There is early action in MLB DFS land today with a 4:05 p.m. EST lock on both main slates, so we have to get into things quick today. FanDuel is leaving the Padres-Dodgers game off of their slate and just focusing on the games between 4:05 and 7:15, while DraftKings is offering all five night games together. It seems like FanDuel forgot they have late swap now when making that decision.
We touched on the Reds and Rays as our two chalky options last night in Quick Hits, and it looks like they’re ranked in the top three stacks on both sites but also drawing all the expected popularity. With a short slate it is important to get difficult, so we’re going to try to find those unique angles into lower-owned quality from among the remaining teams.
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MLB DFS Stack Slants
Pittsburgh Pirates – 2-6 – Newman – Bell – Moran – Reynolds – Polanco
The Pirates are in a high-quality spot despite being one of the lower-end teams on the board today. On DraftKings, the extra game has them drawing slightly less than the ownership that they’re due, while the shorter FanDuel slate has them closer to ownership that is level with their probability of being the top stack. On a short slate this puts them firmly in play.
Anthony DeSclafani is a reasonable league-average pitcher, but he has been vulnerable to the home runs throughout his career, yielding a 1.57 HR/9 in 2019 and an ugly 1.88 in 2018. The career mark to left-handed hitters is 1.66. The pitcher is far stronger against same-handed hitting, so we want to focus mostly on some of the guys on the correct side of their platoon split here. However, you never want to entirely rule out hitters based exclusively on one factor like handedness. Digging deeper can be revelatory about how a hitter handles the matchup, and you should also factor in relief pitching to a degree. If the stack is truly pounding a starting pitcher, you’re likely to hit that bullpen and render any hand-based planning you’ve done fairly moot.
The Pirates offer a lineup with several good left-handed bats and several key hitters that can bring it from both sides of the plate, so this is a great team to build with in this matchup. We’re going to start off, naturally, with a right-handed hitter: Shortstop Kevin Newman. Newman is hitting second in this lineup and is a dynamic option who can get things done with both his legs and his bat. In his first full season in 2019, Newman posted a .308/.353/.446 slash with 12 home runs, 16 stolen bases and a WRC+ 10% above league average. For a shortstop at the top of a quality stack and only costing $2,600 on FanDuel and $4,300 on DraftKings, those are excellent numbers.
Josh Bell is no big secret. He’s the best hitter on this team by far and should be in the running for MVP awards in the future. Bell swings a big bat from both sides of the plate, but he gets more of his power as a lefty against a righty. Bell has a career .219 ISO and a WRC+ 24% above league average in the split. He’s also my home run call for the day. Third baseman Colin Moran is just $3,600 on DraftKings and $3,200 on FanDuel, making him a significant bargain on both sites hitting cleanup in this lineup. Moran gets almost all of his quality on this side of splits, with 26 of his 30 career home runs coming against right-handed pitching.
Bryan Reynolds and Gregory Polanco offer two relatively big bats on the left side of the plate from later in this lineup. There won’t be many spots for DeSclafani to hide today. Reynolds hit 16 home runs in his 546 rookie plate appearances in 2019, with 11 of them coming against right-handed pitching, and his WRC+ was 32% above league average in the split. Polanco also gets most of his pop against right-handed pitching, with more home runs and a significantly higher ISO in the split. Polanco is another hitter who can get things done for MLB DFS scoring with his legs as well. While he’s not exactly a speedster, the outfielder can be relied upon for 10-15 steals per season for most of his career and has posted outlier seasons up to 27.
The bottom of this lineup falls off a bit. Catcher Jacob Stallings doesn’t make for much of a wraparound option, but we might be able to get away with Jarrod Dyson in that capacity if necessary. I think the standard build will be enough here however.
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Boston Red Sox – 1-5 – Verdugo – Devers – Martinez – Bogaerts – Moreland
The Red Sox are in a tough spot against Tyler Glasnow here, and they rank down the board a bit in the Top Stacks tool. We’re here for the tough dice roll plays, though, and we know the Sox offer a ton of high-end options any given night. As a low-ranked team, they’re definitely risky but they offer an ownership advantage as compared to the public and their probability of success isn’t terribly different than that of the Pirates or other teams ranked above them. The goal here is to get a game where the Sox hang a few on Glasnow and chase him early, which is not wildly impossible. The big righty lasted just 2.2 innings in his last outing against the Yankees as one recent example.
Incidentally, I also like the notion of attacking Yu Darvish‘s ownership with the similarly low-ranked Brewers bats and was considering that play for this spot, but they’ll be more popular than the Red Sox with a worse chance of success. That lineup would be targeting the massive ownership projection that Darvish is pulling, hoping to pick off nearly half the field if the stack connects against the widely owned pitcher.
In this spot we’re looking more for some lower-owned bats that we can use as a mini-stack to help differentiate things a bit. Lefty outfielder Alex Verdugo has been quietly proving his worth to the Red Sox early in 2020, which is good for him as one of the primary pieces coming back in the Mookie Betts trade. The youngster has a .259/.322/.426 slash with three home runs to start the year. He needs to grow into the role atop the lineup and show additional patience at the plate if he’s going to serve as a table-setter for the big bats behind him, but he makes a quality MLB DFS option for our purposes at just $2,600 on FanDuel and $3,400 on DraftKings.
The $3,400 price tag on Rafael Devers is borderline insulting on FanDuel, on DraftKings the superstar third baseman costs a more appropriate $5,300, which could help suppress his ownership. J.D. Martinez finally got into a couple home run balls and is a threat to take anyone in the league deep. Through his career, Martinez hasn’t lost much against same-handed pitching, so the platoon is a non-factor here. Xander Bogaerts is one of the top offensive shortstops in baseball and should rarely be left out of Red Sox stacks. If you’re doing it, it should only be for differentiation purposes. This is a killer bat who has produced improved seasons one after another, with the exception of his clunky 2017. Last year Bogaerts was at his best yet, hitting 33 home runs and posting a .309/.384/.555 line with a .246 ISO and WRC+ 41% above league average. I’m not leaving that bat on the bench.
You and I both knew this last paragraph was going to be about the late-lineup lefties. Mitch Moreland and Jackie Bradley Jr. typically both offer quality on this side of the platoon from late in the lineup. Moreland is a well-known platoon specialist, and he is drawing essentially no ownership on either site despite probably hitting around fifth in this lineup. Moreland gets all of his pop against right-handed pitching and is primarily a fastball hitter, a pitch Glasnow has relied on 67% of the time over the past two seasons. This looks like a dynamite spot for a low-owned Moreland play. Bradley offers less quality but a similar concept in his ability to elevate and drive against the opposite hand, but we might not need to get as unique as that with the lower ownership projection on Moreland. Mixing and matching this one depends more on what you’re doing with your other stack and pitching. There are plenty of low-owned options if you need them.
