Saturday, August 1st has a dozen games on the main slate beginning at 7:05 p.m. EST for FanDuel, DraftKings, SuperDraft and Yahoo. Before you lock in your MLB DFS lineups and MLB DFS picks, make sure to check out check out Awesemo’s DFS baseball MLB rankings and projections.
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Slate Action
Greeting Gamers! We have a couple weather spots to keep an eye on in Baltimore and the status of the Cardinals at Brewers game.
Similar to last year I will be providing a review of one stack for the main slate as well as the viable sub-slates with at least two games on the docket. Some of these short-slate options will be good for the full-game set, others will be more contrarian and better suited for the mini-game sets.
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Main-Slate MLB DFS Picks
New York Mets at RHP Touki Toussaint – 4.8 implied runs
It sound like Toussaint will be the long-man if not the actual starter on Saturday. The youngster was the #16 overall pick in the 2014 draft straight from high school. Through six seasons in the minors he has 569.2 innings with an outstanding 9.5 K/9 but the 4.5 BB/9 is an issue. Over his three stints in The Show he has 73.1 innings with a 5.52 ERA, 1.57 WHIP though the 10.2 K/9 is tantalizing for sure. In all likelihood he will end up as a reliever, but this season he will likely be in the mix for 65-75 pitches per appearance.
We definitely want to focus on the Metropolitans swinging the stick from the left-side of the plate first. Brandon Nimmo should be promoted to the top of the lineup for this matchup and he is cheap on DraftKings and FanDuel. Michael Conforto and Robinson Cano are the other key lefties. This trio will likely be sprinkled throughout the lineup so do not be shy about using Peter Alonso and Jeff McNeil.
 Coors Field Extravaganza Picks
San Diego Padres at LHP Kyle Freeland – 6.6 implied runs
Colorado Rockies vs. LHP Joey Lucchesi – 6.1 implied runs
Saturday brings us a pair of southpaws in the second Coors Field matchup of the season. Keep in mind that this game total is an extra run higher now that the National League is utilizing the designated hitter.
Each of the sites is handling pricing differently:
- Yahoo: once again Yahoo did a good job pricing up the key options
- FanDuel: is down one from Friday to just three projected starters above $4,000
- DraftKings: has made it a challenge for Saturday as they also priced up the Cubs, Athletics, Yankees, Red Sox and Rays.
For those of you that have may have forgotten, Freeland was demoted to AAA for part of last season. He ended the year with 104.1 innings in The Show with a 6.73 ERA while allowing 1.58 baserunners per inning. The six minor league starts were EVEN WORSE resulting in a 8.80 ERA and a 4.85 BB/9 rate. From 2017 through 2018 at home he had 180.2 innings with a 3.04 ERA, 4.12 xFIP and a 0.90 HR/9. Manny Machado, Tommy Pham, Wil Myers and Jurickson Profar will be the batters to target.
Through 57 starts and 297.1 innings, Lucchesi has posted a solid 4.15 ERA, 1.26 WHIP with a solid 45.7 GB%. While he does have some issues with the long ball, he dropped from a 1.59 to a 1.26 HR/9 rate between his first and second seasons. Nolan Arenado and Trevor Story each have a .420+ wOBA and a .307+ ISO against lefties. However, they will cost a pretty penny. Charlie Blackmon and David Dahl are not cheap either, but they have .210+ ISOs in lefty/lefty matchups the last two seasons. As a bonus, with the designated hitter slot we could see veteran Matt Kemp. The algorithms missed him as he is $3,400 on DraftKings, $2,700 on FanDuel and $11 on Yahoo. He will not be a secret for long if he makes the starting lineup.
Late-Slate MLB DFS Picks
Oakland Athletics at LHP Yusei Kikuchi – 5.3 implied runs
The Mariners pitching staff is going to do their best to entice us away from Coors Field this weekend. LHPÂ Yusei Kikuchi is taking the bump on Saturday. The second year hurler out of Japan got rocked in his first start against the Astros in Houston. Surprisingly he did not allow a home run which was an issue last year. However, he did have four walks giving up five earned runs on 70 pitches. He has a 1.90 HR/FB rate to righties and a 2.20 HR/9 rate to lefties. In his short career he has allowed a .360 wOBA and a .240 ISO. Yikes!
Look to Matt Olson to lead the way in this lefty/lefty matchup for some differentiation. We can round things out with a variety of Athletics that boast a .200+ ISO over the last two seasons versus southpaws. Mark Canha, Stephen Piscotty, Khris Davis, Ramon Laureano, Marcus Semien and Matt Chapman are all in this category.
As always, you can reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS if you have any questions.
