Tonight’s big Main Slate has some great looking spots in store for MLB DFS players. It will be interesting to see where scores land with several massive days in the books this week. FanDuel in particular seems to be priced to the point where anything is possible and lineup combinations are exploding to the top of GPP standings with huge totals approaching and cracking the 300-point mark.
With some pricey pitching on the slate it will be interesting to see how things come together. It looks like some of the more expensive stack options are suppressed in ownership because of the price discrepancy, so there could be a lot of edge in finding a lower cost starter and paying up to be different with bats. That’s what we’re looking at with both options today.
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MLB DFS Stack Slants
New York Yankees – 1-5 – DJ LeMahieu – Aaron Judge – Aaron Hicks – Luke Voit – Gleyber Torres
The Yankees are ranked among the top five teams on the stacks tool but they’re going dramatically under-owned in early projections. The loaded team is taking on the hated Boston Red Sox at home in the Bronx and the Sox are starting with an opener and tossing a bullpen game in the first contest of the series. Colton Brewer is the slated opener and things are a bit unpredictable behind him. The Yankees could jump all over Brewer early though, he walks too many hitters and strikes out too few through his brief major league experience and wasn’t exactly a standout in the minors.
The Yankees have names in this lineup that are familiar to most MLB DFS players most nights and we’ve hit them here a few times already this season. Guys like DJ LeMahieu and Aaron Judge are obvious plug-and-play options up top and should be in the majority of Yankees stacks, particularly when they are low-owned. Tonight they appear to be almost completely ignored.
The most popular hitters on the board are currently Mike Ford and Gleyber Torres. Ford is a quality platoon player who can provide some lefty pop for the Yankees and is getting at bats while Giancarlo Stanton is on the injured list. Torres is a slumping star who is far too cheap at $2,700 on FanDuel as we’ve talked about a few times. Both of these bats are coming in above 10% on FanDuel but they’re below five percent on DraftKings like the rest of the Yankees lineup.
Gary Sanchez is another big Yankees bat that is slumping massively but offers a ton of upside for not that much MLB DFS salary. The catcher is a great option at the position and the power in his bat is very real. The problem currently is contact, Sanchez is simply striking out far too often, pushing nearly 47%, which is an absolutely ridiculous rate. This is what old scouts would call “pressing” or being “in his own way.” Which could be true but can’t be quantified in a useful way for us. What we can look at is that when he’s managed to make contact the catcher is in the 86th percentile in MLB in exit velocity and the 69th percentile in hard hit rate. When he makes contact the ball still travels. At $2,800 on FanDuel he’s a bargain, $4,800 at a mandatory catching spot on DraftKings puts him in play, though I can’t call it a discount.
Brett Gardner makes a quality wraparound play from the bottom of this lineup as well. The aging outfielder hit a career high in home runs last season and can still swipe a base here and there. As a left-handed bat that will be almost entirely ignored he is a good way to differentiate things if this lineup gets more popular as we get closer to lock. Bats like Gio Urshela and Luke Voit should be mixed and matched into stacks as well here.
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New York Mets – 1-3-4-5-6 – Brandon Nimmo – Pete Alonso – Michael Conforto – Dominic Smith – Wilson Ramos
Doubling up on the Big Apple today, call me a homer if you will. The Mets rank near the top of the MLB DFS stacks tool today on both sites, they’re drawing roughly appropriate ownership on DraftKings but they’re firmly in play. On FanDuel they’re going at about half of what they should, and they make a strong option for an angle into this slate. Taking on rookie Spencer Howard in his second start (an earlier version misstated that this was Howard’s debut), the Mets look like they’re in one of the best spots on the slate and are pulling down one of the highest non-Coors implied team totals. Howard is a fastball-slider-change pitcher who yields a large volume of flyballs, which should play directly into the Mets’ strengths here. In his first start of the season, Howard yielded 2 home runs and 4 earned in just 4.2 innings against the Braves.
Losing Jeff McNeill is a blow to this team, the dynamic hitter left the last game with a bone contusion after crashing into the wall and is not going to be in the lineup. Still, the Mets offer plenty of quality toward the top of the batting order. Brandon Nimmo isn’t my favorite bat, but he’s a mainstay at leadoff for this team and is doing a solid job so far this season. For his career on this side of the platoon Nimmo is carrying an impressive .258/.402/.454 slash with a WRC+ 38% above league average. Getting on base at that type of a clip is worth its weight in gold at the top of a lineup and Nimmo does a great job setting the table for the bats behind him.
Those bats include Pete Alonso and so should your Mets lineups. Most of them anyway. The big slugger is projected for only around 10% ownership on both sites, making him playable as both a part of this stack and a high-end one-off in certain constructions. Through his first 782 career plate appearances Alonso is carrying a .257/.358/.563 slash with 56 home runs an absurd .305 ISO and WRC+ 40% above league average.
Michael Conforto is a big obvious lefty bat in the middle of this lineup and he should absolutely be included in Mets stacks. The other big lefty is less popular and could be a nice sneaky option here. Dominic Smith is finally getting a full-time shot in MLB and has been responding so far in 2020 with a .262/.353/.667 slash and four home runs to this point. Smith is projecting for under one percent ownership on FanDuel and about five percent on DraftKings. Catcher Wilson Ramos is another strong option to differentiate this lineup on FanDuel at just 2% ownership, and he still adds a ton of quality at a mandatory position on DraftKings despite the 15% ownerhsip tag. Ramos has been one of baseball’s best hitting catchers for several years and carries a catcher-strong career slash of .274/.322/.433.
