We had a baseball marathon on Wednesday, and now it appears the Friday slate will be more of a “Tortoise and the Hare” affair. The slate is split oddly with the schedule not setting until late games were decided. Only two games ended up being necessary, the Cubs and Marlins will make up their game 2 that was rained out on Thursday and the Cardinals and Brewers will play a decisive game 3.
With the extremely short slate, I’m running through home runs and a few good-looking individual hitting plays in the space below. I’ll come back for a low-owned stack of the day and any additional thoughts in Stack Slants tomorrow, but there’s just not a lot to work with on a two-gamer.
MLB DFS Quick Hits: Top HR Options, Stacks and Pitchers
Home Run Ratings
Home runs are our holy grail when making MLB DFS picks. Finding the right combination of sluggers who will knock one, or better two, out of the park to drive in the teammates you stack with them is critical to winning GPPs. Identifying the likely home run hitters is trickier than just looking at the big names. Using a model of my own design, based on a blend of several predictive statistics for the batter-pitcher matchup, I’m going to give one of the top choices from each team.
Scale: 5-10 Average; 10-20 Good; 20-25 Very Good; 25+ Great
Atlanta Braves: n/a
Chicago Cubs: Kyle Schwarber – 13.86
Houston Astros: n/a
Los Angeles Dodgers: n/a
Miami Marlins: Matt Joyce – 2.24
New York Yankees: n/a
Oakland Athletics: n/a
San Diego Padres: Manny Machado – 5.39
St. Louis Cardinals:Â Paul DeJong – 10.41
Tampa Bay Rays: n/a
MLB DFS Stacks & Ownership Plays
(Quick note: if it says 1-5 it means hitters 1-2-3-4-5, otherwise I’ll specify spots)
We’re picking a few standout MLB DFS spots and teams to look at for potential plays here. Make sure to check out the ownership projections for critical updates and monitor the top stacks tool throughout the day for changes.
Miami Marlins – Matt Joyce – OF – $2,100 / $2,300
The Marlins have a tough ask in getting to Cubs ace Yu Darvish. If I’m drawing against Darvish with a one-off, I want to take someone who is going to give me value by being low-owned, providing upside and also being inexpensive. Matt Joyce fits that bill to a tee. For his career, Joyce has a .253/.355/.448 slash with a .195 ISO and a WRC+ 21% above average, while walking 13.3% of the time, against right-handed pitching.
Joyce is drawing one of this team’s better home run marks in my model, though the overall power index is way down in the matchup against Darvish. Joyce has hit 135 of his 147 career home runs on this side of his splits and profiles reasonably well against Darvish’s primary arsenal of pitches. For the dramatic pricing discount, we could do far worse than Joyce on a slate where we’re going to be using players from every team.
Chicago Cubs – Javier Baez – SS – $4,800 / $3,100
The Cubs have an interesting matchup against rookie Sixto Sanchez. The kid has put up a couple solid starts but has been a bit of a roller coaster overall. Meanwhile, the Cubs key hitters have been awful all season. Something has to give and my money is on that something being the Marlins’ pitching.
Baez is an all-world option at shortstop, and he comes at a discount in price and probably popularity as well. Baez had a rough year at just .203/.238/.360 with a .157 ISO and a WRC+ 43% below average. Still, the infielder hit 29 home runs in 561 plate appearances in 2019. He slips a bit against same-handed pitching but still has a strong .199 ISO and 84 of his 118 home runs on this side of the split.
Related MLB DFS Content
- Learn MLB DFS: DraftKings + FanDuel Primer
- MLB DFS Quick Hits: HRs, Stacks & Ownership Plays
- Top Stack Tool (PREMIUM)
- Awesemo’s Top Pitcher Tool (PREMIUM)
- The MLB Strategy Show Live Before Lock
St. Louis Cardinals – Dylan Carlson – OF – $3,100 / $2,600
Carlson is far too cheap in the Cardinals’ matchup against what I expect to be rookie starter Adrian Morejon. Carlson hits from both sides of the plate and was in the cleanup spot in Thursday’s lineup. The outfielder hits with some power, though he put up just a .200/.252/.364 slash with a WRC+ 35% below average this season. Across 562 plate appearances between AA and AAA in 2019, Carlson hit 26 home runs, which I expect is far more indicative of the player Carlson will become. If he’s hitting in the heart of this order again tomorrow, he’s definitely in play for MLB DFS purposes.
San Diego Padres – Jason Castro – C – $3,800 / $2,100
The Padres are in a tough spot against Jack Flaherty a vicious right-handed strikeout artist. Castro is a left-handed hitting catcher who could find himself with a few opportunities late in this lineup. Castro is not a high-end option, but he has more than enough upside to win a GPP. The lefty put up just a .188/.293/.375 slash in 2020 while hitting two home runs. For his career, Castro has a .179 ISO and a WRC+ 5% above average in splits against right-handed pitching, with 77 of his 88 home runs. He’s not a go-to, but where we are required to play catchers Castro is definitely in play.
HR Call: Paul DeJong (Cardinals)
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LOve the HR projections. Its very important stat and fun to look at. Obviously we all have our own ideas on who will hit them but I like the opinions.