Monday, Sept. 21, has a main-slate 6:37 p.m. EST lock time for DraftKings, while it will be the standard 7:05 p.m. EST for FanDuel, Yahoo and SuperDraft. 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.
Early-Slate Picks
New York Yankees at RHP Matt Shoemaker – 5.4 implied runs
The Yankees are all getting healthy and firing on all cylinders right now. Before losing last night in Boston, they were on a 10-game winning streak averaging 8.5 runs per game. Shoemaker is coming off the injured list having missed a month with a strained lat. It is expected that he will go 50-60 pitches before giving way to the bullpen. The collective Blue Jays relievers are in the bottom third of the league by most metrics.
It is truly hard to go wrong with the New York batsmen, as their projected lineup has a collective .240 ISO against righties and a .249 ISO against lefties since the beginning of last season. Only D.J. LeMahieu is under a .200 ISO during that stretch against fellow righties, and he is still elite with a .197 ISO.
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Main-Slate Picks
Atlanta Braves vs. RHP Trevor Rogers – 5.4 implied runs
Rogers was the 13th overall selection out of high school in the 2017 draft. The 22-year-old is a solid prospect, and we have to remember that he made the jump to The Show in this abbreviated season with only 26.0 innings at the AA level. The strikeouts have been there with 29 in 21.0 innings, but the 10 walks are concerning, and the five home runs are not helpful either.
The Braves will likely go with an all-righty lineup save for Freddie Freeman against the rookie southpaw. The priority targets for tonight will be Ronald Acuna Jr. Marcell Ozuna, Travis d’Arnaud and Adam Duvall. Ozzie Albies is sliding back up the order, and he is locked in with a .333/.366/.641 slash line with three home runs and three doubles across his last 39 at-bats. As a bonus he has two steals tacked on as well. Austin Riley is in a mega-slump, but he is a cheap power bat doubling as a differentiation play. Lastly, Dansby Swanson is interesting because most gamers shy away from his typically elevated price tag and low spot in the batting order.
Late-Slate Picks
Houston Astros vs. LHP Marco Gonzales – 4.4 implied runs
By no means is this a slam dunk, as the young lefty Gonzales has put together a nice little season. He has slightly tweaked his pitch mix, going more with his fastball and cutter and utilizing his changeup more selectively at about half the rate as last season. While his home run rate per nine innings is up a little from 1.02 to 1.27, his strikeout rate is as well from 6.52 to 8.42.
The key for the Astros bats will be to get to the deliciously awful Mariners bullpen. Seattle is bottom five with a 4.90 xFIP, 4.67 SIERA with a 9.7% walk rate and a mediocre-at-best 21.5% strikeout rate.
The primary plays from Houston is, of course, the top half of their lineup, with the preferred order being Alex Bregman, George Springer, Yuli Gurriel, Jose Altuve and Michael Brantley. We can use Josh Reddick as a discount-dandy one-off on the main and late slates.
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