MLB DFS Picks: Stack Slants for DraftKings + FanDuel

It’s trade season in MLB, and we’re seeing some fireworks a couple hours ahead of the deadline. Mike Clevinger was dealt to the Padres earlier this morning, and Mike Minor just changed teams in the AL West, going from the Rangers to the A’s. We saw a handful of trades come down both before and after lock yesterday. With the deadline set for 4 p.m. today we should know everything by the time lock gets here, but it will be an important day to be on top of the news for MLB DFS regardless.

We have some interesting spots on the board today, the series that wouldn’t end just rolls on at Coors, I can’t be the only one who feels like the Padres have been there for two weeks now. The public is either suffering from Coors fatigue or the pricing is just crushing them, because the Padres are going pretty significantly under-owned on the early board, and the Rockies are right there with them.

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Stack Slants

San Diego Padres – 9-2-3-4-5 – Profar – Tatis – Machado – Hosmer – Moreland

The top team on the board is drawing slightly more than half the ownership they should be getting in their matchup with German Marquez on getaway day at Coors Field. Marquez is the Rockies’ best pitcher and the owner of a 3.37 xFIP for his career in home starts. This is an excellent mark for games at Coors, but the pitcher is by no means invulnerable in the offensive paradise.

The Padres bring a ton of power and quality to this game. The team just added Mitch Moreland, Austin Nola and Jason Castro to their already rich lineup, along with adding Clevinger to the pitching staff. There hasn’t been an update so far, so keep an eye whether Moreland and Castro make it into the lineup tonight. Moreland would be particularly interesting, given his propensity for power in the split.

The Padres already had a stellar lineup up top with superstar duo Fernando Tatis Jr. and Manny Machado. The pair has a combined 24 home runs and 60 RBIs so far on the season. They are both expensive, even on FanDuel, where Tatis is at $4,800 and Machado $4,200. On DraftKings the pair costs $6,100 and $5,700. If you can make it work, it’s always a good idea to have both of these players in your Padres stacks.

Trent Grisham is a lefty platoon specialist of a hitter so far in his career. Over his 160 plate appearances in 2020, the outfielder is carrying a .252/.346/.496 slash with a .245 ISO and a WRC+ 28% above average. 12 of Grishams’s 14 home runs over his 343 plate appearances have come against right-handed pitchers. Grisham does a good enough job setting the table for this hitters behind him here and has the pop to create some fantasy points on his own. The four stolen bases are gravy for MLB DFS purposes.

Eric Hosmer and Moreland will be in middle spots in this lineup. If Moreland is able to make it to Denver for game time, and either of the pair of lefty bats would make a good addition to the stack. Hosmer has been giving the Padres a quality season so far this year, sitting at .290/.340/.570 with a .280 ISO and a WRC+ 43% above average and has hit seven home runs already this season. The now 30-year-old never reached the lofty heights once projected for him, but he’s been a solid hitter for his entire career and tends to go under-owned in the DFS world. We can capitalize on that lack of respect in this spot, Hosmer is trending for under 5% ownership on both sites.

There’s a bit of guesswork going on with the lineup the rest of the way, but we can be certain that Wil Myers and Jurickson Profar will be included. Myers has a big right-handed bat and has been producing so far this season. His .294/.368/.588 represents a career high in every piece of the slash. The eight home runs are a good indicator that the hitter has not sacrificed power for hit tool here either, so this is someone we can confidently mash into Padres stacks. At just $3,500 on FanDuel and $4,500 on DraftKings, he offers good quality for the spend. Profar should be hitting toward the bottom of the lineup and makes a quality wraparound option with his speed and ability to drive the ball when he makes contact. Making contact is the key — for the season he’s carrying just a .206 average and a .305 on-base percentage. The toolsy player is a second baseman on FanDuel and an outfielder on DraftKings. I like deploying him in the infield on the blue site as the better spot for him.

The catcher spot should be occupied by either Castro or Nola. I like to imagine them in some sort of Amazing Race style sprint for Denver, first man to Coors gets the start. The projected lineup has switched them several times already this morning, but either is a workable option on the catcher mandatory site. Castro has been scuffling for most of the year with the Angels, but he has six seasons out of nine in which he hit more than 10 home runs. Nola hit 10 in his 267 plate appearances as a rookie in 2019, though he hasn’t shown a tremendous amount of power through his minor league career and he was a 29-year-old rookie for a reason. Temper expectations with either.

Chicago White Sox – 7-9-1-2-3 – Robert – Madrigal – Anderson – Jimenez – Grandal

The White Sox are another stellar offense that is going under-owned on both sites. On DraftKings they’re drawing about a third of what they’re supposed to be getting, while they’re about half as owned as they should be so far. Rich Hill is taking this start for the Twins in what is a fairly big game in the AL Central race. It would be more important if this weren’t a year in which the whole league makes the playoffs, but it should still be fun. Hill has gotten by with some smoke and mirrors so far this year. He’s down to just two primary pitches and allowed a 1.84 HR/9 to right-handed hitters in 2019. So far this year he’s in the seventh percentile in xwOBA and 12th percentile in strikeout rate. This is a highly targetable pitcher, and the White Sox are one of our favorite go-to offenses in MLB DFS.

We’ve covered this team plenty of times this year. You guys probably could recite a lot of the strong points they offer before I even write them, but we have to talk about them when no hitter on this team is going to be owned above 5% on DraftKings. If I were talking to you instead of writing, I would actually repeat that it seems so important.

From top to bottom the lineup is just stacked. They got another of their high-end prospects back in the lineup the other day when Nick Madrigal returned from injury. The second baseman adds his high-end hit tool to the bottom of this lineup and makes an excellent wraparound option for this team. He’s only at $2,900 on DraftKings and $2,200 on FanDuel and is drawing the highest ownership on the team at a whopping 4.5% on DraftKings. On FanDuel, where savings don’t matter, he’s less popular than many of his teammates.

Yasmani Grandal and Edwin Encarnacion are the two hitters more popular than Madrigal on FanDuel. Both are coming at a big discount but they are still playing at under 12% popularity on the blue site and make great building blocks for this stack. At under 4% ownership on DraftKings, they look like an incredible investment despite the $4,800 tag on Grandal. The $3,800 on Encarnacion is reflective of his current-year performance, not who this hitter really is. The .181/.261/.446 slash will hopefully keep some of the public away from the masher. His .265 ISO and six home runs so far this year tell me what I need to know about his power still being there. We’re just riding on him to make contact. Encarnacion is second in MLB since the start of 2010 with 341 home runs (Nelson Cruz has 359 over the same stretch). That’s the quality of power hitter we’re talking about here.

Speaking of quality power hitters, Jose Abreu, Eloy Jimenez, Luis Robert and Yoan Moncada are all in this lineup, though Moncada may sit with some lingering issues. All four hitters are excellent at what they do, and their DraftKings salaries are totally justifiable. Of the list, only Robert is priced below $5,000, at $4,500. He makes an excellent price pivot in building White Sox stacks today. The amazing rookie is at .291/.339/.581 for the season and has nine home runs, 20 runs and 22 RBIs, mostly hitting around seventh. Moncada has probably the worst surface numbers of this groupl take advantage if he’s in the lineup and people are going to them less than they should. I don’t think I need to sell you Jimenez or Abreu here. If you can make the money work, fire away with confidence. No one else seems to be.

Adam Engel is in the projected lineup and costs just $2,000 on DraftKings. If he starts, he will likely draw some popularity to help work out some of the salary combinations required here. I prefer Madrigal’s tool set, but Engel is not entirely bereft of ability. Engel has hit exactly six home runs in each of his three seasons with the White Sox despite wildly different amounts of plate appearances. His 16 stolen bases in a career-high 463 plate appearances are an additionally appealing mark, though he hasn’t run like that since. You can mix him in for some savings, but not much more.

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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.