Tuesday was a decent day sparked by Athletics bats and Charlie Morton as an arm, who mowed down the Mets in spectacular fashion at a cheap price point across the industry. And who could ever forget Wander Franco, the No. 1 prospect in baseball, hitting a home run for his first career hit in the show? It can be frustrating when you’re on every piece of the winners and it still doesn’t pan out, but understanding the highly variant nature of fantasy baseball and trying to get in the right positions to take down a tournament is all one can do. So with that in mind and some help from Awesemo’s DFS MLB projections, let’s find some more MLB DFS picks and strategies for DraftKings and FanDuel that can hopefully take us at or near the top once more.
MLB DFS Slate Starter: Fantasy Baseball Picks | June 23
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Get Ready for Some Super Chalk
Wednesday has two distinct slate start times: A six-gamer starting at 12:35 p.m. ET and a seven-gamer that begins up at the standard 7:05 p.m. ET. This article is going to focus solely on the evening main slate today, and my, what an interesting slate it’s turning out to be. There is pitching on the top end in Trevor Bauer, Trevor Rogers and Robbie Ray. There is also pitching in the mid-tier in Joe Musgrove and Rich Hill, who are always high-upside plays to build around at significantly lower price points. And the chalk batting spots are as clear cut as it gets, making for a fun tournament slate if willing to embrace some risk and fade the public.
As far as team stacks go, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Astros in Camden Yards will be an extremely popular once more versus righty Thomas Eshelman. He was serviceable in his one other start this season, going 4.2 innings while giving up just one solo shot during the endeavor. However, his 2020 xSLG of .536 and career strikeout rate of 12.6% hint at potential problems to come. He also is practically incapable of spinning the baseball, with rpm under 2000. That means he is in deep trouble trying to deceive an Astros team that already strikes out at the lowest clip in baseball against righties at just 19.6%. And with their league-leading 122 wRC+ against that same handedness, best of luck fading this spot and feeling even remotely comfortable about it.
And as if the Astros weren’t going to be chalky enough, Franco remains a minimum-salary shortstop on DraftKings and just $2,500 on FanDuel. His debut could not have been gone better, as he led all batters on Tuesday with 27 DraftKings points. It is hard to imagine that sort of resounding start to his career won’t make him the most popular bat on the slate by a substantial margin. That makes spending up for any of the other elite shortstops, such as Xander Bogaerts in the same game, an appealing option to differentiate lineups. Feel free to have some exposure to the value du jour here, but there is enough variance here that it feels like a fade is the right decision, as uncomfortable as that may be.
As always, use the Top Pitchers and Top Stacks tools when trying to make +EV decisions on these chalkier slates. The number of Astros-plus-Franco lineups made in large-field GPP’s tonight will be astounding, so writing both spots off completely and betting on the field should provide a clearer path to victory. And should the Athletics facing Mike Foltynewicz or the Yankees facing Matt Duffy in his return from the injured list go underrepresented, there are still going to be plenty of other bats that can win tournaments.
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Final Thoughts for MLB DFS Lineups
- The Dodgers could be back to full strength tonight, as Max Muncy returned on Tuesday and Cody Bellinger is expected to be activated tonight. If Joe Musgrove is remotely owned (and he should be), the lefties make for a nice leverage stack in this spot.
- Just play Matt Olson.
Check out today’s MLB Live Before Lock, with expert MLB DFS tips, strategy, fantasy baseball picks and predictions for DraftKings and FanDuel. We’re live at 11:30 a.m. ET.
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