This content will be dedicated to providing you with an easy-to-follow breakdown of the elite cash plays, GPP plays, and leverage stacks.

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MLB DK Pitcher Table

Pitching

Jacob deGrom: deGrom is the best pitcher in baseball, and the top option any time he toes the rubber regardless of match-up. Sure, the Padres are a great offense, but this is one of the best pitchers of all-time and he just struck out 11 of them in his last start. He is the top projection tonight, and the number one starting point for cash games. Now, on this slate, there are loads of stud pitchers so you don’t need to focus on just one guy in tournaments. He is my top overall option and I will be playing him tonight, but if you disagree, that is entirely fine as well.

Brandon Woodruff: There are other guys tonight with better pure strikeout match-ups, but I simply can’t overlook Woodruff in this match-up with the Pirates. For starters, he has been one of the best in baseball this season pitching to a 2.90 SIERA with 32% strikeouts. Like I said above, I don’t weight match-up as heavily when it comes to elite pitching, and the Pirates while patient, are not a good offense. They come into tonight with the fourth-lowest wRC+ vs right-handed pitching (83) and the lowest combined ISO (.118). We’ve also seen him top 98 pitches in his last six starts, easing any leash concerns.

Shohei Ohtani: Ohtani continues to dominate the MLB on both sides of the ball, and is now allowing just a .162 BAA this season — the lowest mark in the AL. Control will always be the biggest concern for him, but the projected Arizona lineup boasts a sub-8% walk rate. He also seems to be getting better with each start, as his velocity was up big-time in that last outing. Overall, $8,100 is still too cheap for the 34% strikeout upside and I am once again honing in on him tonight. He is one of my favorite options at SP on Friday night.

Keegan Aiken (DK GPP Only): Aiken is a SP2 dart on DK tonight priced at $5,000. He’s looked really good in his last two outings for the O’s, and the numbers support that with over 11% swinging strikes. He gets a positive park shift going into the Trop, and this Rays lineup continues to struggle vs southpaw pitching. Tampa’s projected lineup is striking out 26% of the time vs lefties with a sub-.320 combined wOBA. He is in play if attempting to fit in a full expensive stack in tournaments.

Other GPP Targets: Max Scherzer, Lucas Giolito, Tyler Mahle

MLB Top Batters

Batters

C

Catcher is typically the last position I fill in my DFS rosters, and I typically wait until we have most of the lineups confirmed to decide on who I’m playing here. I think it’s smart to use catcher in your stack, because it is often the most overlooked position. Today it looks like we have a good mix of spend up, and cheap options depending on confirmed lineups. I will be looking to save here due to the abundance of high-end pitching, and I’m focused on both Tyler Stephenson and Max Stassi. If you have spending down at pitching, I have Salvy Perez graded as the top option tonight.

1B

Jared Walsh: I’ve noted a lot this season that this has become a Jared Walsh stan account, and he is once again underpriced on DraftKings. Merrill Kelly is a guy that pounds the zone, and it makes it likely that Walsh will see pitches to hit tonight. Walsh has the highest wOBA on the Angels against right-handed pitching this season (.429) and he matches up well with Kelly’s pitch mix.

Bobby Dalbec: Dalbec is typically someone we want to roster against left-handed pitching, but he sticks out as a top value on Friday night. As I mentioned at the C position, we are going to need some value tonight to stuff in two top-end pitchers. Dalbec and the Red Sox have one of the top match-ups on the slate against Ross Stripling. Stripling actually allows more power to same-handed batters — a .262 ISO since the start of last season. He’s throwing fastballs nearly 50% of the time this season, while Dalbec’s metrics look average against the pitch, regression could be on its way with a xwOBA over .500.

2B

Jose Altuve: Altuve and the Houston Astros are in the top overall spot tonight against Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker looks like he nearing the end of his MLB career, and has allowed over a .200 ISO to both sides of the plate this season. He’s also pitched to a 5.48 xFIP with just 14% strikeouts and 9% walks. The top seven batters in the Astros projected lineup own over 40% hard hit rates against RHP this season.

It’s clear I want to spend up at this position tonight, but guys like Johnny India and Ozzie Albies are underpriced on DK. We also have Shed Long, who is min-priced and has the platoon advantage over Aaron Civale. The Seattle lefties are a great spot for tournaments tonight, especially with how inconsistent the Indians bullpen has been recently.

3B

Alex Bregman: The Astros will be a common theme of this article today, but I think of all their players Bregman is likeliest to come in under-owned in the full stack tonight. He has struggled in same-handed match-ups this season, but if we look at his numbers since the start of 2019 we see a .220 ISO and .370 wOBA vs righties.

Kyle Seager: Seager is my top points per dollar play at this position against Aaron Civale. Civale is another strike thrower, that is surrendering a .230 ISO to left-handed batters. Seager has been barreling everything he hits this season, and is sitting at over 50% fly balls and hard hits vs righties. He is too cheap for his power upside, and this Indians bullpen has been struggling over the last week as well.

SS

Carlos Correa: Correa fits our Astros stack at SS, and leads the team this season in hard-contact rate against right-handed pitching (48.6%). There are a wealth of spend-up options at this position tonight, and I wouldn’t blame you for looking elsewhere in large field contests.

Jazz Chisholm Jr: Jazz has been a staple for me in DFS this season, and he continues to hit he ball hard. He matches up well with Morton’s pitch mix, and the Braves bullpen has been full of launching pads this season.

OF

Yordan Alvarez + Kyle Tucker: We finish up the Astros stack with the lefties in the outfield, and these two in particular are locks for me on this slate. They will be maybe the two highest-owned batters tonight, but you can simply get different elsewhere in your lineup. Not only are they in the best spot, they are both severely underpriced on DraftKings.

Nick Castellanos: Castellanos is one of the best hitters in baseball right now, especially against left-handed pitching. I see no reason why he is below $5,000 on DK, in a good spot against Kyle Freeland. Freeland has pretty much always been someone I’m comfortable attacking with power bats, he is a groundball pitcher with low strikeouts. Given his ability to keep the ball on the ground, it is important to target him with batters that get the ball up in the air. Casty’s 29% ground ball rate vs LHP is the lowest mark in this Reds lineup this season.

Avi Garcia: Yelich will be a top spend-up tonight at this position, but we shouldn’t overlook his teammate in Garcia. He’s been locked in at the plate in recent weeks — with over 40% hard hits and fly balls over the last 14 days. He has found his power stroke, and his ISO sits north of .200 in same-handed match-ups this season.

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.

 

DraftKings 5-Man Stack Ideas

Semien-Vlad Jr-Bichette-Hernandez-Gurriel

Altuve-Bregman-Correa-Tucker-Alvarez

Betts-Turner-Bellinger-Muncy-Lux

Urias-Vogelbach-Yelich-Garcia-Narvaez

Verdugo-Martinez-Bogaerts-Devers-Dalbec

DraftKings 3-Man Stack Ideas

Semien-Vlad Jr-Bichette

Altuve-Tucker-Alvarez

Devers-Bogaerts-Martinez

Seager-Shed Long-Fraley or Haniger

India-Castellanos-Suarez

Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)