Dave Gloeckner 
Welcome to a Sunday Funday edition of the Sweet Spot here at WinDaily Sports. Today is the first Sunday of the NFL Season and most eyes will be focused on the pigskin. But there’s still hardball to be played and even with the distractions we are not going to miss a day breaking down an MLB slate. One of the key factors to look at on today’s slate is weather. There is rain across most of the northeast which play a factor in Washington, Philadelphia, Boston, New York and Toronto. MLB will do their best to play all these games. But if they incur a rain delay that will impact pitching more than anything.
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 1:05 pm with 13 games on the slate. All DFS plays below will come from those 11 games and any later games will be captured in Discord.
PITCHERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 1:05 PM Start
PABLO LOPEZ ($10,900 DK)
Lopez faces the NYM who is very familiar with based on his prior experience pitching with the Marlins. But first, Lopez has been pitching very well for the Twins of late flashing a 5-1 record with a 2.14 ERA over the past month (7 starts). As for the familiarity standpoint, Lopez has faced the Mets ten times prior and is just 4-5 in those outings. However, he has turned in his best season in 2023 and he will use his past experiences mixed with his increased velocity to throw a quality game against the New Yorkers today.
ZACH EFLIN ($9900 DK)
We take one small sample size and one larger one to build confidence in Eflin today. First, the Tampa SP has faced the core of the Mariners lineup 17 times and allowed just 2 hits. While it’s a small sample, the Mariners have cooled some since leaving Seattle and is batting just 0.229 in the last week (all on the road). Now for the larger set of data, Eflin is 10-4 at home this season where he takes the ball today. He’s only allowed more than 3 ER’s twice at home in his 16 starts.
JON GRAY ($8600 DK)
Jon Gray has one of the best matchups on the slate today and his game has no weather concerns which increases his value. That’s because he faces the Oakland A’s who he is 1-0 with a 2.03 ERA against in two starts this season. Gray has had a rocky season, flashing great stretches but also have several poor outings. But he’s in a decent groove now having logged three Quality Starts in his past five games. And as mentioned above, the A’s are a team we want to attack. They own a bottom three offense in the league and their recent play shows a high strikeout rate (25%) showing the current lineup is susceptible to K’s.
COLE RAGANS ($8200 DK)
The Royals SP has been a bright spot in another dismal season in Kansas City. Cole Ragans is showing his potential of late and carries a 20+ scoreless innings streak into today’s game in Toronto. He hasn’t allowed a run in his last three starts and only surrendered six hits in that span. More importantly, over that stretch Ragans has an impressive 27 K’s. Toronto is always a tough lineup to strike out, but with Ragans renewed confidence the pitcher should have the upper hand today and turn in another solid performance.
KOOL-AIDE MAN (SWEET SPOT VALUE PITCHER UNDER $7K)
MILES MIKOLAS ($6700 DK)
There is not much in the value bin today. The weather concerns plus the uncertainty on pitchers in DET/CHW give us little quality to choose from. So the best of the rest is Miles Mikolas who faces the Reds today. The Cardinals are being quite the spoilers of late, winning a series in Atlanta and taking the first two games against the Reds. Mikolas has been bad this season, but in his one start in Cincinatti in 2023 he threw seven shutout innings. And his overall numbers are solid against the Reds this year as he’s 1-1 with a 3.18 ERA. The Reds are feeling the pressure of the playoff push and pressing at the plate which could lead to success for a free playing Redbirds team and their SP today.
BONUS PICKS
I also like GERRIT COLE ($12,000 DK) and ALLAN WINNAS ($8500 DK) today.
HITTERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 1:05 PM
SWEET SPOT STACK ATTACK: The stacks I like today are the DODGERS (vs. WASH), the ASTROS (vs San Diego), the RANGERS (vs. Oakland), the BRAVES (vs. Pittsburgh), and the CUBS (vs. Arizona).
CORE BATTERS
YORDAN ALVAREZ ($6000 DK)
The hottest offense in the MLB is owned by the Houston Astros. They have been putting up video game numbers of late led by several monumental singular performances. Of late, they’ve been riding the heat wave of star OF Yordan Alvarez. He is 7 for 13 with 3 home runs over his past four games.
For stacking, I like JOSE ALTUVE, CHAS MCCORMICK, KYLE TUCKER, ALEX BREGMAN and JOSE ABREU.
CODY BELLINGER ($6300 DK)
The Diamondbacks have won three critical games in Chicago. Today, they are rolling out Brandon Pfaadt to try and complete the sweep. The issue with that is he’s 1-8 with a 6,27 ERA, The Cubs will be foaming at the mouth for this matchup as they saw both Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly throw great games against them over the weekend. With that, I’ll start my stack with Bellinger who has been the steady leader of the offense this season by batting 0.319 with 24 home runs and 88 RBI’s.
For stacking, I like CHRIS MOREL, JAMEIR CANDELARIO, NICO HOERNER, DANSBY SWANSON, and MIKE TAUCHMAN.
SLAP HITTER (SWEET SPOT VALUE BATTER) – LESS THAN $3K
WILYER ABREU ($2700 DK)
Abreu has been silent for most of September. But that all changed yesterday when he went 5 for 5 with 34 DK points. For that performance he should get awarded with another start. So I’ll ride the hot hand especially since there have been 38 runs scored in the first two games of their series with Baltimore.
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