for GPP’s as we have so many tournament routes and comfortable pivots off chalk if it ends up materializing.

While pitching may not be the best, I would argue the player pool is incredibly condensed and it is largely top heavy. I am not getting cute tonight and picking on cheap arms to get bats – especially not when I can pay up and still get elite stacks like Tampa and Texas that give me upside and salary relief.

On a slate like this, I want to anchor to top tier strikeout arms and build around power stacks like Tampa and Texas that can take advantage of the opposing arm’s weakness for what should be big time DFS outputs!

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, May 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 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!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: Main Slate Breakdown

Happy Monday my MLB DFS friends – after a big weekend of winning here at Win Daily Sports, we are back to kick off this week with a strong 8 game slate on Monday Night!

What stands out to me on this short slate is just how top-heavy the pitching is and anytime we have such highly concentrated ace level arms available to us, my first reaction is to see if we can anchor to double-ace type builds.

With Gerrit Cole, Yu Darvish and Walker Buehler all sitting over $10K on DraftKings, I think we have to outline the potential path in our MLB DFS picks to anchor to two of these high K arms with Cole and Darvish being the primary pairing.

As Adam outlined in Starting Rotation, the path to ceiling is just massive here for Cole against a K-heavy Texas team and Darvish taking on the Rockies outside of Coors Field. Anchoring to both SP1’s will leave you with $3.6K per batter for the rest of your roster and frankly, I think with the insane amount of punt hitter value tonight, there is every reason to start your day with this build in mind.

Even with two aces at pitcher, the reality is that on this slate we have high upside power stacks with strong value within them and my favorite tonight is the LAA Angels against LHP Sam Hentges.

Hentges is an arm that the advanced metrics will tell you is due for some serious regression as his 3.29 ERA is well below his xERA of 5.8 and with a 98% left on base rate, he is walking a dangerous tight rope.

Hentges has struggled this year with right-handed bats to the tune of a .317 ISO with a 42% hard contact rate and 4 HR/9 rate allowed. Well, with Anthony Rendon back in the heart of this Angels line-up, this becomes a nightmare spot for Hentges.

Not only will he have to navigate Rendon-Ohtani-Trout in the middle of this Angels order but he will likely have a total line-up of 7 right-handed batters to make this splits disadvantage even worse. While the “Big 3” are expensive, the Angels do offer value with Taylor Ward and Justin Upton sitting in the mid $2K range on DraftKings which allows ut o easily stack the Angels big bats and work value around there for a full-on 5 man stack!

Hentges pitch type looks like trouble here as well as he relies nearly a third of a time on his curveball and all of Ward, Upton and Trout have .500+ ISO marks against that pitch type while Rendon leads the team with a average distance traveled of 358 feet on a .316 ISO mark of his own.

Going with a Cole/Darvish 1-2 punch and a 5 man Angels stack, will leave you with $2.6K for the last 3 spots in your build – more than enough wiggle room considering the amount of near $2K punts available throughout projected lineups on Monday!

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – The Wrap Up

In stepping back and looking at this slate, there are some key priority build paths that I see tonight and the most important is anchoring to two aces. Listen, we have two arms up top in Cole/Darvish that have league leading swing and miss stuff and they both have advantageous match-ups this evening. Now combine that with the lack of appealing value arms and I am going to take the path of least resistance with my arms tonight.

That means we have to find ways to save salary with our bats without sacrificing power and upside. That my friends is where the Angels bats come into play as we can stack the big three of Trout-Rendon-Ohtani and do so by using the value around them in Ward/Upton for a high upside and balanced cost stack against the Indians!

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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