Welcome to the MLB Yahoo Cup Hot Corner! This free-to-enter, single-entry fantasy baseball contest consists of 27 rounds where the top 1,075 overall entries and the top 70 entries per round share $10,000, with $1,000 to first and $50 to first per round. Scoring will be cumulative across all rounds, with your seven lowest scores dropped at the end. You may join this multi-round MLB DFS contest at any point, but enter today to give yourself the best chance to take home the title. Click here to begin the chase!
Let’s focus on three players — one pitcher, one infielder and one outfielder — to be MLB DFS picks for tonight’s MLB Yahoo Cup contest.
MLB Yahoo Cup Fantasy Baseball Picks | Round 21
MLB DFS Pitcher: Blake Snell — $38
Tonight’s 14-game slate has three pitchers at the top end of the board in Robbie Ray, Zack Wheeler and Julio Urias who stand out above the rest. However, with salaries exceeding $47 on all three, it is unrealistic to fit two of them together in a lineup and feel enthusiastic about rostering the same value bats as everyone else. But utilizing Awesemo’s Top Pitchers Tool, the No. 1 resource to use when trying to identify the most likely candidates to finish as a top-two pitcher on the slate, Blake Snell comes in as the fourth-best option among tonight’s batch of arms. And at only $38, it is hard not to be in enamored with the discount/upside combination he could provide if his last start is a sign of things to come.
Snell has had an abysmal first season in San Diego, as evidenced by his 4.86 ERA and 1.56 WHIP. The underlying stats have somehow been even worse: 40.7% hard-hit rate, .435 xSLG and a brutal 14.1% walk rate. But his last start out against this very same Diamondbacks team he faces tonight, Snell erupted for seven innings and 13 strikeouts that showcased what Snell is capable of when he is on. And it is not like getting swing and misses have been the issue at all, as he still sports a 28.6% strikeout rate on the season, so there is a built-in floor so long as he is not walking an abundance of hitters. If trying to fit in better bats for the MLB Yahoo Cup, Snell can help without sacrificing upside.
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With the help of Awesemo’s Top Stacks Tool, it is easy to identify which teams might be going overlooked by the majority of the field. Many lineups are expected to roster the Red Sox and Indians bats this evening, so it is easy to stack up any of the other 26 teams and feel confident that they will be under-represented compared to their top stack potential. And as it stands this morning, the Top Stacks Tool expects Blue Jays stacks to be rostered by only 3% of the field despite a nearly 6% chance at being the top scoring team of the night.
And if looking to put a Blue Jays stack into Yahoo MLB DFS lineups, the inclusion of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is a borderline requirement. Guerrero has been the overall best hitter in baseball this season, slashing .311/.406/.617 with 35 home runs and 88 RBIs. That is beyond viable, but top to bottom the entire Toronto team has quality hitters that could create major issues for Mariners starter Chris Flexen. Flexen sports only a 16.5% strikeout rate, and his .257 xBA and .419 xSLG mean there will be ample opportunity for Guerrero and company to wreak havoc. So long as the Top Stacks Tool continues to show the Blue Jays coming in underrepresented, they make perhaps the best MLB Yahoo Cup stack to target.
MLB DFS Outfielder: Nelson Cruz — $12
Without a doubt, Yahoo has the sharpest salaries amongst any of the major MLB DFS sites. However, there are two outfielders today in Christian Yelich ($15) and Nelson Cruz ($12) that feel like gifts to help fit in more of the top-end pitching into lineups. And with Yelich slumping and being incapable of getting the ball airborne right now (proven by an absurdly low 4.3-degree average launch angle), Cruz feels like the priority if trying to roster only one of the two.
Cruz has been up to his usual hard-hitting ways in 2021, proven by his 53% hard-hit rate and team-leading .513 xSLG. He will get the chance to face off against his former team tonight, and with Michael Pineda on the bump giving up a nearly 45% hard-hit rate and a 16.1-degree average launch angle, Cruz doing damage if he barrels the ball is a near certainty. At the bargain-barrel salary of just $12, Cruz makes by far the best point-per-dollar play on Yahoo tonight.
