Dave Gloeckner 
Welcome to a new week and a special edition of The Sweet Spot here at WinDaily Sports. I’m filling in for Jared today as he’ll be back later this week with his Aces and Bases article. We tend to have similar formats and information so just treat this as a normal Monday MLB DFS article. With that being said, we hit some solid plays on Sunday as the Astros stack came through and our value pitcher, Dakota Hudson, hit for 3.5x value scoring over 20 DK points. But in the end, it was a quiet hitting (of late) Toronto stack that helped propel the leaders. Tonight’s challenge will be finding quality pitching as their is a lack of depth across the teams in action.
As a reminder, this article will focus on Pitchers, from aces to value, and Hitters, from team stacks to studs to value plays. Prop bets are provided in the Gophers and Gas article.
There are many tools available, but I hope you’re using the Win Daily Projection Model as that has been very helpful in rostering key players each night.
For DFS, the featured card today begins at 7:05 pm with 8 games on the slate. All DFS plays below will come from those 8 games and any later games will be captured in Discord.
PITCHERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 7:05 PM Start
BLAKE SNELL ($10,600 DK) / MICHAEL WACHA ($9800 DK)
Blake Snell has been a revelation this season for the Padres. He has 16 consecutive starts with at least 5 innings pitched and 3 ER’s or less. Over that same span, he is 9-2 with a 1.28 ERA. The Padres LHP has been as good as any pitcher in the MLB for 2.5 months. In fact, because of that dominant stretch his 2.65 ERA is the best in the MLB this season.
DraftKings has listed Snell as the starting pitcher tonight. However, I’m seeing reports that Michael Wacha will be the starting pitcher tonight. So before I get too deep here, I’ll update the article later this afternoon once we have a starting pitcher confirmed.
UPDATE: MICHAEL WACHA is now scheduled to start. I still like this spot primarily because we have a watered down pitching slate tonight. Wacha returned from the IL last week allowed 0 ER over 5 innings of work. He registered a win and 22.3 DK points. Tonight, he faces Miami who over the past 10 games is 21st in batting average, 22nd in wOBA and 23rd in wRC+. With the big ballpark in SD, and Wacha’s commitment to pitching to contact, he should be able to go even deeper into the game tonight and has potential to be the highest scoring pitcher on the slate.
LUIS CASTILLO ($10,000 DK)
Speaking of revelations, the Seattle Mariners are on a roll as they come into this series with Chicago on a 6-game winning steak. In fact, the Mariners have the best record in the month of August with a 14-4 mark. Their ace, Luis Castillo, gets the ball tonight and the M’s are 4-0 in his past 4 starts.
What intrigues me the most tonight is the matchup of Castillo’s fastball against the White Sox batters. Castillo throws a 4-seam fastball at a 47% clip and a sinker at a 17% rate. The White Sox rank last in the MLB against the fastball according to weight runs above average. Additionally, the White Sox have the 11th highest K rate in baseball at 23.7%. So we have a heavy fastball pitcher that is facing a team that struggles mightily against that offering. Based on that, this is my favorite matchups on the board tonight.
GRAHAM ASHCRAFT ($8500 DK)
NOTE: THE ANGELS AT CINCINNATI GAME HAS BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL TOMORROW. NO ASHCRAFT TONIGHT
Ashcraft has been one of the better pitchers in the NL over the past 1.5 months. Over his last 9 starts, dating back to June 30th, he is 3-2 with a 2.17 ERA. The only pitcher in the NL with a better ERA in that span is Blake Snell. The problem is, the Reds have scored 3 runs or less in 6 of those starts often wasting his efforts. The other issue is Ashcraft has a 5.9 K/9 inning in that span which makes him value deflated for DFS purposes.
But tonight he gets the Angels who can bring the strikeouts up for any pitcher they are facing. They have a 26% K rate over their past 10 games and have struck out 10+ times in 5 of those games. The Angels are also batting 0.199 over that span which is good for last in the MLB. In short, they are a mess at the plate outside of Ohtani. Ashcraft should be able to continue his pitching prominence and even add some K’s to his stat line.
PAUL BLACKBURN ($7000 DK)
I’m writing this with some trepidation as Kansas City has the best offense in baseball over the past 10-15 days. In their last 10 games they are batting 0.311 with a 0.796 OPS. But with the state of the pitching tonight, I’m putting Blackburn in my player pool and comfortable taking the chance to attack the Royals. I have three primary reasons for that and they are as follows.
First, Blackburn has actually pitched very well of late. In his last 4 starts he’s gone at least 6 innings in each and has a total 25 strikeouts. Secondly, the Royals are traveling from Chicago and could be sluggish from the trip to the City by the Bay, as well as the fact they will be playing in front of just ~2000 people in Oakland. Lastly, this will be a spot most DFS players will avoid so I anticipate low ownership. Best chance to win GPP’s is to be different and against the grain.
KOOL-AIDE MAN (SWEET SPOT VALUE PITCHER UNDER $7K)
ALEC MARSH ($5600 DK)
The Royals SP is looking for his first win of 2023 as he comes into tonight’s contest with an 0-6 record and 5.68 ERA. But in his favor is the fact that he’s facing the Oakland A’s who are the worst offense in baseball. The A’s are dead last in batting average, OPS, wOBA and wRC+. And Marsh performed admirably in his last start going 5 innings and striking out 6 batters. He has a high walk rate, 13.5%, but fortunately Oakland is in the bottom half of the league in drawing walks as well. We have potential for 3x value tonight based on the matchup and price. It’s definitely as good of a spot that we have in the value range tonight.
BONUS PICKS
I also like ALLAN WINANS ($7500 DK) and DREW ROM ($4000 DK) tonight. When the Braves last faced the Mets they scored 40 runs in a 4-game series. One of those games was a 21-3 victory. Additionally, Winans has flashed plus stuff striking out 14 batters over his first 11.1 innings pitched. As for Rom, he came over at the deadline from Baltimore in the Jack Flaherty trade. His ERA is above 4.00 in the minors but he has good K potential. In just 2 starts with the Cardinals farm system, he has a 43.9% K rate. That catches my attention plus he’s facing Pittsburgh who has a 25.5% K rate this month.
HITTERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 7:05 PM
SWEET SPOT STACK ATTACK: The stacks I like in the MLB today are the RANGERS (vs. Arizona), the BRAVES (vs. NYM), the PADRES (vs. Miami), the CARDINALS (vs. Pittsburgh), and the MARINERS (vs. CHW).
CORE BATTERS
COREY SEAGER ($6600 DK)
We’re back on the Rangers stack and for good reasons. The D’backs are scheduled to start Slade Cecconi who has pitched in just 3 games in 2023. Not great news for a team in Wild Card contention. I’ll look towards the top of the order and focus my stacks around Seager. The Rangers SS has 8 home runs in his past 15 games. Over that span he’s averaged 13.4 DK points with 5 games of 20+ or more fantasy points.
For stacking, I like MARCUS SEMIEN, ADOLIS GARCIA, NATHANIEL LOWE, MITCH GARVER and EZEQUIAL DURAN.
FERNANDO TATIS JR ($6300 DK)
Tonight, the Padres face a pitcher they traded away at the deadline in Ryan Weathers. Weathers carries a 1-7 record and 6.89 ERA into tonight’s game. The Marlins have just used Weathers once, and in that game he allowed 6 runs over 3.2 innings. The Padres know this pitcher well, and should be a favorable stack. With that, I’ll look at Tatis who has a 60% hard hit rate over the past 10 days.
For stacking, I like JUAN SOTO, HA-SEONG KIM, MANNY MACHADO, GARY SANCHEZ and XANDER BOGAERTS.
SLAP HITTER (SWEET SPOT VALUE BATTER) – LESS THAN $3K
DYLAN MOORE ($2900 DK)
As noted with the write-up on Luis Castillo, the Mariners are playing good baseball of late. They’ve scored at least 6 runs in six of their last seven games. Their 2B, Dylan Moore, joined in the fun this weekend as he went 6 for 9 and averaged 23 DK points in their series against Houston. When looking at an M’s stack, Moore can be a cheap piece that can help you pay up for the likes of Julio Rodriguez.
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