Thursday was close to massive day, but unfortunately you can’t put close” in your account. Up 2-0 in the ninth, Padres closer Mark Melancon and his 0.64 ERA entered to finish the job versus the Reds. In nightmare fashion, he proceeded to give up four runs in the ninth, ruining the win for Joe Musgrove and forcing a bottom of the ninth. To make matters even worse, the Padres stack had two two-run shots from Eric Hosmer and Victor Caratini to win it, leading to even more lineups surpassing what should have been winners. But that’s the nature of the beast, so let’s move on and focus attention to tonight’s 15-game slate on DraftKings and FanDuel. Let’s find some MLB DFS picks to take us to the top.
MLB DFS Slate Starter: Picks & Strategy | June 18
***Get a SNEAK PEEK with our free premium data, tools and content of the day, the Awesemo Premium MLB DFS Top Pitchers.***
Bauer and Woodruff, Woodruff and Bauer
One of the bigger stands for the Slate Starter yesterday was taking a chance on the arm talent of Brandon Woodruff regardless of the Coors Field effect. Were it not for the first inning, it would have been a serviceable start: Five innings, five strikeouts, one hit and one walk. Unfortunately, he allowed four hits and five earned in that first inning, including a C.J. Cron grand slam and Garrett Hampson solo shot. This led to devastating results as the highest-priced pitcher on the DraftKings slate at $10,200, as 11 of the other 15 starters surpassed his 7.1 fantasy points for significantly less salary.
Woodruff’s teammate Corbin Burnes is on the bump for the Brewers in Coors and is priced slightly below the likes of Carlos Rodon and Trevor Bauer at $10,200. Burnes currently has the second-best odds to win the NL Cy Young behind obvious favorite Jacob deGrom, as his underlying metrics are simply silly this season (percentile rankings courtesy of BaseballSavant.mlb.com):
He is top 10% in basically every category across the board, including top 2% in xERA, xWOBA, xSLG, hard hit percentage and strikeout percentage. Those are ridiculous numbers virtually unmatched in baseball. Burnes is as elite as it gets, and FanDuel is providing the Coors Field discount his counterpart Woodruff didn’t get, at $9,500 (down from $12,000).
So do we dare dip our toes back into the murky Colorado waters? So long as ownership isn’t there in a pronounced way, absolutely. It’s a 15-game slate as opposed to yesterday’s 8-gamer, meaning we should see ownership spread around quite a bit more. However, Bauer looks as though he’ll be the clear-cut option at the top, as Carlos Rodon draws a difficult matchup versus an Astros team striking out at a league-low 17.2% clip versus left-handers, Robbie Ray gets a Baltimore team that’s third-best at avoiding strikeouts left-handers (21.2%), and Burnes is still in Coors.
And before you get up in arms about Bauer’s recent slide in results and start linking it to banning substances for pitchers, his spin rates were just fine in his last outing versus the Rangers on June 12:
While the cutter he throws 21.1% of the time saw a slight 40 rpm dip in spin, the four-seam fastball he throws 44.1% of the time saw a slight 30 rpm increase in his last start, as did his curveball. Those are negligible changes and nothing to be alarmed about (yet). Be sure to check out Awesemo’s Top Pitchers tool religiously tomorrow as it pertains to finding some serviceable SP2s, but should ownership not be out of control for Bauer and Burnes, lock and load them at will.
Latest MLB DFS Content
- Today’s Top MLB DFS Pitcher Pivots: Garrett Crochet and More (April 24)
- MLB DFS Punt Plays For DraftKings and FanDuel (April 24)
- MLB DFS Contrarian Stacks Today: Top Values! (April 24)
- MLB DFS Picks, Spotlight Pitchers & Top Stacks: SP1s Joe Ryan and Bronx Bats (April 24)
- MLB DFS: Stokastic’s Tom Kennedy With TWO DraftKings MLB Wins in One Night | How the Sims Helped Him Out
- Stokastic DFS on Youtube
An Angle with the Angels
One of the beautiful things about baseball is one can simply sort by implied run totals the night before and have a pretty good idea of which stacks will be the most popular. As important as pitching is, being on the right hitters is where gamers really accumulate fantasy points, so it stands to reason why the public jams in the top projected run producers time and time again. By that logic, the Brewers, Blue Jays, Padres and Dodgers should all garner a bunch of ownership, while the Red Sox could also be an incredible option once that line is released (waiting on the Royals starter in that one). But as important as it is to recognize which offenses are in the best spots and roster them, it can be equally as important to be lower on a stack that projects out well but could have a tough time getting there.
That is why it’s hard to envision getting to a whole lot of Angels five-man stacks tonight despite the 5.5 implied run total and juicy matchup against Tigers righty Jose Urena. In no way is this a defense of Urena, who was a dumpster fire in Miami and continues to be one in Detroit. Just put his 2021 percentile rankings side by side with Burnes’ above and enjoy a nice laugh:
However, as much fun as it would be to pick on Urena, how can one possibly do it with this Angels lineup and get different? The only pieces to have any interest in whatsoever hit at the top of the order, as the back half of their projected lineup for today shows virtually zero upside for a slate of this size. Of course, there are 30 teams in action tonight, so maybe the Angels fall through the cracks enough that to allow gamers to fire up Justin Upton, Shohei Ohtani, Jared Walsh and Max Stassi without a care in the world. There is also a chance Anthony Rendon will return in this one, although it’s not nearly as big of an upgrade as you’d think considering his 2021 underlying stats leave a lot to be desired.
Still, it’s frustrating to fire up the same five-man stacks for a certain team as everyone else. Maybe Taylor Ward at $2,800 hits up in the order again, but otherwise it’s only two- and three-mans from this team. And if in Fantasy Cruncher making a bunch of lineups, don’t forget to uncheck the 7-9 boxes for a team like the Angels with no power in the back half of their lineup, as there is zero reason to play riffraff with little-to-no upside on a slate of this size.
Final Thoughts for MLB DFS Lineups
- Just play Rafael Devers.
Check out today’s MLB Strategy Show, with expert MLB DFS tips, strategy, picks and predictions for DraftKings and FanDuel. We’re live at 11 a.m. ET.
Thanks for reading to the end of this article! If you appreciate this free content and want to see more of it every day, you can help us out by sharing this article on social media!
[MLBPAGE]
