MLB DFS Picks: HRs, Stacks, Ownership DraftKings + FanDuel

After an inexplicable scheduling decision left the first weekend of MLB playoffs without any MLB playoff games, or MLB DFS for that matter, baseball is back on Monday with the American League Division Series kicking off. All series from here through the World Series will take place at neutral locations to limit travel and potential exposures. The A’s are playing the Astros, with their series taking place in Los Angeles, while the Yankees are playing the Rays in San Diego. With just two games on the main slate, we’re going to do the same approach as last time with home runs and a look at an MLB DFS pick that I find interesting from each of the four teams. Then tomorrow we’ll do a deep dive into the low-owned stack option of the day in Stack Slants. Home runs and projections are updated for park factors at the neutral sites.

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

Houston Astros: Alex Bregman – 4.86

Los Angeles Dodgers: n/a

Miami Marlins: n/a

New York Yankees: Gleyber Torres – 12.72

Oakland Athletics: Matt Olson – 5.16

San Diego Padres: n/a

Tampa Bay Rays: Randy Arozarena – 10.25

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.

MLB DFS Pick: Houston Astros – Kyle Tucker – OF – $4,100 / $3,700

The Astros are taking on right-handed starter Chris Bassitt. The pitcher was mostly average in 2020, he had a 4.49 xFIP to his 2.29 ERA, so some of what’s on the surface is likely the benefit of luck and defense. Bassitt allowed 6 home runs in his 63.0 innings, a 0.86 HR/9, though in 2019 he was at 1.31 over more than double the sample size. The right-hander’s strikeout percentage sits in the low 20s, this year he was at 21.1% and he was at 23.0% last season. Oddly, his 9.9% swinging strike rate was higher than his 2019 rate of 8.9%, though both are below average. In 2020, Bassitt faced 111 lefties and gave up four home runs, a 1.37 HR/9, while putting up a 21.6% strikeout rate and a 4.96 xFIP in the split. For his career, 24 of the 41 home runs that Bassitt has allowed have been to lefties, though he does strike out a higher percentage at 21.4% compared to just 18.9% of right-handed hitters.

Kyle Tucker hits from the left side of the plate and had an excellent season for the Astros. The outfielder is relatively inexpensive for the upside he provides and the place in the batting order, I’m curious to see where his ownership lands. In his 228 plate appearances in 2020, Tucker went .268/.325/.512 with nine home runs and a 20.2% strikeout rate. He cooled after an early start in the home run department, but he led the league in triples with six and added eight stolen bases for some additional scoring upside. Tucker hit .293/355/.550 with a .257 ISO and a WRC+ 43% above average against right-handed pitching in 2020, he’s a great buy priced as he is on all sites.

MLB DFS Pick: Oakland Athletics – Khris Davis – OF – $3,400/$2,800

Khris Davis did not have a good year. He did not have a good 2019 either. He finished last season at .220/.293/.387, missing time with a hand injury and struggling after coming back. The injury sapped the outfielder’s prodigious power, leaving him unable to properly grip the bat or swing through. Davis simply wasn’t able to put bat on ball in anything approaching the way he normally would. Davis came out of the gate struggling in 2020, and the A’s were quick to look elsewhere for production. He finished with just 99 plate appearances for the season, putting up a .200/.303/.329 slash with two home runs. Davis missed additional time this season and had some of his opportunity limited by the team, but we know there is upside.

In each of four seasons from 2015 through 2018, Davis hit at least 27 home runs, getting to that mark the first year and then hitting more than 40 in each of the next three seasons, cresting at 48 in 2018. In an all-time baseball anomaly, Davis managed to hit exactly .247 in each of those four seasons. The outfielder was a horse prior to his weird injury last season, he saw over 600 plate appearances each of the seasons in which he hit more than 40 home runs, playing in more than 150 games every year from 2016 to 2018.

Davis and the A’s will be facing Astros’ starter Lance McCullers. Against right-handed pitching for his career, Davis has a .242/.309/.493 slash with a .252 ISO and a WRC+ 16% above average. He strikes out 27.2% of the time and doesn’t draw enough walks at just 7.8%, but we know the power upside is massive. Davis has 161 career home runs in 2,452 plate appearances against same-handed pitching.

MLB DFS Pick: New York Yankees – Aaron Hicks – OF – $3,700/$3,100

Of all the hitters I wanted to write up on this team, Aaron Hicks was the least expensive. I think outfielder Clint Frazier makes a very interesting play, and if he’s lower owned, I’m happy to pay up to be contrarian there. Frazier would be a known MLB DFS commodity and a star player for the majority of organizations in baseball. In the Yankees’ loaded structure he’s nearly an afterthought.

Hicks missed most of 2019, putting up just a .235/.325/.443 slash in his 255 plate appearances, over which he managed 12 home runs. Coming back in 2020, the outfielder hit six home runs in 211 plate appearances and had a .225/.379/.414 slash with a .189 ISO and a WRC+ 24% above average. His ability to see pitches, work counts and get on base to set the table for teammates, even when he’s not hitting himself, helps buoy Hicks’ DFS upside.

The outfielder hits from both sides of the plate and put up a quality .245/.370/.422 slash with a .178 ISO and a WRC+ 23% above average while striking out just 13.0% of the time and walking 16.7% of the time against lefties in 2020. For his career, Hicks has a .248/.329/.425 slash with a .177 ISO and a WRC+ 5% above average against lefties, which is better across the board than his numbers against right-handed pitching. He’s struck out slightly more in the split and walked slightly less, but not to an overly concerning degree.

The lefty the Yankees are facing is high end, and that needs to be accounted for here. Blake Snell put up a 3.06 xFIP and a 3.24 ERA in his 50.0 innings in 2020. The southpaw struck out an impressive 31% of hitters, improving on his career mark of 28.3%, doing an excellent job inducing swinging strikes at a 15.0% rate. These factors and the overall pricing of his teammates might help limit the degree to which others are getting to Hicks in tournaments tomorrow. Keep an eye on his individual ownership marks throughout the day for use in stacks, two-man combinations and one-offs on a two-game slate where getting different is important.

MLB DFS Pick: Tampa Bay Rays – Yoshi Tsutsugo – 3B – $3,400/$2,700

The popularity of the Rays will be interesting to see in the top stacks tool and around MLB DFS tomorrow. The team is in a very tough spot against Yankees ace Gerrit Cole in a pitcher’s park in San Diego. Cole famously struggled with home runs in 2020, with a whopping 14 allowed in his 73 innings, a 1.73 HR/9, by far the highest of the pitcher’s career. While home runs are statistically wonky, there’s no denying the pitcher struggles, yielding at least one home run in 10 of his 12 starts. Part of the inflated total can be found in a late-August stretch of three games, where Cole gave up seven home runs in 12 days. One could look at the same stat column and say he only gave up more than one home run in three of 12 starts.

Regardless of the limited power upside he may be yielding, Cole has been spectacular. He has even seen increased upside since the Yankees partnered in with Kyle Higashioka at catcher, though that can easily be attributed to statistical noise as much as the Gary Sanchez haters may not want to admit it.

For the season, Cole struck out 32.6% of hitters, down from his ridiculous 39.9% in 2019. He walked exactly 5.9% both years, a very strong number. Even when he gives up those home runs, Cole tends to not have anyone on base, limiting the damage, which he quickly then repairs via the strikeout. In his first start of the playoffs, Cole threw seven innings, allowing a home run and two earned overall, but he struck out 13 and walked none, joining the late great Tom Seaver (1973 NLCS Game 1 — thanks to ESPN Stats & Info) as the only pitchers to perform the feat in the postseason.

Yoshi Tsutsugo will be a very specific choice on DraftKings tomorrow. I see most of his ownership coming in Rays stacks. He’s a difficult click at third base on a two-game slate when your other options are Alex Bregman, D.J. LeMahieu, Gio Urshela, Tommy La Stella. Even Jake Lamb and Joey Wendle — from his own team no less — could pull ownership from the lefty leadoff man. On FanDuel he’s an outfielder, and you have the Flex position available anyway, which would have eliminated the decision point at third base.

Tsutsugo was brought in from Japan in the offseason as one of the Rays’ main acquisitions. He saw 185 plate appearances and ended 2020 with a .197/.314/.395 slash but a .197 ISO and a WRC+ just 2% below average. In Japan, widely regarded as the second-best league in the world, Tsutsugo was a high-end power hitter.

In every season from 2014 through 2019, Tsutsugo hit at least 22 home runs, cresting at 44 in 2016 in just 561 plate appearances. In 557 opportunities in 2019, he hit 29 home runs, after putting up 38 in 580 chances in 2018. The point is, there is power to spare in the bat. In the majors in 2020, Tsutsugo hit six of his eight home runs against right-handed pitching with a .200 ISO. If he’s going under-owned on DraftKings, there’s about as much upside for a home run here as with anyone who will be in the Rays lineup.

HR Call: Aaron Judge (Yankees)

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Author

Terry McBride

Terry used to do other things, now he writes words on the internet. He hopes his more than 20 years’ experience in season-long and daily fantasy sports and his custom models for MLB, NBA, and NFL don't steer you too wrong when he writes columns and makes picks on Awesemo.com. A lifetime of experience keeping odd hours make Terry ideal to cover KBO baseball overnight until the world returns to normal. Most of those late night hours have been spent on the couch watching sports, T.V., and movies; just try to shut him up about any of the above. You can find his pop-culture ramblings and more on Sideaction.