MLB DFS Picks: Stack Slants for DraftKings + FanDuel

Well scratch another game from the list and wipe out one of last night’s recommended options with the Cardinals and Brewers game getting wiped off our slate by additional positive Covid-19 tests. Losing that game also wipes out one of the slate’s name brand pitchers, so that’s a big one to drop. So far so good on everything else that I’m seeing on the board, so fingers crossed that will be our one big curveball for the day.

Although, as EMac and I discussed on the Early Bird podcast recently, we don’t want to always consider broken shaky looking slates as unplayable. In fact, a lot of the time we can utilize the tools provided by the site to cut through that noise while most of the public is suffering from worrying over it. We can’t do anything about post-lock cancellations, but we’re always here up to the minute with news, angles and projection updates to help you bridge the gap and turn crisis into opportunity.

We’re only going to see more of these moving pieces as the year (hopefully) moves along. News is king for DFS in 2020, you want to be checking out the Live Blog for the latest as we get toward lock. If you’re planning on getting a double-fix in with the return of NBA action, be sure to check out all our great hoops content. We have you covered.

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Our goal here is going to be a quick review of lineups in the afternoon — hopefully with some confirmed information — in the hopes of finding a different approach to some stacks or a high-quality, low-owned stack that we can exploit. We’re going to be focusing primarily on Awesemo’s Top Stacks Tool as a frequent reference point. While we may land on popular builds from time to time, we’re generally going to try to be different in this space, so bear that in mind when deploying ideas you find here.

Los Angeles Dodgers – DraftKings: 2-3-4-5-7 / FanDuel: 2-3-5-7 Betts – Bellinger – Turner – Seager – Pederson

To this point in the afternoon, the Dodgers are going under-owned on both sites. They rank in the top 10 stacks on our now 11-game slate, so there is plenty of quality here and we all know this lineup is full of stud bats. The matchup against young up and coming starter Luke Weaver isn’t the greatest spot I’ve ever seen but it’s certainly not one to push us so firmly off of a lineup of this quality. If the Dodgers continue to trend under what their ownership should be this will be a prime target for tonight.

MLB DFS regulars know most of the bats in this lineup but I’m not used to seeing them so unpopular. No one on this team is trending for more than 10% ownership as things stand. On DraftKings only Cody Bellinger is pulling even more than five percent. On FanDuel only Bellinger and Mookie Betts are above six percent. Do you see the trend? This is something to take advantage of, even against a pitcher of the quality we now expect from Weaver. The kid took a major step last year by dramatically increasing his strikeout rate while decreasing his walk rate and limiting the home run ball. These are things that should be repeatable and consistent for him but we can’t completely write off the 43 shakier starts he made from 2016 through 2018 either. This is a pitcher who has demonstrated growth but a lineup like this can get to anyone. The home runs in particular are an unpredictable stat, a few extra bombs on the ledger turns a quality starter into a middling one pretty fast.

If the big bats here aren’t going to be popular, I want to spend up and get both of Mookie Betts and Cody Bellinger in my lineup here. On DraftKings, I like the idea of continuing through Justin Turner and Corey Seager before picking up the big lefty bat of Joc Pederson in the seven spot. 54% of Pederson’s 123 career home runs have come at home against right-handed pitching, while a full 92.6% of them have come against righties in general. On FanDuel I think I’ll sacrifice Turner and the continuity to get to Joc’s bat, but in truth I’ll cover both options several times in lineup variations.

New York Mets – 2-6: Jeff McNeil – Peter Alonso – Michael Conforto – Yoenis Cespedes – Robinson Cano

I feel like we’ve hit on the Mets a few times in this space and I know we were on the Braves side of the big 11-10 ballgame yesterday, so hopefully we can pick this one off again. The Mets get rookie hurler Touki Toussaint who has not done very well in extremely limited major league innings so far. Touissaint is pitching for a job today, with the Braves creating a hole in their rotation after designating veteran starter Mike Foltynewicz for assignment earlier in the week. Touissaint relieved Folty in his ugly start and wasn’t exactly stellar himself. The rookie is still a prized prospect and one of the Braves seemingly never-ending string of high-quality young arms, but he might need more seasoning in the minors first. In a normal year we probably wouldn’t be seeing him in the Show. He’s also carrying a pitch limit of between 65 and 70 for today’s start, which means the Mets will see a large swath of the Braves questionable bullpen.

The Mets can throw a great lineup at the kid but there are strikeouts available here, so it will be interesting to see if they show some patience at the dish tonight and let the kid beat himself, or if they help him out with some free swinging. The Mets rank sixth on DraftKings and eighth on FanDuel, where they are owned around an appropriate amount, making them a quality but not advantageous play. The play on DraftKings is supported by an ownership deficit that I really like here.

On DraftKings, only Brandon Nimmo is projected for above 10% ownership on this team and MLB DFS players can mix and match the name brand bats at will. On FanDuel we’re dealing with a few players in the low teens in ownership, so we want to be a bit more deliberately different with these constructions. I like the idea of avoiding the popular Nimmo as a starting point and am happy to jump to Jeff McNeill as my starting point before building straight down this lineup. Instead of Nimmo in my outfield I’ll take veteran slugger Yoenis Cespedes here. Cespedes is still getting his timing back, as evidenced by his early 43.3% strikeout rate, but he can still put a move on the ball when he makes contact, as his 42.9% hard hit rate in the extremely small 2020 sample shows. Riding a line of McNeill, Peter Alonso, Michael Conforto and Cespedes looks like a good enough angle here to me, but we can work in another low-owned option like J.D. Davis or even Robinson Cano from the back-end of this lineup for additional differentiation. In that case I would likely skip the popular Conforto in this construction and look to Cano who helps fill our second base requirement cheap. The veteran lefty bat has diminished in recent years but he does most of his damage against right-handed pitching these days. In the split in 2019 he was actually slightly above league average, which was a surprise when I saw it.

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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.