MLB DFS Tournament Strategy: Leverage, HRs & Optimal Picks

The midweek MLB DFS slate has action all day long, with several day games through the afternoon and an early start to the main slate in the 6 p.m. hour. This article will focus on the main slate, and there is a lot to cover. With a dearth of pitching options, some weather to consider and several standout bats in strong stacks, there are excellent MLB DFS picks from every angle. Finding the right combination of bats and arms is going to be challenging for this one, and it could be a good day to get a bit further afield with exposures for GPP play.

Update: Since this was written, the White Sox – Indians game has been postponed.

The Awesemo team will be here for all of it, with a back to back Strategy Show and Live Before Lock this afternoon starting at 2pm ET and taking you through first the afternoon slate then the main slate. We will be constantly updating all the tools and content. Speaking of tools, if you aren’t visiting the Top Stacks Tool regularly, you’re just making your MLB DFS picks incorrectly. The Top Starters Tool is every bit as important in deciding who takes the hill for your daily fantasy baseball lineup.

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MLB DFS Tournament Strategy: Top HR Options

Home Run Ratings

Home runs are the holy grail when making MLB DFS picks. Finding the right combination of sluggers who will knock one, or better two, out of the park to drive in the teammates you stack with them is critical to winning GPPs. Identifying the likely home run hitters is trickier than just looking at the big names. Using a model of my own design, based on a blend of several predictive statistics for the batter-pitcher matchup, I will give one of the top choices from each team. However, it won’t always be the absolute top-ranked player, particularly when there is an obvious star who would be in that spot every day.

Scale: 5-10 Average; 10-20 Good; 20-25 Very Good; 25+ Great

Atlanta Braves: Ozzie Albies — 9.22

Boston Red Sox: J.D. Martinez — 12.90

Chicago Cubs: Kris Bryant — 5.49

~~Chicago White Sox: Tim Anderson — 7.21~~

Cincinnati Reds: Eugenio Suarez — 11.33

Cleveland Indians: Eddie Rosario — 15.06

Kansas City Royals: Carlos Santana — 11.24

Los Angeles Angels: Kole Calhoun — 6.71

New York Mets: Francisco Lindor — 9.23

New York Yankees: Aaron Judge — 7.39

Tampa Bay Rays: Austin Meadows — 14.95

Toronto Blue Jays: Rowdy Tellez — 7.41

Power Index (Main Slate)

This is intended to capture the full range of home runs upside for each team. It is not meant as a stack ranking and does not account for pricing or popularity — only home run potential. The first column is the average rating for the full projected lineup (pitcher bats not included in non-DH games), and the second is for the top six hitters in the projected lineup.

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MLB DFS Optimal Stacks & Leverage Plays

This section will feature a few standout MLB DFS spots and teams to look at for potential plays here. Make sure to check out the ownership projections for critical updates and monitor the top stacks tool throughout the day for changes.

On the Hill

With an ugly slate of pitching on both sites, MLB DFS picks on the mound lack much safety but should leave room to roster a diverse spread of pitchers on this one, extending the range of outcomes. On a slate with no clear-cut best choices, it often pays to dig into the midrange and some of the value arms, looking for upside and leverage. The Top Pitchers Tool is invaluable for this purpose, and is a great starting point for these decisions on a short slate.

The top starter on the tool is Cincinnati’s Tyler Mahle, who has made dramatic leaps in his fastball spin rate over the past two seasons, completely changing his arsenal of pitches and his overall effectiveness. Mahle has struck out a whopping 39.3% of hitters over his first three starts, pitching 14 total innings. He has a 3.10 xFIP and a 1.00 WHIP, but has walked 12.5% of hitters, which is a mark we would like to see come down. Mahle is the top option on the slate, taking on an Arizona team that has created runs 5% worse than league average against right-handed pitching dating to the start of 2019. The Diamondbacks active roster is reasonably good at limiting strikeouts in the split, posting a ninth-best 22.1% strikeout rate across the same sample, but Mahle’s electric stuff should neutralize that to a degree. Unfortunately, all of the public ownership is also on Mahle. He is massively owned compared to his probability of success, an interesting wrinkle on a short slate.

Braves starter Ian Anderson could be in a playable spot against the difficult to watch Yankees. He put up a solid 29.7% strikeout rate in his 32 innings over six starts last season, though he walked 10.1% of hitters. He had a solid 3.45 xFIP overall and a 1.08 WHP and is a highly regarded prospect arm that rapidly ascended through the Braves system. Anderson’s ability to dodge hard contact and barrels was tremendous last season, but that could be attributed somewhat to luck and a small sample. He will need to continue the trend to be considered wholly reliable, and that has not been the case early in the season, with Anderson’s barrel rate spiking. Allowing premium contact of any kind can get a pitcher into quick trouble in Yankee Stadium. Lazy fly balls that would not be home runs in any other park land in the right field seats. Still, with ownership trailing his probability of being one of the top pitching options on this slate, there is reason to eyeball Anderson in this one. He has clear strikeout upside and excellent stuff and is taking on a strikeout-heavy Yankees lineup.

Latest MLB DFS Content

(Quick note: if it says 1-5, it means hitters 1-2-3-4-5. Otherwise, I will specify spots)

NYM – 1-5 – Nimmo – Lindor – Smith – Alonso – Conforto

The talented Mets lineup is in Chicago to take on right-hander Zach Davies and the Cubs in near freezing temperatures that are typically not great for offense in baseball. This is likely part of what is leaving the Mets under-owned on both sites in what is not an overly tough matchup.

Davies is a league-average pitcher on his best day. This season he has a 6.09 xFIP and a 2.21 WHIP in his 11 innings over three starts, striking out just 13.6% of hitters and walking 15.3% along the way. Last season he saw 69 innings, putting up a 22.8% strikeout rate and a 6.9% walk rate that are more indicative of his nature. His 4.14 xFIP and 1.07 WHIP were reasonably good marks, but the truth is closer to the 4.56 and 1.29 that he posted in 159 innings in 2019. That season, Davies struck out only 15.2% of hitters and walked 7.6%. There is room for upside against a pitcher who does not tend to set hitters down without events, which is sometimes the best one can ask from a positively leveraged stack on a short slate. With the loaded bats in the Mets lineup, there is room to hope for more upside than that, even on a chilly day.

Brandon Nimmo tops the projected lineup and is at a discount on both sites. Coming in at just $3,000 on FanDuel and $3,600 on the DraftKings slate, Nimmo has excellent potential for upside from the left side of the plate, but he will not be overly popular. Last season, he hit eight home runs and stole a base in his 225 plate appearances, posting a .280/.404/.484 triple slash and a .204 ISO. Nimmo created runs 48% better than average, making the most of his quality hit tool, excellent on-base skills and underrated pop. He is an ideal leadoff hitter for a stack like this.

Superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor is one of the game’s elite talents, but he has struggled to get his season off the ground with the new team. In 2021 he has just a .171/.327/.195 slash, a .024 ISO and no home runs in his 53 plate appearances. There is no reason to panic; Lindor is a highly proven commodity worth rostering when others are leaving him on the table because of a perceived slump. Lindor’s performance has his salary down to $4,600 on DraftKings and a hilarious $3,200 on FanDuel.

Lefty Dominic Smith is another Mets bat at a major discount on the blue site. With just a $2,800 salary, he should be drawing more attention hitting third or fourth in this lineup. Smith has power to spare, hitting 10 home runs in just 199 plate appearances last season and 11 in 197 opportunities in 2019. There is a quality hit tool here as well, with a 2020 triple-slash of .316/.377/.616, though he is off to a .256/.286/.436 start to the year. Smith has hit two home runs and has a .179 ISO so far. The power will emerge as the season begins to roll on. Getting to an underrated bat at a low price before the uptick is a good approach to winning MLB DFS tournaments.

Pete Alonso hit 53 home runs as a rookie in 2019 and followed that up with 16 in just 239 plate appearances last year. The prodigious power is very real, and gamers can reliably roster Alonso for his mighty bat, though there is an argument to be made he is likely more the .237/.326/.490 hitter than the .260/.358/.583 hitter from 2019. Alonso has a .227/.286/.409 slash this year, with two home runs in his 49 plate appearances. He has struck out 32.7% of the time, up from the 25.5% mark last year in a development that would be concerning in a broader sample.

Left-handed outfielder Michael Conforto costs just $2,700 on the FanDuel slate, adding to the pile of discounted Mets bats that the public is ignoring. Conforto is an underrated player in most situations. At that price, and even his $3,400 tag on the DraftKings slate, there is significant upside here. Last season Conforto had a .322/.412/.515 slash with nine home runs in 233 plate appearances. The year before, he went .257/.363/.494 but hit 33 home runs in his 648 opportunities. This is an excellent hitter with power upside in the middle of a quality lineup, and he is underpriced and under-owned.

Jeff McNeil is a dynamic Swiss Army knife of a player who slots into multiple positions and brings a solid hit tool to the table every day. Last season, in 209 plate appearances, McNeil put up a solid .311/.383/.454 slash with four home runs and created runs at a pace 30% ahead of the league average. McNeil proved himself over a longer sample in 2019, going .318/.384/.531 that season with 23 home runs in 567 plate appearances. There is underrated upside from the back end of the Mets lineup, and McNeil is a key part of it. If he hits higher in the batting order, all the better.

J.D. Davis has seen just 16 plate appearances so far this season, hitting one home run and striking out in 37.5% of the remaining opportunities. Davis was an emergent talent for the Mets in 2019, hitting 22 home runs and posting a .307/.369/.527 slash in 453 plate appearances. Last year he came back to Earth, hitting just six home runs with a .247/.371/.389 slash. The on-base skill says that there is probably upside, with the truth lying more toward the 2019 numbers than last season.

Catcher James McCann is another player in his first season with the Mets, after a long tenure first as a platoon split specialist and then as a regular in Detroit. McCann brings talent and appreciable power to the dish. He hit seven home runs in his 111 plate appearances last year and connected on 18 long balls in his 476 chances in 2019. He has a strong hit tool for a catcher, reliably in the range of his .273/.328/.460 slash from that 2019 season. Gamers can do worse than McCann where catchers are required, though he will likely be at the end of the batting order, potentially losing a plate appearance if there are other options from higher in their lineups.

HR Call: Ozzie Albies — Atlanta Braves

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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.