KBO DFS: Spotlight Hitters DraftKings, FanDuel

That sound you may have heard as you drifted back to sleep after KBO DFS lock was the Casey Kelly chalk-wagon crashing and burning. With a negative five total on DraftKings and a zero on FanDuel the highly popular Kelly was unfortunate poison for some otherwise solid constructions on both sites. Kelly pitched well through three and then the Lions capitalized on walks, hit batsmen, and a passed ball to hang eight runs on him over the fourth and fifth. Cheers to the Lions offense for another surprise outburst in an 11-6 romp. The Dinos popped up with eight runs, getting key contributions from bats we were looking for here, ant the Tigers rolled the Giants’ whole staff for 11.

KBO DFS Picks: DraftKings + FanDuel Hitters

With several high-end starters coming around in their rotations game totals are slightly tamer on the high-end but some opportunities may come up from the bottom as a few of yesterday’s lower totals come up. Glancing at projections and stacks I think we can find a few good angles into some of the higher upside less popular plays again tonight.

The top stack tool is something you see me reference here a lot, I have it open the entire time I’m making my KBO DFS picks, if you’re not using it you’re missing out. Looking it over at the start of building lineups or looking the slate over can be revelatory. Clicking from one site to the other we can examine how the bats translate to value based on their relative pricing, and how those values and probabilities for success relate to the team stack ownership.

The bulk of this analysis comes directly from reviewing Awesemo’s KBO DFS projections and the top stacks tool. Check out the rest of our KBO content, Awesemo’s projections, rankings, and ownership on the site for all your KBO DFS needs.

As usual, I’m going to look game by game, calling out a hitter or two from each team, and giving some top stacking options as we go. Pricing and popularity will be considered, more so as KBO DFS trends begin to emerge over the coming weeks. The numbers included with Suggested Stack are the projected lineup positions I would target for stacking that team, but do not restrict yourself exclusively to those spots. For example, if it says Wyverns 3-6 it means 3,4,5,6 in the projected lineup. If it says 1-2-3-5 it means those guys. If it means a two-man it will say so. I’m also going to start trying to include positions more, hopefully it helps speed up the process of finding guys as you build lineups.

With lock still hours away (5:30am), official lineups have not been released, so be sure to double-check status before you plug players into your lineup.

Lotte Giants @ Kia Tigers – 9.0 run total (3.93/5.28) – Suggested Stack: Tigers 1-5

Preston Tucker has been the roller coaster of KBO DFS early in 2020, last night he delivered a positive performance with a home run and three RBI but left a lot of upside on the table stranding runners in several earlier plate appearances. The Tigers rolled anyway with a lot of the early bats in the lineup coming through. The Giants scored two measly runs last night and might be dead to me for a few days. Tonight, they get Aaron Brooks who has been better than his win-loss record would indicate. The Giants rank near the bottom of the stacks tool and have an implied run total under four. Stick to the top of the lineup, there’s no threat of popularity here. If you want to get cute about it, Dixon Machado ($13/$4.8k) is projected to hit ninth and is 0.1% owned at the moment, you could be wildly different by adding him as a wrap-around. I guess.

I like to think someone played a five-man version of the three-man Tigers stack I mentioned, adding the right bats and winning stacks of cash. I sure didn’t. Last night the pitching matchup had the Tigers lower-ranked in the stacks tool, but the ownership edge was apparent, so they made some sense. That’s not the case tonight on FanDuel where they look low ranked but over-owned. Keep an eye on that, if it flips again there could be opportunity here. If I’m looking at the Tigers, I’m probably playing the Preston Tucker ($17/$6.3k) heat here. Tucker looks strong in Awesemo’s projections again today and has obvious ceiling skills for this league. At 14% on FanDuel and only 10% on DrafKings he’s playable. Building down from new leadoff hitter Ho-ryung Kim ($3.4k DK only) who has mashed in 10 plate appearances since returning from a back injury makes some sense. Kim looks like he has a stranglehold on this spot now but KBO DFS owners haven’t caught up. It’s more of an opportunity play however, Kim hasn’t truly shown anything special in his ~850 career plate appearances with a .252/.319/.672 slash.

Doosan Bears @ KT Wiz – 11.5 run total (6.39/5.37) – Suggested Stack: Bears 1-2-3-4-6

Well, one of these teams held up their end of the bargain last night. The baseball gods intervened and kept the Bears off the board, helping further destroy chalky constructions across both sites. The implied total comes down by a full run today with a better on-paper pitcher taking the hill for the Bears. The Wiz are sending up Min Kim who has some deceptive recent box score numbers. A casual glance shows he’s limited earned runs in each of his last three starts. This is entirely due to luck. Kim has been putting an absurd number of hitters on base and getting bailed out by a combination of variance, fielding, and at-em balls. In his last 10.2 innings over two starts, Kim has walked 11 and hit three. For his career Kim has a 128:105 K:BB ratio with 13 hit batters over only 208.2 innings. This is not a good pitcher, act accordingly when constructing your Bears lineups. The Bears are looking under-owned on FanDuel tonight, occupying the top spot on both sites in the stack tool. The projections love Doosan up and down the lineup. KBO DFS owners might do well to zero in on a guy like Jae-ho Kim ($9/$2.6k) who is hitting sixth and makes a lot of things work with his salary and projection. At around 12% ownership on DraftKings and nothing on FanDuel jam him and Kun-woo Park ($12/$3.7k) in as part of your stacks with some Choi, Kim, and Fernandez, or mix and match Bears with position flexibility.

Raul Alcantara is looking to calm the Wiz’ offense here. Exploding out of the gate this week with 15 runs in their first two games the Wiz fall back to the middle of the stack rankings but haven’t cooled in ownership. There’s not a ton of leverage here with Alcantara at 20% ownership on DraftKings and under 10% on FanDuel. Mel Rojas is in the same spot as usual, super capable and popular. Most of his teammates are drawing less attention. Jae-gyun Hwang ($12/$5.1k) has a strong projection at half the ownership late in the lineup, and I still like Jae-dae Bae ($8/$2.3k) if I’m building out Wiz lineups.

SK Wyverns @ NC Dinos – 9.5 run total (3.94/5.80) – Suggested Stack: Dinos 1-3-4-7-8

The Dinos roared back at ESPN for knocking them down the power rankings, busting out for an eight-run victory that saw column favorites Sung-bum Na and Jin-hyuk No homer (ha, “no Homers,” my brain is 32% Simpsons quotes). The Wyverns look to fight back here against import Drew Rucinski who has breezed through his KBO career to date. I see no reason to expect that to end tonight, neither does Vegas, with the Wyverns run total ducking back below four. If you’re going to the Wyverns tonight I think a limited approach is best. Consider Jeong Choi ($14/$4.3k) again as a one-off with HR potential, or as part of a three-man with guys like Heung-ryun Lee ($5/$2.5k) to get different at catcher. Be aware, this isn’t a play about their projections on paper.

The matchup for the Dinos tonight isn’t as juicy. They rank fourth in the stacks tool and ownership looks about right. Veteran starter Tae-hoon Kim will never be confused with Max Scherzer, but he knows how to avoid runs and is KBO-capable at whiffing hitters. What stands out most is his ability to keep the ball in the yard. KBO DFS owners willing to bear some risk could pick up a cheap low-owned starter here, not to step on our pitching column. That said, you guys know I love some Dinos. The individual projections all look solid again tonight. Min-woo Park ($13/$4.5k) under 10% ownership playing second base on DraftKings? “Yes, have some.” (another 11% is Ghostbusters quotes). The rest of the usual suspects fill out the stack just fine here, and I have no issues playing anyone in this lineup in a stack. Aaron Altherr ($11/$4.8k) always warrants a look when people are ignoring him more than he deserves. The suggested stack is built with positions in mind, I like that it gets to a lot of the meat of this lineup while leaving traditional RBI and HR positions at 1b, 3b and OF open for your second stack or one-off plays.

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Samsung Lions @ LG Twins – 8.5 run total (3.61/5.01) – Suggested Stack: Twins 1-5

Slowly but surely the Lions are earning a bit of my begrudging respect. They’re probably not as bad as I thought they were going to be, but they’re also not as good as these 11 run outbursts either. A monster game like Won-seok Lee’s eight RBI performance will help with that sort of thing. Adding on a homer from Tyler Saladino did most of the rest of the damage. The Lions land in the middle of the stacks tool tonight. Their value is still way up on FanDuel, but the ownership is rising as well. They’re not out of reach if you want to play the salary there though, on DraftKings I would probably largely avoid without the bargain basement pricing. If you’re looking to the Lions Heon-gon Kim ($8/$3.3k) batting fifth in the lineup, and there could be some sneaky but risky bats in play toward the bottom of this lineup, with decent projections through eight-hitting catcher Min-ho Kang ($7/$3.3k).

My home run model loves the top four bats in the Twins lineup tonight, all four are at or around a 20 rating, which is high-end. This offense looks primed to pop. The obvious bats are going to be incredibly popular though, so you’re going to have to get to them from different angles with the stack if you look that way. I probably wouldn’t play Roberto Ramos at 50% ownership as a one-off but threading him into a stack with guys like fifth hitter Min-sung Kim ($9/$4.1k) and sixth hitter Keun-woo Jeong ($7/$3.4) can get you to different builds in a hurry. Kang-nam Yoo ($8/$3.4k) hiding in the eight-spot works to get you back around to the top of the lineup. Clicking the Twins together with less popular pitching or a less popular second stack will offset most of the ownership on a Ramos, but that much ownership always needs to be thought about carefully in baseball, this isn’t basketball where we’re just locking in high-owned positive production.

Kiwoom Heroes @ Hanwha Eagles – 9.0 run total (5.66/3.57) – Suggested Stack: Heroes 3-4-5-7-8 (DK) / 3-4-5-6 (FD)

The Heroes managed to win a game 6-2 last night without much of a standout performance from any of their hitters. Nice nights up and down but nothing explosive. Tonight, they rank near the top of the stacks tool on both sites, but they’ll be popular as usual on DraftKings. Eagles starter Min-woo Kim got knocked around last time out, but had several good starts coming into that one and knows how to strike batters out. I’m just a little bit wary of the Heroes play here. I like what I see in the projections though. On FanDuel getting different in this lineup is easier, Hye-sung Kim ($6/$2.2k) is only around four percent owned. On DraftKings things are trickier because they, stick with me here, use all the baseball positions. Wild, I know. If you want to get different here you’re going to have to get dirty at the bottom of this lineup with Byung-woo Jeon ($2.1k) and Taek-keun Lee ($2.1k) if he’s in the lineup. I’ve mentioned Lee before because his career numbers say he can hit the ball in the gap and drive in runs but at 39 he may just be done. His deep slump has had him on the bench the last few days, so keep an eye out.

I’m not playing Eagles against Eric Jokisch here and neither should you. If you do it you probably know it’s because no one else will be on them and baseball does baseball things, but it’s not an advisable spot. Projections and top stacks agree with me, these guys look terrible with their tiny implied run total. Feel free to play the heart of the lineup with Jared Hoying ($10/$4.7k) and Seung-yol Lee ($9/$3.3k), and guys like Yong-kyu Lee ($8/$3.9k) as a table-setter up top. Good luck.