MLB DFS Picks: Stack Slants for DraftKings + FanDuel

With the two sites taking a different approach to tonight’s MLB DFS action in terms of which games are being offered where and how players are being priced, today looks like the day with the biggest site-to-site differences so far this year. To deal with that, I’m including a stack choice that is a FanDuel exclusive, one that plays to ownership only on DraftKings and then one that plays well on both sites.

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Stack Slants

FanDuel – Toronto Blue Jays – 1-2-4-5 – Biggio – Grichuk – Hernandez – Guerrero

The young Blue Jays are as close to home as they’ll be this year, playing another series in Buffalo. With the Red Sox in town and throwing up a Colten Brewer and Darwinzon Hernandez game, this team looks like a good source for bats on FanDuel’s slate, which starts early to accommodate the 6:30 games. The Blue Jays rank fifth in the stack tool but are only drawing 25% of the MLB DFS ownership they should be at this point. The pair of pitchers are vulnerable, though both have performed adequately so far in 2020.

The Blue Jays have a dynamic lineup with Cavan Biggio leading off ahead of some veteran power in Randal Grichuk and Travis Shaw. Biggio is the most expensive bat on the team at $3,900, and he’s earned it so far in 2020 with a .268/.393/.515 slash, six home runs, 20 runs, 15 RBIs, four stolen bases, a .247 ISO and a WRC+ 50% above average. Confidently click on Cavan to start out your stacks.

Grichuk and Shaw provide a lot of pop early in this lineup from opposite sides of the plate. With a bullpen game going, each might have the opportunity to hit on the better side of their splits at some point, but Shaw is the more likely of the pair to be at an advantage through the game. Shaw has a questionable tag at this point in the day as well, so monitor his lineup status going into lock. For his career, Shaw has a .219 ISO and 85 of his 102 career homers against right-handed pitching. Grichuk demonstrates equal quality from both sides of the plate, and I’m not worried about getting him in against a right-handed opener in the slightest. The slugger already has six home runs on the season and is pulling one of the Blue Jays’ better marks in my home run model for today.

Teoscar Hernandez, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. make an excellent trio in the middle of this order with their collective ability to drive the ball. The trio all came into 2020 with ISO projections well over .200 from Steamer and are mostly delivering. Of the three, Hernandez is having the biggest season so far, sitting at .296/.340/.653 with 10 home runs, a .357 ISO and a WRC+ 62% above average. Guerrero is still a work in progress at the MLB level after arriving with insurmountable expectations. He’s currently sitting .245/.321/.429 with four homers on the season, while Gurriel is somewhere in between with just three home runs but a better slash. In any combination, I like working some of these three into the lineup.

Rowdy Tellez offers light-tower power on this side of his splits. For his career, Tellez has 23 of his 29 home runs against right-handed pitchers. Lefty second baseman Joe Panik does not have that type of pop but offers some reasonable quality with the hit tool as a very cheap, low-owned late lineup differentiator for us here. Neither is a big target for me in Blue Jays stacks, however. The same is true for catcher Danny Jansen, who is mostly unnecessary other than for making one or two of your Toronto stacks unique in a different way.

DraftKings – Los Angeles Dodgers – Dealer’s Choice

The Dodgers are going way under-owned on DraftKings again today, mostly due to their pricing. The stack looks good on FanDuel as well, but the MLB DFS ownership advantage only plays on DraftKings. We just covered this team yesterday, so I’m not giving you the double dip. With Kevin Gausman on the hill, the spot is not quite as strong as against gas can Johnny Cueto, but if you want the full look, most of yesterday’s takes still stand.

Both – Cincinnati Reds – 1-5 – Votto – Castellanos – Winker – Suarez – Moustakas

or

2-3-4-5-7 – Castellanos – Winker – Suarez – Moustakas – Galvis

The Reds are another team that has popped up for us a few times recently. They look like a great option that few people are going to on both of the sites tonight. The matchup against Adrian Houser might be keeping the public off of this team to a degree, but I’m not sure he warrants that much respect. Houser’s biggest asset is his ability to keep the ball on the ground. So far this season he’s at 66% grounders and typically sits in the mid-50s, which is an excellent mark. He hasn’t been great at generating swings and misses or getting the strikeout this season, however, so if he’s not getting those ground balls, he’s vulnerable here.

The Reds bring plenty of quality through the top half of the lineup. Veteran Joey Votto is projected to lead off again for this team. His excellent career on-base skills will help set the table well for the rest of this lineup, and Votto is able to generate points of his own with the occasional home run. Nicholas Castellanos has been crushing 2020 so far with nine home runs and 20 RBIs with a .368 ISO and a WRC+ 44% above average. The pair make a great way to start off Reds stacks.

Jesse Winker‘s big bat is projected to hit third ahead of Eugenio Suarez, and both have tremendous ability to hit the ball out of the yard or drive it with power. Winker has been out ahead of Suarez so far this season with a .314/.448/.629 slash, six home runs and a WRC+ 86% above average. At $2,900 on FanDuel he’s far too cheap, while his $4,100 on DraftKings remains affordable. Suarez hit 49 home runs in 2019 and is at an extreme bargain at $3,200 on FanDuel.

Mike Moustakas is worth the $5,100 price tag at either second or third base on DraftKings and is just obvious at $2,900 on FanDuel. Moustakas missed a number of games earlier in the year, so he has only 42 plate appearances and his numbers have yet to come around. We know the quality of the player, however. This is the same hitter who mashed 35 homers in his 584 plate appearances in 2019. There’s no such thing as a revenge narrative in baseball, but we can just roll with Moustakas because he’s a great power hitter in a great spot.

The Reds bring a back end that pops up here and there with Shogo Akiyama, Freddy Galvis and Tucker Barnhart. Any of the trio works as a mix-and-match option to help differentiate things, but the Reds are going so low-owned that we may not need to get that creative just to get unique. Barnhart is reasonable DraftKings catcher play if you’re building Reds stacks. He wouldn’t be my target guy but for a few shares I don’t mind him here despite the bumpy numbers so far in 2020. He hit 11 home runs in 364 plate appearances in 2019 and that’s good enough for our MLB DFS purposes at light exposure. Galvis is a player we never focus on, but he had a surprisingly effective 2019 season with a .260 average, 23 home runs, 70 RBIs and a .178 ISO, which isn’t awful for a disregarded shortstop. We can’t rely on him to get on base at all, but down lineup we need him more for clearing bases than filling them. As an offbeat selection I think we can make that work.

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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.