The Sunday afternoon slate gets off to a 1:05 p.m. start that is coming right around the corner and requires some morning hustle. The slate is offering up a robust selection of pitching leading into the MLB All-Star break. Sunday’s action features a broad range of A and B+ arms taking their last turn before the week off, and there are a few good-looking spots for bats with inflated totals on the board as well. Home run metrics are up in the power index in a few interesting spots that jibe well with the results on the Top Stacks Tool.
MLB DFS Tournament Strategy: Top HR Options
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 will not always be the absolute top-ranked player, particularly when there is an obvious star in that spot every day.
Be sure to catch the MLB DFS Deeper Dive & Live Before Lock, where we will review all the games, emphasizing finding the best stacks and top MLB DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel fantasy baseball lineups.
Home Run Ratings
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Scale: 5-10 Average; 10-20 Good; 20-25 Very Good; 25+ Great
Atlanta Braves: Freddie Freeman — 6.43
Baltimore Orioles: Trey Mancini — 9.63
Boston Red Sox: Hunter Renfroe — 9.25
Chicago Cubs: Joc Pederson — 10.98
Chicago White Sox: Jose Abreu — 13.66
Cincinnati Reds: Joey Votto — 6.17
Cleveland Indians: Franmil Reyes — 15.99
Detroit Tigers: Jonathan Schoop — 7.91
Houston Astros: Kyle Tucker — 11.09
Kansas City Royals: Carlos Santana — 21.29
Miami Marlins: Jesus Aguilar – 4.17
Milwaukee Brewers: Willy Adames — 4.33
Minnesota Twins: Nelson Cruz — 23.45
New York Mets: Michael Conforto — 11.71
New York Yankees: Luke Voit — 5.03
Oakland Athletics: Ramon Laureano — 7.70
Philadelphia Phillies: Brad Miller — 8.49
Pittsburgh Pirates: Gregory Polanco — 10.32
St. Louis Cardinals: Tyler O’Neill — 16.97
Tampa Bay Rays: Austin Meadows — 13.42
Texas Rangers: Adolis Garcia — 6.56
Toronto Blue Jays: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. — 10.63
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Power Index
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.
MLB DFS Pitchers, Optimal Stacks & Leverage Plays
This section will feature a few standout MLB DFS spots and teams to look at for potential plays on DraftKings and FanDuel. Ensure to check out the ownership projections for critical updates and monitor the top stacks tool throughout the day for changes.
On the Hill
The Sunday pitching slate features a fairly deep top-end that has several quality starters in excellent recent form. The slate is topped by Brandon Woodruff despite a tough matchup against the Reds, followed closely by Chris Bassitt in a far easier contest against the Rangers. Robbie Ray will look to close out a sharp first half in his game against the strikeout prone Rays, while Jose Berrios brings his quality stuff to the mound against the weak Tigers lineup. The slate continues with additional quality in starters like Luis Castillo, Ian Anderson, Adam Wainwright, Framber Valdez and Dylan Cease.
Woodruff has made 17 starts and he has been largely excellent throughout. He is striking out 30.7% of opposing hitters over 107.1 innings, providing reliable depth and a solid chance at a win and quality start bonus in most contests. In this matchup, he could be challenged to deliver the bonuses, but the possibility is not off the table. Woodruff is pitching to a 2.89 xFIP and a crackling 0.78 WHIP with a 12% swinging strike rate. Opposing hitters only manage a 4.3% barrel rate with an 8-degree average launch angle against the Brewers ace. Woodruff limits hitters to a 32% hard-hit rate and just 86.6 mph of average exit velocity, all numbers that suggest a strong ability to limit home run upside against. The Reds have a significant amount of power, their 3.89% home run rate against righties is well above average and they have a .175 team ISO in the split. Cincinnati creates runs 7% ahead of the average and strikes out just 22.8% of the time against righties. Woodruff will be highly owned on both sites despite a $10,000 price on DraftKings and a whopping $11,200 on FanDuel.
Bassitt is not drawing enough attention despite pitching very well through the season’s first half. He has completed 106.2 innings over his 17 starts and he has a 3.90 xFIP with a 1.03 WHIP. He is inducing a 10.2% swinging strike rate and has a solid 25.2% strikeout rate as a whole, while doing an excellent job limiting premium contact. Bassitt allows just a 32.8% hard-hit rate and a 5.6% barrel rate, and he will be facing a weak Texas lineup that has only a few premium left-handed power bats to fear. Texas has just a 3.72% home run rate that sits around the middle of the league, while everything else is further down the board. Their team ISO is just .155 in the split, and they create runs 11% worse than average while striking out 24.6% of the time, the ninth-worst rate in baseball against righties. Bassitt has upside, and the pricing is not out of control for the production he has shown all season. Getting over the field on Bassitt is an easy trick to pull, though it requires drawing shares from one of the afternoon’s many good options.
Ray has been sharp through perhaps the best half-season of baseball of his entire career. Ray has made 16 starts and completed 93.2 innings this season, tuning in a 3.21 xFIP and a 1.12 WHIP with a 31.1% strikeout rate. Most impressive is his 6.3% walk rate, which is about half that of most of his seasons. Ray induces a 15.2% swinging strike rate and has worked around the plate with a 30.2% CSW. He allows a significant amount of hard contact, his 48.5% is one of the uglier marks for a quality pitcher and he gets hit with too much premium contact as well, yielding a 10.5% barrel rate and a 13.7-degree average launch angle with a 91.9 mph average exit velocity against. This creates a situation where Ray simply cannot make a mistake or the ball will travel, this season he has gotten away with it. The opposing Rays offer little resistance to left-handed pitching, they have a 2.94% home run rate that is one of baseball’s lowest in the split, they create runs 5% worse than average and have juts a .143 team ISO against lefties this year. The Rays also strike out at a 26.2% clip against southpaws, the fifth-worst mark in baseball. Ray is drawing only mid-range ownership on the slate, though he costs a fair amount and his contact profile does generate quality home run indicators for the opposing Tampa Bay offense.
New York Mets
The Mets are taking on Chase DeJong, which has the team profiling well for both power and MLB DFS production. The Mets lineup has been renewed and restocked in recent weeks with the return of some of their top-end hitters, they stand an excellent chance of putting up a strong game against a pitcher who has just a 5.18 xFIP and a 20% strikeout rate over his first 33.2 innings. DeJong allows a 12.4% barrel rate and a 15.9-degree average launch angle with a 46.7% hard-hit rate and a 91.3 mph average exit velocity against, and he issues too many free passes with a 9.3% walk rate. The combination of barrels and walks with the limited strikeouts make a solid target of DeJong for this slate. The Mets are inexpensive, and they will be low owned on both sites, while they are not exploding up the Top Stacks board, they look like an undervalued option for GPP production on this slate.
[osBestBetsSingleGameOdds league=”mlb” date=”07/11/2021″ team=”mets”]
Brandon Nimmo costs just $2,800 on FanDuel and $4,700 on DraftKings. He is slashing .323/.417/.434 over his first 116 plate appearances this season and has one home run and two stolen bases. Nimmo’s hit tool and on-base skills were missed through most of the first half, but he has individual upside for the money on any given slate.
Francisco Lindor has been a major disappointment in his first half-season in Queens by any measure. He is slashing just .220/.319/.362 for the year with 10 home runs and a .141 ISO, creating runs 6% below average. This lack of production has him priced down to $3,200 on the blue site, though DraftKings retains a bit more faith at $4,000. Lindor has extremely obvious upside and is a good bet to turn things around in the second half. In 2019 he made 654 plate appearances for Cleveland, hitting 32 home runs and going .284/.335/.518 with a .234 ISO and a WRC+ 15% above average, at the time it was a brief downturn from his fantastic 2018. Lindor should be included in Mets stacks.
Dominic Smith slots in as a $4,200 outfielder on DraftKings and a $3,400 first baseman or outfielder on FanDuel. Smith has been a production roller coaster through his short career so far. In 2020 he hit 10 home runs in 199 plate appearances, this season he has nine in 307 tries. The power was long forecast and seemed to mostly arrive last season, but Smith has slumped badly in regressing to a 24.1% strikeout rate and an anemic .138 ISO this season. If he hits third he should be included in stacks.
Pete Alonso is the most expensive Mets bat at $5,500 on DraftKings and just $3,800 on FanDuel. He is slashing .254/.332/.485 with 17 home runs and a .231 ISO, creating runs 24% better than average by WRC+. The power has not been quite as prodigious, but Alonso is a steady home run upside option and is essentially not to be skipped in Mets stacks. He drives most of the Mets run creation and is the epicenter of the team’s power. At such a low ownership mark there is simply no reason to build many stacks that leave him out.
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Michael Conforto is yet to hit his stride at the plate after missing early time for the Mets. Conforto is slashing a mere .195/.342/.277 with a .082 ISO while creating runs 12% worse than average over just 196 plate appearances this year. He hit 27 home runs in 2017, 28 in 2018 and a whopping 33 in 2019. In 2020 he slashed .322/.412/.515 and created runs 57% better than average. His $2,500 salary on FanDuel and $3,300 mark on DraftKings are misprices for his talent.
Luis Guillorme and James McCann round out the Mets projected lineup. The pair make for reasonable mix and match pivot options in building multiple Mets lineups, though their salaries and ownership marks are not required to offset the already low positions of others. McCann has value on DraftKings for filling the catcher position, but he costs $4,600 and is projected to hit at the bottom of the lineup. He has put up a quality .253/.323/.380 slash with seven home runs but seems overpriced on the site. Guillorme fills third base on DraftKings, shortstop on FanDuel. He has made 99 plate appearances and has done little of note at the plate, slashing .272/.398/.284 with a .012 ISO and no home runs.
HR Call: Nelson Cruz — Minnesota Twins
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