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Pitching
MLB DK Pitcher Table
Gerrit Cole: Cole is a bet on talent over matchup today. The Astros aren’t a team we traditionally love to attack, but we have seen them underperform and allow massive strikeout games this season. All of the revenge narrative people will be all over this spot! For an afternoon slate, we may have some good value pop up. Cole has the longest leash and will be asked to work deep into the game like he always does.
Zack Wheeler/Brandon Woodruff: This is a spot where I am very interested in a potential pitcher game stack! I think this is a rather contrarian approach today. This is a loaded pitching slate imo. I want to attack the Brewers lineup right now for strikeouts. I stacked them last night versus Anderson, but Wheeler is the type of talent they struggle with. Woodruff will be low-owned but I believe he can win in this matchup. The Phillies have been much better versus lefties this season and they have average to above-average K rates we want to target versus righties.
These three arms are the spend-ups I would be targeting in cash games.
Nathan Eovaldi/Michael Pineda: Eovaldi and Pineda are the value arms today! Eovaldi gets a Tigers lineup that we will continue to attack every time they’re on the slate. They sport over a 30% K rate as a team and don’t have any bats we are afraid of. Pineda will go lower owned vs the Rangers. Pineda is probably my favorite GPP/Leverage target on today’s slate. Going with a Pineda/Eovaldi stack allows you to get a high spend-up stack. I have less confidence in the Rangers than the market. I think Pineda can use his changeup to limit the damaging lefties in the Rangers’ order.
Other GPP Targets: Danny Duffy, Tristan Mckenzie
MLB Top Batters
Batters
C
Yan Gomez- Gomez paid off last night vs a lefty, he should hit in the heart of the Nationals order again today. He is my favorite catching option by a wide margin.
William Contrares- Looks like ill be writing up William a lot if DraftKings is going to keep his price down. He is a great way to get cheap exposure to the Braves. I will likely go one of these two guys on today’s slate.
1B
Miguel Sano- Sano is back in the lineup for the Twins and he gets a tasty matchup with Lyles. I expect Sano to move up in the order and his price tag does not reflect his potential upside. As long as Sano is in the low 3’s, I want to be invested.
Ryan Zimmerman- Zimmerman hasn’t played every day, but when he’s in the lineup he’s producing. The older Zimmerman has been on fire. Zimmerman had an incredible spring training and parlayed that into an awesome April. People will be turned off by his game log and FP/G but that’s only because he has so many 1 AB games when a righty starts. I like going to the Nationals and Zimmerman today.
2B
Ozzie Albies- We always want to be on Albies when he’s hitting from the right side. This is the side of the plate that Albies dominates and shows off his power potential from a weaker second base position. Braves are expensive but they’re one of my favorite stacks.
Kike Hernandez- I am just going to keep suggesting people play Kike every day. He has incredible protection and hitters behind him. He is starting versus lefties and righties. I plan on investing in the Red Sox while they go under-owned.
3B
Starlin Castro- Castro will be popular as a cheap option to get exposure to the Nationals. I think the Nationals will be popular but they’re so cheap in such an incredible matchup. Castro has historically been better versus lefties and he should hit in the middle of the order.
Austin Riley- We will see what spot in the order Riley gets, if he’s in the 5/6 range he could get popular as a cheap option to get exposure to the Braves. We know Riley has a big-time power upside. Riley will always get up in advantageous positions because teams don’t like to pitch to the top of the Braves order if they don’t have to.
SS
Trea Turner- Another day, another Turner slate. Turner has been awesome this season and DraftKings won’t price him up with the Tatis Jr. As long as Turner is too cheap and in plus matchups, we should be all in.
Dansby Swanson- I am not afraid of the soft-tossing Jon Lester. Lester’s best years are behind him and this is a get right spot for the Braves. They could potentially break the slate, so every piece is in play.
OF
Braves OF- Acuna continues to be the frontrunner for MVP, I also love targeting Ozuna vs lefties. Ozuna just crushed a grand slam last night, I want to be on him…he may be starting one of those hot streaks he likes to go on.
Max Kepler- Kepler will be cheap exposure to the Twins, he could potentially hit near the top of the order, worst case is that he’s near the middle-bottom half and even then I am interested.
Red Sox OF- JD Martinez can’t stop, won’t stop. Martinez continues to crush and his price keeps his ownership down. Verdugo will go overlooked but he’s one of my favorite targets on this slate.
Stacks
“Team Batting Score” – A metric that quickly highlights overall team batting based on Runs Created (RC+) by team and comparing it to the average and standard deviation of all other MLB Teams
“Opp. Pitcher SP Score” – A weighted metric that evaluates today’s starting pitchers based on xFIP and Games Started (currently using partial end of 2020 data blended with the 2021 season)
“Opp. BP Score” – Similar to SP Score but weights the xFIP for the team’s bullpen
Team Batting vs. Opp. Pitch
DK MLB Stacks
“T2” (and T3/T4/T5) represents the Top 2 projected hitters for the team on the left (not necessarily the top 2 hitters in the batting order)
Stacking is an extremely important element to MLB DFS. In MLB, all of your players are correlated to each other. Outside of solo homeruns, they need each other to succeed. If you look at the top of all of the big GPPs every night you will see stacks dominating the leaderboard.
When using our stacks chart, we want to identify teams that are projecting well but the ownership does not reflect their chance of success.
The Nationals and Braves will be extremely popular today. I like to target both of them, I want exposure to the Twins as well. I am going to say this a lot, but the Red Sox gives you some nice leverage.
DraftKings 5-Man Stack Ideas
Min- Kepler-Garlick-Sano-Goodwin-Rortvedt
ATL- Acuna-Albies-Ozuna-Riley-Swanson
DraftKings 3-Man Stack Ideas
WSH- Turner-Castro-Gomez
NYM- McNeil-Lindor-Conforto
