MLB DFS Picks: HRs, Stacks, Ownership DraftKings + FanDuel: August 24

Well, that wasn’t the day too many people were hoping for from Carlos Carrasco. The Indians pitcher put up an ugly one at heavy ownership after being a point of contention coming in. I was on him too heavily, though I had a fair share of Yu Darvish as well. Ultimately too many of the middle-scoring stacks were in my lineups, and it was a wasted MLB DFS Sunday. For me, the new salary paradigm on FanDuel has been a lot to tangle with and has me continuing to dig into some lineup constructions while seriously considering taking on some Yahoo shares for a while. I’m very interested in how that site is doing their pricing right now.

Overall, we saw the Nationals go off in the early game on FanDuel, while the seven runs the Tigers hung on the Indians was second only to the Dodgers’ 11-run whopper over Colorado. A huge day from Mookie Betts was key to GPP success on both sites in the end, while excellent starts from Darvish, Anibal Sanchez and Trevor Cahill were some of the best bets for pitching. The day also saw a huge performance from Gregory Polanco, Jose Abreu hit his fifth home run of the weekend, and Teoscar Hernandez went off with a home run and two stolen bases. The seven-game Monday main slate looks interesting with a lot of quality pitching options and a lot of starters who limit the home run. I think power might be at a premium tomorrow.

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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: Kole Calhoun – 9.95

Atlanta Braves: n/a

Baltimore Orioles: n/a

Boston Red Sox: n/a

Chicago Cubs: Kyle Schwarber – 15.06

Chicago White Sox: n/a

Cincinnati Reds: Nicholas Castellanos – 6.22

Cleveland Indians: Jose Ramirez – 8.89

Colorado Rockies: Charlie Blackmon – 9.69

Detroit Tigers: Miguel Cabrera – 5.86

Houston Astros: Carlos Correa – 8.20

Kansas City Royals: Maikel Franco – 6.71

Los Angeles Angels: Mike Trout – 9.80

Los Angeles Dodgers: n/a

Miami Marlins: Jesus Sanchez – 6.34

Milwaukee Brewers: Christian Yelich – 10.81

Minnesota Twins: Nelson Cruz – 6.03

New York Mets: n/a

New York Yankees: n/a

Oakland Athletics: Matt Olson – 7.62

Philadelphia Phillies: n/a

Pittsburgh Pirates: n/a

San Diego Padres: n/a

San Francisco Giants: n/a

Seattle Mariners: n/a

St. Louis Cardinals: Tyler O’Neill – 4.73

Tampa Bay Rays: Ji-Man Choi – 7.91

Texas Rangers: Todd Frazier – 7.83

Toronto Blue Jays: Randal Grichuk – 9.46

Washington Nationals: Eric Thames – 6.34

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.

Los Angeles Angels at Houston Astros – Astros – 1-5 – Springer – Altuve – Correa – Tucker – Gurriel

Let’s see if we can beat EMac to the punch as predicted by Jason on tonight’s Early Bird pod. If this stack ends up doubled-up by what our Ol’ Pal writes up tonight, I’ll swing back around and get you a bonus take here tonight or in Stack Slants tomorrow. But you’ll have to give up those precious clicks to find out which one. The Astros look to be in an excellent spot against lefty Patrick Sandoval here, even without Alex Bregman in the lineup. So far on the year, Sandoval is in just the 19th percentile in exit velocity allowed, 3rd percentile hard hit rate allowed, 33rd percentile in xwOBA and just the 16th in strikeout rate. In his 59 innings, Sandoval has allowed 11 home runs, five to left-handed hitters. You don’t have to cheat to hit this guy.

With Bregman on the IL with a hamstring injury, we’ll likely see Carlos Correa hitting in the heart of the order in a terrific RBI spot where his bat should play well for us. Correa was at .302/.385/.448 with three home runs and a WRC+ 31% above average, though his ISO is actually down over the 109 plate appearances at just .146. Regardless, picking up some additional plate appearances should be good for the counting stats, and there’s nothing to worry about with the power here. Correa and leadoff hitter George Springer are two bats that I want in the lineup. For 2020 Springer is at just .208/.244/.403, but he still has four home runs, 15 RBIs and a WRC+ 11% above average. His .195 ISO is perfectly fine but is well below expectation. Steamer has him at .245 for the season coming into the year.

If Jose Altuve is back near the top of the lineup, I like to get to him as a part of Astros stacks. His bat has started to come around encouragingly over the last few days, and this is a hitter with over 1,500 hits in the first nine years of his career and four 200-hit seasons. The second baseman is still at just .221/.279/.345, but rumors of his MLB DFS demise are greatly exaggerated.

Kyle Tucker has two home runs against same-handed pitchers in 33 plate appearances so far this season in the split and carries a .237 ISO and WRC+ 37% above average against fellow southpaws. The young outfielder broke a slate as a low-owned option just the other day, and if he’s hitting in a meaty spot in this lineup tomorrow, he could do it again.

Yuli Gurriel is an underrated and often under-owned option at first base, though his $5,100 salary on DraftKings has something to do with that. On FanDuel I would expect more popularity at just $3,400. Michael Brantley is another lefty outfielder who could be hitting in a big RBI spot in this lineup. Brantley loses a fair amount of his quality overall in the split with just a .276/.334/.374 split, but his .181 ISO and WRC+ just 5% below average keep him at least somewhat in play against a bad lefty like this. The spot improves when we consider that we probably won’t see Sandoval for long when these Astros hit him. I’m confident rolling Brantley out there in Astros stacks tomorrow.

Martin Maldonado has been drawing some ownership when he’s in this lineup as a catcher play on DraftKings. He has a .227/.346/.394 slash with a .167 ISO and a WRC+ 11% above league average on the season, which makes him one of the better options at the position if you’re going back in time and playing those days over again. As a go-forward option he’s fine. Speaking of just fine, Abraham Toro doesn’t really do a lot for me hitting eighth in this lineup. He simply hasn’t shown enough in his limited opportunity at the MLB level. So far in 2020 he’s at just .140/.218/.280 with a .140 ISO and a WRC+ 60% below league average. Toro is a good prospect but hasn’t been making enough quality contact at this stage of his career.

Chicago Cubs at Detroit Tigers –

The Cubs will be without third base star Kris Bryant heading into Detroit, but the spot still looks very high end for MLB DFS with the team taking on rookie starter Casey Mize. Mize is an electric prospect, a former first overall draft pick and someone the Tigers have been looking forward to as he rocketed through their system. The rookie had a seven-strikeout debut against the White Sox and could end up doing that again tomorrow. Still, I have to like the chances of these Cubs bats getting to him, as well as the notion that we could see the bullpen earlier than usual. While I plan to own some Mize at a reasonable projection for his bargain-basement price, I like the Cubs side of this one more.

The Cubs have end-to-end quality in this lineup even without Bryant. The veteran’s absence creates additional opportunity for Ian Happ to see some extra plate appearances atop this lineup. Happ is a player I’ve mentioned in this space several times. So far in 2020 the outfielder is at .296/.418/.617 with six home runs, 13 runs and 15 RBIs. He even threw in a stolen base for good measure early on. That has him at a ridiculous .321 ISO and a WRC+ 74% above league average this season. Did I mention that he’s just $3,200 on FanDuel and a bonkers $3,900 on DraftKings? Ignore his brief half-season banishment to the minors in 2019; everything about this hitter is real. Happ has a career .238 ISO over his first 1,100 plate appearances despite the down year that saw him at just .176 in 2018. Since coming back for 156 plate appearances at the end of last season, Happ has been a mainstay in the lineup, and his ISO has been over .300 in what is now more than a 255-plate-appearance stretch.

Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and Kyle Schwarber are not exactly names I have to sell you as part of a Cubs stack. Of the three, Schwarber usually pulls the highest home run mark, and that’s true here, although the other two are well over 10.0 and I like their chances to go deep. At just $3,000 on FanDuel and $4,600 on DraftKings, Baez might be the best shortstop play on the board, particularly on a shorter slate. Schwarber also appears to be discounted with just a $2,700 tag on FanDuel and $4,100 on DraftKings. The trio of hitters have current-season numbers that will hopefully keep some of the box score watchers off of this stack. I’m very comfortable leaning into the known quality in this lineup against the rookie. Baez and Schwarber both have demonstrable success against Mize’s specialty pitch, the splitter, as well. This will be an interesting challenge for the rookie.

Catcher Willson Contreras is someone I’m happy to get to as a DraftKings catcher option anytime this stack is looking good. He makes a fine catcher/corner option on FanDuel as well, so we can mix and match some lineups with both Rizzo and Contreras in them over on the blue site to get a little bit different. Contreras is right there with most of the hitters mentioned in the previous stack. In 2019 the catcher hit 24 home runs in his 409 plate appearances, while putting up a .272/.355/.533 slash with a .261 ISO and WRC+ 27% above average, both of which led the National League at the position.

Jason Heyward and Jason Kipnis are two good lefty options from later in this lineup that should be able to help us differentiate if the Cubs end up popular. Keep an eye on the stacks tool to monitor that through the day, I’m curious where their team ownership and the numbers on Mize will come down. The bats here are both inexpensive on both sites. Heyward makes a good end-cap to a mid-lineup stack as an option in the outfield. In his 75 plate appearances coming into Sunday, the veteran was at .254/.360/.413 with two home runs and 12 RBIs. Kipnis is having a good start at second base in his first season with the Cubs. The projected nine-hitter makes a good wraparound option and is at .286/.426/.571 with a .286 ISO and WC+ 66% above average in his limited sample of 54 plate appearances in 2020. If the on-base trend continues Kipnis is an excellent alternate table-setter for the top of this lineup and a great option to pair with Happ up top. The 33-year old’s .334 lifetime on-base percentage is probably more around what we should expect over time, but I like the option even in same-handed matchups.

HR Call: Kyle Schwarber (Cubs)

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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.