Dave Gloeckner 
It’s Sunday Funday of baseball at WinDaily. I just finished our Sunday morning Sirius show where we broke down both slates. And the overall consensus is that we have tough pitching matchups at the top along with some good value in the middle of the slate. So let’s get at it today and build some winning lineups.
This article will focus on Pitchers, from aces to value, and Hitters, from team stacks to studs to value plays. Prop bets for today will be provided in the Gophers and Gas article.
There are many tools available, but I hope you’re using the WinDaily Projection Model as that has been very helpful in rostering key players each night.
For DFS, the featured card today begins at 1:35 pm with 10 games on the slate. All DFS plays below will come from those 10 games and any earlier games will be captured in Discord.
PITCHERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 1:35 PM Start
KEVIN GAUSMAN ($10,000 DK)
Kevin Gausman is the second highest salaried pitcher on the slate today behind Jacob DeGrom. And while DeGrom has an excellent matchup and will likely mow through the A’s, Gausman is my favorite of the top end pitchers today. The first reason is that he will be lower owned due to him facing the Yankees. But my second reason is that he is facing the Yankees.
Last season, the Blue Jays RHP faced the Yankees 3 times and ended with a 1-0 record and 1.89 ERA. In those starts he threw 19 innings and racked up 23 K’s. Fast forward to the 2023 Yankees and we have a team that are 22nd in batting average, 18th in wOBA and 15th in wRC+. They are also 12th in K rate at 24% which is much higher than their 2022 team (22%).
CORBIN BURNES ($9200 DK)
I’m still not sure Burnes has figured it out but in two straight road starts he was able to right the ship and put up 51.2 DK points. Today he gets a tough Boston lineup who has the 5th lowest K rate in the league and is 12th in batting. But the good news is that Burnes is home today and he has a much higher K rate in Milwaukee. And Boston is batting much worse on the road then they are at home (27th in batting on road with 0.217 average). At $9200, there’s value in Burnes today.
MAX FRIED ($7700 DK)
Fried came of the DL in his last start and dazzled throwing 5 shut out innings at San Diego. Today he faces the Astros who are always a tough task for a starting pitcher. But they haven’t gotten off to the best start in 2023 as they are 12th in wOBA and 15th in wRC+ (7th in wOBA and 6th in wRC+ in 2022). And Astros hitters are batting just 0.182 in their career of Fried with most of their at-bats coming in the 2021 World Series.
ZACH EFLIN ($7600 DK)
Eflin makes his return from the IL today against the White Sox and looks to continue his success from his first two starts. In those games, he threw a combined 11 innings and had 12 K’s showing his high strike out potential that he occasionally flashed with the Phillies. As for the White Sox, they are 19th in wOBA and wRC+ on the season. And their K rate is 25%, good for 7th most, over the past week. Looks like a good landing spot for a return for Eflin.
KOOL-AIDE MAN (SWEET SPOT VALUE PITCHER UNDER $7K)
BAILEY OBER ($7000 DK) and GRAYSON RODRIGUEZ ($6000 DK)
We had a good pulse with Suarez on Tuesday but the walk bug hit him and he wasn’t able to get the innings needed to produce the positive points we were looking for. Because of that, I’m dropping two Value Pitchers today.
First is Bailey Ober from the Twins who is making his season debut today. He’s coming up from AAA where he is having an awesome start to the season with a 2.55 ERA and 22 K’s in 17.2 innings. Last year in 11 starts with the Twins, he had a respectable 3.21 ERA and 1.05 WHIP. He also has a good landing spot today facing the Nationals who are 30th in ISO, 25th in wOBA and 26th in wRC+.
Next up is Grayson Rodriguez who I believe is the best value arm today. While his results have been mixed of late, he has a 6.91 ERA in his 3 starts, he is racking up the K’s with 19 in 14.1 innings. He gets the Tigers today who strike out 26% of the time which is good for 2nd in the MLB. Rodriguez looks to build off his last game and could put up a big return for DFS owners today.
BONUS PICKS
I do like JACOB DEGROM ($11,000 DK) today against the A’s. I also will roll with Tony and roster Jesus Luzardo ($9700 DK) against the Guardians.
HITTERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 1:35 PM
SWEET SPOT STACK ATTACK: The stacks I like today are the Texas Rangers (vs Muller), the Blue Jays (vs. Schmidt), the Minnesota Twins (vs. Corbin) and the Milwaukee Brewers (vs. Bello). One stack against a top pitcher that I like is the Los Angeles Dodgers (vs Stroman). Stroman’s 0.75 ERA is met with a 3.30 SIERA and a BABIP is 0.211. That last number is the best in the league for all starters today. That screams regression and the Dodgers are coming off a 9 run game on Saturday.
CORE BATTERS
BYRON BUXTON ($4900 DK)
It’s amazing to see Byron Buxton under $5K. What’s also crazy is that he’s the 19th highest salaried OF on the slate. And he’s starting to get hot as he’s put together a modest 3 game hitting streak. Today he gets our favorite punching bag in Patrick Corbin so it’s definitely green means go with BB.
MARCUS SEMIEN ($5800 DK) and JOHAN HEIM ($3700 DK)
Both Heim and Semien are red hot. We all know what Adolis Garcia did last night against the A’s (3 home runs & 8 RBI’s) but it’s been Heim and Semien who have carried the hot tag all week. Semien is batting 0.429 over his past 7 games and is 7th in wRC+. Heim is batting 0.375 in that span but is 5th in wRC+. They both get another chance to light up the scoreboard versus an A’s pitcher and I will look to make them cores in my Ranger stacks.
SLAP HITTER (SWEET SPOT VALUE BATTER) – LESS THAN $3K
JACK SUWINSKI ($2900 DK)
It’s power versus power when we get Suwinski versus Hunter Greene today in Pittsburgh. And this matchup favors the pitcher as Suwinski is 0 for 7 with 6 K’s in his career against the Reds flamethrower. But the Pirates slugger has never come into a matchup with Greene this hot as he has 4 home runs in his last 7 games while batting 0.389. I’ll take the chances he breaks his streak today and gets one in the seats.
Now that you finished reading the MLB Sweet Spot article make sure to check out MLB Lineup Optimizer and our YouTube Livestream that breaks down the entire slate of games and gives you the info to nail MLB Prop Bets and DFS Plays.
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