Monday, Oct. 12 provides a two-game main slate at 4:07 p.m. EST on DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo and SuperDraft. Before you lock in your MLB DFS lineups and MLB DFS picks, make sure to check out check out Awesemo’s DFS baseball MLB rankings and projections.
Main-Slate MLB DFS Picks
Tampa Bay Rays at RHP Lance McCullers – 4.7 implied runs
Keep in mind the playoffs are now at neutral sites with the Astros and Rays playing at Petco Park. The Braves and Dodgers are playing in Globe Life Park tonight — which has been a pitcher’s park in the inaugural season.
On a fun note, the Rays are in the American League Championship Series for the second time in their history. If opponents go with a righty, their batsmen lean lefty and vice versa. This helps keep the pricing algorithms a little off balance and should give us a value bat or two.
Austin Meadows is dealing with an oblique injury which of course could flare up at any time. If he is in the Tampa lineup, we will want him in ours. Ji-Man Choi is not dealing with an injury and his hidden secret is that he has been working towards becoming a switch-hitter since debuting in The Show. While this is wild, it is true and does reduce his pinch hit risk.
After that duo, if you are looking to roll out the Rays, then augment things with a few other hitters swinging the stick from the left side of the plate. This can be tricky as the Rays like to keep opponents guessing with their strategy. Brandon Lowe and Nate Lowe are in the tournament mix along with Joey Wendle and Kevin Kiermaier.
Atlanta Braves at RHP Walker Buehler – 3.7 implied runs
We only have two games to choose from, which is very important for us all to consider for a moment. At this point in the playoffs we are going to be facing top pitching and/or rested relievers.
The only knock against Buehler is a slight blister issue, and of course having to face a premier offense. So we need to get a little crazy. There is a strong chance that Freddie Freeman will take home an MVP belt in 2020. The key thing to remember is that he has an eye-popping 13.7% walk rate in his last 1,400 plate appearances where he has the platoon advantage. Clearly going with Freeman is not the crazy part.
Buehler has been phenomenal against fellow righties. However, I want to challenge that on our short slate. Marcell Ozuna seemingly forgot how to hit in 2018 when he joined the Cardinals. He posted career lows with a .133 ISO, 5.8% walk rate with an 18.0% strikeout rate against righties. From 2019 forward he righted the ship with a .226 ISO, 11.9% walks and we can accept the trade off of 21.3% strikeouts.
Adam Duvall can only hit lefties, or so the conventional thinking goes. However, he has been destroying right-handed pitching with a .270 ISO over his last 274 same-handed matchups. Yes, he strikes out nearly a third of the time, but we just need him to connect once.
As part of a contrarian strategy, which is not easy to do on a two-game slate, look to Nick Markakis and Dansby Swanson at the bottom of the lineup. They are fine as one-offs, a duo or even better putting them together with Duvall for a synergistic scenario. Austin Riley is also a what-the-heck play batting ninth.
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