Stokastic MLB DFS Perfect Lineup: June 3, 2026 Slate
June 3, 2026
MLB DFS Picks: DraftKings Perfect Lineup for June 3
A Grayson Rodriguez clunker at SP2 is exactly the kind of Tuesday night that makes you want a do-over, so the Perfect Lineup crew is back on it for Wednesday's nine-game DraftKings slate. Dave Loughran took the pitchers, Josh Engelman handled the stacks, and the Stokastic Sims did the heavy lifting on the build. The angle today is leverage: get off the chalk arm everyone is funneling toward, and stack a team the field is sleeping on.
In Summary
- SP1 — Chase Burns ($10,000): a deliberate pivot off Paul Skenes' ~40% ownership. Burns carries a 32% career strikeout rate, draws a low-power Royals lineup, and projects for roughly half of Skenes' ownership.
- SP2 — Gavin Williams ($8,500): the value arm of the slate. A 29% K rate, a called-plus-swinging-strike rate north of 32%, and a discounted price against a Yankees club that may be without Aaron Judge.
- Stack — Colorado Rockies: Josh's number-one stack as a pure leverage play. Tenth in our Top Stacks ranking but third in top value and only 11th in projected ownership.
- The build: a single-entry DraftKings lineup assembled in the Stokastic Sims that graded out at a 60% simulated ROI, then a one-swap alternate at 51%.
- Format note: this is a tournament (GPP) build chasing ceiling and differentiation, not a cash-game lineup.
Watch the Perfect Lineup Show
The full breakdown, including the live build inside the Sims, is in the episode below.
The Slate: Nine Games and a Leverage Plan
Nine games on the Wednesday main slate gives you enough pitching to get creative, and that is the whole idea here. When one starter is going to soak up 40% ownership, the value of being right on him drops because half the field is right alongside you. The Perfect Lineup approach is to find the spots where our grades and the field's attention disagree, then lean into that gap. Both the pitching and the stack below come from that same playbook. If terms like leverage and projected ownership are new to you, start with our DFS 101 beginner guide; everything below assumes the basics.
SP1: Chase Burns Over the Chalk
The obvious play is Paul Skenes, and that is the problem. Running a single lineup in a single-entry contest, there is little reason to pay up for an arm the field projects around 40% owned. As Loughy put it, going to Skenes is a "lose-lose" in this format: you are either riding the chalk or explaining why you faded a guy who dominated.
So we get off him. Chase Burns at $10,000 is the SP1. He was scratched on Monday with a fever, but it read as precautionary and he looks good to go. The matchup is a Kansas City Royals team that does not hit for much power against right-handers, with a 3.9 implied run total at Great American Ball Park.
The home park is the one caveat, and we are not hiding from it. Great American is a clear downgrade for any pitcher. But Burns has actually been excellent there, and his ugly home split is skewed by a single rough start against the Angels on April 10. Strip that out and the body of work holds up.
| Pitcher | Salary | Career K% | Projected ownership |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paul Skenes | ~$500 more than Burns | elite | ~40% |
| Chase Burns | $10,000 | 32% (29% at home) | ~half of Skenes |
Burns also carries a 6.5 strikeout prop juiced heavily to the over, the same setup the books are pricing on Skenes tonight. He projects about two fantasy points below Skenes, but he is $500 cheaper and a fraction of the ownership. In a single-entry build, that trade is the edge.
SP2: Gavin Williams as the Value Arm
A lot of good pitchers have been getting tuned up lately in spots that looked favorable going in, so nobody should force this one. But the price is the price, and Gavin Williams at $8,500 is underpriced for what he has been this season.
Williams owns a 29% strikeout rate, and his called-plus-swinging-strike rate is north of 32%, behind only Jacob Misiorowski and Christopher Sanchez across all of baseball. Those two have been among the best arms in the sport, which is the company Williams is keeping. If you want a second data point, he sits with the fourth-shortest AL Cy Young odds.
The matchup is the catch: Yankee Stadium is not where you want to send a pitcher. But the Yankees have strikeouts scattered through the lineup, and there is a real chance Aaron Judge is out again. Pair an in-form arm with a possible Judge scratch and a discounted salary, and the value outweighs the venue.
Pitching takeaway: both arms are leverage and value, not chalk. Burns gets you off a 40%-owned Skenes, and Williams' $8,500 tag frees up the salary that lets the Rockies stack work below.
The Stack: Colorado Rockies as a Leverage Play
Stick with this one. Taking the Rockies rarely feels good, but the numbers say the field is too far off them today. Colorado grades 10th in our Top Stacks ranking, which is not elite, but it sits third in top value while drawing only 11th in projected ownership and ranking fifth in stack score. That spread, a team we grade much higher than the field is rostering it, is exactly the leverage Josh hunts for in this show.
That kind of gap between our grade and the field's attention is the engine of our MLB DFS contrarian strategy. The opposing arm is Walber Urena, who profiles as a back-end starter without overpowering stuff, average at best by the numbers this season. The Rockies' bats are not world-beaters either: 25th against righties in wRC+ and 21st in ISO. But there are usable angles. They are 15th in walk rate, a middle-of-the-pack mark that can manufacture extra baserunners, and ninth in team batting average, so expect contact off a pitcher who does not miss many. Add a righty-friendly power park and the upside is real even from a modest offense.
Here are the Colorado pieces and their DraftKings salaries:
| Player | Position | Salary |
|---|---|---|
| Hunter Goodman | C | $4,400 |
| Ezequiel Tovar | SS | $3,300 |
| Kyle Garlick | 3B | $2,700 |
| McCarthy | OF | $3,300 |
| Rumfield | — | $3,800 |
| Sterlin Thompson | — | $2,400 |
The value tags are the point. Catcher at $4,400 and a short pick at $2,400 keep money in your pocket, which is what makes the dual-pitcher build affordable and leaves room to load up the spots the Sims fill in for you.
Worked Example: Building the Lineup in the Stokastic Sims
With the arms and the stack set, the rest happens inside the single-lineup tool in the Stokastic MLB Sims. We locked in Chase Burns and Gavin Williams on the mound, then built the Rockies core: Hunter Goodman, Rumfield, Ezequiel Tovar, McCarthy, and Sterlin Thompson. That left roughly $4,800 per spot at second base, third base, and the final outfield slot, plenty of salary for premium fill-ins.
One click of "complete this lineup" lets the Sims return the optimal plays from our projections for those open spots. They came back with three unique, high-end names: Nico Hoerner at second, Jose Ramirez at third, and Kyle Tucker in the final outfield slot. Outside of Tucker reaching 11% ownership, the lineup takes on almost none of the field, landing at a 98.5 combined projection and a 99.5 total ownership.
Run the lineup simulation and that build grades out at a 60% Sim ROI, a 0.3% chance to win, and a 33% cash rate. For a low-owned, single-entry tournament lineup, that is a strong starting point.
New to the Sims? Stokastic runs thousands of simulations of each DraftKings slate to spit out projections, projected ownership, leverage, and these optimal-lineup grades, then builds the lineups for you. Code PERFECT25 takes 25% off Stokastic MLB (any weekly, monthly, sport, or All-Access package): grab 25% off here.
Then comes the part that makes this a workflow instead of a one-and-done. We made a single swap: Sterlin Thompson out of the outfield, Willy Castro in at second. That reopened a third-base spot and two outfield slots at about $4,400 per player. Re-running "complete this lineup" (after clearing a stray Colorado-and-Angels game filter) kept Jose Ramirez and Kyle Tucker and dropped Wade Meckler in as the second outfielder. That version still grades at a 51% Sim ROI.
The lesson is the speed. You can spin up a dozen distinct, optimized views in a couple of minutes, whether you are filling out a 20-max or just pressure-testing a single entry before lock. Build a few, compare the grades, and ship the one you like.
Final Word
The throughline on June 3 is leverage. Burns gets you off a 40%-owned Skenes for $500 less, Williams banks value off a possible Judge scratch, and the Rockies are a team the field is under-rostering relative to how we grade them. Stack it, fill it in the Sims, and you have a single-entry DraftKings lineup the field will not be sitting on. Just remember MLB DFS is high-variance: the best pre-lock lineup can still finish near the bottom, so size your entries and manage your bankroll. For more on building for ceiling in tournaments, see our guide on how to win DFS tournaments.
FAQ
Who is the SP1 pick for the June 3 MLB DFS slate? Chase Burns at $10,000 is the SP1, a leverage pivot off Paul Skenes. Burns carries a 32% career strikeout rate, draws a low-power Royals lineup at Great American Ball Park, and projects for roughly half of Skenes' ~40% ownership.
Who is the best value pitcher on the slate? Gavin Williams at $8,500. He owns a 29% strikeout rate and a called-plus-swinging-strike rate north of 32%, behind only Jacob Misiorowski and Christopher Sanchez, and the Yankees may be without Aaron Judge.
Which stack does the Perfect Lineup show like? The Colorado Rockies, as a leverage play. They grade third in top value and only 11th in projected ownership, the kind of gap between our grade and the field's attention that pays off in tournaments.
What was the final DraftKings lineup grade? The single-entry build of Burns, Williams, the Rockies core, plus Nico Hoerner, Jose Ramirez, and Kyle Tucker graded at a 60% Sim ROI. A one-swap alternate with Willy Castro and Wade Meckler still graded at 51%.
Run Your Own Build
Want to build leverage lineups like this yourself? The Stokastic MLB Sims simulate each DraftKings slate thousands of times to give you projections, projected ownership, and the optimal-lineup grades you saw above, then build the lineups for you. Code PERFECT25 takes 25% off Stokastic MLB, any weekly, monthly, single-sport, or All-Access package: start with 25% off. You can also explore the free MLB DataHub to see projections and ownership for yourself.