Well the first real MLB DFS slate of the year is off to a fun start. I hope you got some of those chalky Red Sox stacks in your lineups because you’re probably going to need them, Boston is at 13 runs and counting so far tonight. The Sox got a big game out of J.D. Martinez and got some production from the bottom of the order with newcomers Jose Peraza and Kevin Pillar both popping at low ownership and Jackie Bradley Jr. getting it done as well. The White Sox and Twins are playing a high scoring game as well and Max Kepler has the season’s first two home run game and now later Max Muncy has added the second. With another huge slate tomorrow afternoon it’s a short-turnaround starting at 1:05pm EST on both sites. Be sure to check in tomorrow morning for all the latest.
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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
Arizona Diamondbacks:Â n/a
Atlanta Braves – Ronald Acuna Jr. – 13.46
Baltimore Orioles: Renato Nunez – 7.13
Boston Red Sox: Rafael Devers – 29.30
Chicago Cubs: Javier Baez – 18.25
Chicago White Sox:Â Edwin Encarnacion – 11.87
Cincinnati Reds:Â Eugenio Suarez – 10.94
Cleveland Indians:Â Francisco Lindor – 12.70
Colorado Rockies: Nolan Arenado – 10.45
Detroit Tigers: C.J. Cron – 7.55
Houston Astros:Â Alex Bregman – 13.60
Kansas City Royals:Â Jorge Soler – 5.27
Los Angeles Angels: Shohei Ohtani – 7.40
Los Angeles Dodgers: Joc Pederson – 10.20
Miami Marlins: Corey Dickerson – 5.03
Milwaukee Brewers: Keston Hiura – 10.15
Minnesota Twins: Josh Donaldson – 10.75
New York Mets: Peter Alonso – 10.58
New York Yankees: n/a
Oakland Athletics: Matt Chapman – 11.57
Philadelphia Phillies: Rhys Hoskins – 13.36
Pittsburgh Pirates: Josh Bell – 5.36
San Diego Padres: n/a
San Francisco Giants: Pablo Sandoval – 4.57
Seattle Mariners: Evan White – 6.88
St. Louis Cardinals:Â Paul Goldschmidt– 9.72
Tampa Bay Rays: Hunter Renfroe – 7.53
Texas Rangers:Â Joey Gallo – 9.67
Toronto Blue Jays: Randal Grichuk – 6.70
Washington Nationals: n/a
MLB DFS Picks: 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 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.
Baltimore Orioles (4.2) at Boston Red Sox (5.9) – Suggested Stack(s): Sox 3-4-5 + pick ’em
We liked the Red Sox and hit on the back-end of the order in this space last night and nothing changes for MLB DFS chalk tomorrow against Alex Cobb. Cobb hasn’t strung together what I would call a good season since 2014, his 2016 3.66 ERA is a bit exposed by his 4.16 FIP, which is still reasonable. Cobb’s issue is that he strikes no one out. The Sox will be popular again tomorrow but like we saw today there are ways to get there with built-in differentiation with stacks on the right day. The power bats at the top of the order are breaking my home run model right now. It’s unfair to use Cobb’s 2019 numbers where he gave up a hilarious 9 home runs in 12.0 innings pitched, but we can certainly attack his 1.26 HR/9 the two seasons prior. Steamer has him projected for a 1.68 this year to go with a 5.18 FIP. Hope that people don’t want to play Red Sox chalk two days in a row. Get some of the low-owned guys in with Rafael Devers, who is my home run pick from this team. Devers did everything better in his second full year and looks to have room for growth over his already ridiculous level. He smoked right-handed pitching for a .330/.388/.608 slash last year with 25 of his 32 home runs coming on the favorable side of his platoon split. The .608 slugging percentage was good for fifth in baseball among lefties against right handed pitching, while his WRC+ was 53% above league average for that scenario, good for sixth overall. Devers, Bogaerts and Moreland hitting 3-4-5 in the projected lineup looks like a good start to a stack here.
Milwaukee Brewers (4.1) @ Chicago Cubs (5.0) – Suggested Stack(s): Cubs 9-1-2-3-4
The Cubs are facing converted reliever Corbin Burnes who made four starts in the beginning of 2019 before being move back to his role in the pen where he’s objectively better. In his four 2019 starts he gave up 21 runs in just 17.2 and never made it out of the fifth. When he can give it everything for one inning, Burnes can be dominant, posting a career strikeout rate of 27..1% but there’s not much to like about his 5.09 career FIP or 1.47 WHIP. The top of this Cubs stack looks totally solid in the Wrigley day game and my home run model is catching a nice projection for the top five hitters in the projected lineup as well as Ian Happ, who hit one out today. Happ is a player I mentioned in the MLB DFS Cram Session as someone I had really liked coming into this season when it was a 162 game year, and my model is bearing it out still. When Happ worked his way to the majors he improved his strikeout rate significantly and showed an ability to drive the ball, posting a .300 ISO over his limited 156 plate appearances. The .261 he had over a more robust 413 PAs in 2017 tells us there’s something real there. If he’s at the bottom of the Cubs order I still like him as an option to differentiate, MLB DFS public won’t catch up to him that quickly. The well known Cubs are expensive on DraftKings but more reasonable on FanDuel. Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Schwarber could both go deep in this matchup, in his 49 innings combined in the pen and rotation last season Burnes allowed 17 home runs. The home runs are somewhat noisy statistically and he gave up basically an equal amount to lefties (8) and righties (9), but the .592 career slugging percentage allowed to lefties is something to go after.
Atlanta Braves (4.5) @ New York Mets (4.6) –Â Suggested Stack(s): Braves 4-5-6 w/ any of 1,2,3 or 7
The Braves get Mets left-hander Steven Matz tomorrow and so far they’re carrying just a middling implied team total of 4.5, but projections and my home run model are supporting more for MLB DFS players to like than Vegas might be suggesting here. The Braves are not expensive for their overall quality on FanDuel, they are more appropriately priced on DraftKings. I’ll be curious to see where ownership projections land on them in the morning, as of now I think I want to be over where I expect the field to be on the Braves. Ronald Acuna Jr. is going to be an MVP candidate for the next 12-15 years and is a legitimate threat to go 50 (HR) / 50 (SB) in our next full season. He’s going to be the most popular bat in this lineup but you should absolutely mash him in as much as possible where you’re stacking Braves. Acuna tuned up lefties last year with a .270 ISO and if he manages his patience at the plate better as he grows he’ll be lethal. Matz has struggled to be anything more than an average pitcher with any reliability since arriving in New York. In 2019 22 of the 27 home runs he yielded to were right-handed bats, a 1.54 HR/9 in the split. Matz is seventh worst in the league among qualified starters since he’s come into the league, with a 16.7% HR/FB ratio and he gave up more than 30% fly balls to the opposite hand last year. He typically sits around 93 mph on his fastball and generates a low amount of spin on most of his pitches. Matz gets away with a plus change-up and a quality curve, but he falls back on the weak fastball and leaves it up in the zone to right handed bats too often.
Marcel Ozuna, Adam Duvall, Dansby Swanson and Austin Riley are all right-handed power bats that I like in this spot, and they are hitting in a block in the back-end of this projected lineup. Ozzie Albies is far too cheap at $3,300 on FanDuel and should be in most of these stacks hitting second behind Acuna. Ozuna’s $3,100 price tag is laughably low for a hitter of his known quality. Ozuna had a down year last year with the Cardinals but suffered from a career low .257 batting average on balls in play (BABIP) and he still managed to hit 29 home runs and maintain a .231 ISO while improving his walk rate to a career best 11.3%. There is plenty to love about Ozuna at this price in this spot.
HR Call: Rafael Devers (Red Sox)
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