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

The home run stretch isn’t worth bragging about for at least a few days after Jorge Soler came up short and left us at 5-for-7 for the first week in home run picks. On an action-packed slate of MLB DFS, the key to the day looks like Brandon Woodruff in a number of GPPs. The Brewers’ starter put up a gigantic 59-point start in his 6.1-inning, 10-strikeout appearance. No other player on tonight’s slate was within 17 points on FanDuel, making the 3.8%-owned pitcher by far the play of the night.

It looked like we had some high-quality finishers in the big GPPs on both sites, so hopefully those winning screenshots keep coming in. Tonight was a mixed bag of results for me. I missed the home run call and, overall, wasn’t exactly where we needed to be. One of those nights that feels more like things just didn’t wok out than pointing to any specific leak or flaw or mistake, which is something that’s important to consider in DFS.

A lot of this is about process and repeatable technique. The ability to remove the noise and any personal bias from the process and just filter things down to a matrix of probable outcomes is key. It’s important to forget about the day-to-day noise and make sure you’re just focusing on repeating the steps that demonstrably lead to success, which is what Awesemo’s tools are here for in the first place. Trust the tools and the data that you know are sound, repeat the process, and the math will take care of itself.

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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: Christian Walker – 6.25

Atlanta Braves: Ronald Acuna Jr. – 8.10

Baltimore Orioles: Austin Hays – 12.94

Boston Red Sox: J.D. Martinez – 12.78

Chicago Cubs: n/a

Chicago White Sox: n/a

Cincinnati Reds: n/a

Cleveland Indians: Franmil Reyes – 8.99

Colorado Rockies: n/a

Detroit Tigers: C.J. Cron – 11.62

Houston Astros: Alex Bregman – 8.67

Kansas City Royals: Jorge Soler – 14.91

Los Angeles Angels: Anthony Rendon – 5.67

Los Angeles Dodgers: Max Muncy – 11.36

Miami Marlins: n/a

Milwaukee Brewers: n/a

Minnesota Twins: Nelson Cruz 10.98

New York Mets: Pete Alonso – 11.06

New York Yankees: Gary Sanchez – 10.24

Oakland Athletics: n/a

Philadelphia Phillies: n/a

Pittsburgh Pirates: n/a

San Diego Padres: Manny Machado – 24.01

San Francisco Giants: Pablo Sandoval – 7.85

Seattle Mariners: Kyle Seager – 8.57

St. Louis Cardinals: n/a

Tampa Bay Rays: Hunter Renfroe – 8.36

Texas Rangers: n/a

Toronto Blue Jays: n/a

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.

San Diego Padres (4.9) at San Francisco Giants (3.7) – Suggested Stack: Padres 1-3-4-6-7

The Padres look like they’re in a quality baseball spot here against Giants starter Kevin Gausman despite the right-handed starter’s propensity for showing slightly more quality in advanced numbers than might be expected. The team projections that I’m getting suggest that this will be a lineup that’s in play tomorrow despite the pitcher’s park. Keep an eye on Eric Hosmer coming out of the gate on constructions with the Padres. He was scratched again on Wednesday after initially being announced as a starter.

Wil Myers strikes out way too frequently, but he does everything else that MLB DFS owners want from a hitter really well, including driving the ball for power and stealing bases. Over each of the last three seasons in which he has received at least 490 plate appearances, Myers has delivered more than 18 home runs and 16 stolen bases for the year. Although, both of those marks were low points set in 2019. The ability to correlate a mid-to-late-lineup Myers with Tommy Pham and the stars atop this lineup like Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado make this an appealing option again. With tomorrow’s limited slate, I’m curious to see where the ownership comes down and how things are ranked in the top stacks tool.

The suggested stack here includes: Tatis Jr., Machado, Pham, Jurickson Profar and Myers.

Los Angeles Angels (5.3) at Seattle Mariners (3.8) – Suggested Stack: Angels 1-5

I think this is a spot to take out some shares of those right-handed Angels bats. Marco Gonzales is a former mid-range prospect who is holding down a higher role in the Seattle rotation than he probably deserves, and the Angels has the opportunity to feast here. Gonzales simply doesn’t strike out enough hitters and is likely to allow a ton of opportunity for Angels bats to cash in.

I expect this to be a mid-range play again with ownership and probability of success drawing similar in the top stacks tool. Mike Trout is an incredibly obvious bat, and the only decision about rostering him is whether you should skip doing so for the sake of being unique. He’s a generational ballplayer and belongs in any Angels stack.

Anthony Rendon is back in this lineup and can mash against either hand. This is a slugger to =plug and play in Angels stacks. Rendon hit a career-high 34 home runs and drove in 117 for the Nationals in 2019 and is a cornerstone of any opportunity the Angels generate. Pairing him with Trout is obviously going to be the first move of anyone looking to this stack. Adding Shohei Ohtani to the mix is great for your raw projections but not for the overall exposure totals. You should include him, but then we need to also look at weaker bats like Tommy La Stella and David Fletcher, which is where this stack begins to fall apart.

The suggested stack here is the obvious and chalky approach to this lineup.

New York Yankees at Baltimore Orioles: Suggested Stack – Orioles – 1-2-4-6-7

Overall this feels like one that’s more appropriate for tomorrow’s Stack Slants column where we try to get a bit weird about things, but this spot just works in my model for both home runs and general projections. J.A. Happ hasn’t been good in his seasons since coming to the Yankees, and there’s no reason to roster him as a pitcher in MLB DFS.

As a target, on the other hand, he works quite well. Home runs are a noisy statistic for pitchers, but Happ gave up a career-high 1.90 HR/9 in 2019 while striking out just 20.9% of hitters and walking over 7%. This is not a good pitcher and is someone who at worst will generate opportunities for an opposing offense.

The Orioles, unfortunately, are not a good offense — or even an average offense, really, recent small-sample results be damned. This is a spot to get to in limited deployments, but there could be several sneaky home runs hiding in the Orioles lineup tomorrow. If they get at all popular I would look elsewhere. But for now I like leadoff slugger Austin Hays and he’s my home run pick overall for the day in a great matchup.

Anthony Santander and Renato Nunez are both drawing better-than-average chances to hit a home run and are taking on quality projections here as well, making them key ingredients in this stack. I like going with Hays, Santander and Rio Ruiz, but if you want to stretch it to a five-man, you can add either or both of Nunez or Dwight Smith Jr. here.

HR Call: Austin Hays (Orioles)

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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.