MLB DFS Live Before Lock Picks: June 23, 2026

Most nights on MLB DFS Live Before Lock we are firing 20 and 150 lineups. Tuesday was different. Filling in for Eric, our guest host built a single bullet for DraftKings' Mega Perfect Game contest, and we walked the whole thing live: pick the pitchers, let the Stokastic Sims find the stacks, then make a couple of manual tweaks. One lineup, start to finish. Here is how the build came together.

In Summary

• One single-entry lineup for the DraftKings Mega Perfect Game, built live in the Stokastic Sims.
• Pitchers: Sean Burke plus Shane Baz ($8,200), both off our daily Perfect Lineup video, with Baz in a soft matchup despite down strikeout numbers.
• The two-pitcher pool pointed at two stacks: Boston (the overwhelming chalk) and Baltimore (vs. Ryan Johnson).
• The leverage call: the full Boston chalk added projection but a pile of ownership, so the lead build leaned low-owned Baltimore plus a Padres mini-stack for a single-entry tournament.

Watch the Video

Watch the full single-lineup build on Tuesday's MLB DFS Live Before Lock, including every tweak inside the single-lineup Sim. Watch on YouTube.

One Bullet for the Mega Perfect Game

The format drove every decision. A single entry in a large-field tournament is not a cash lineup and it is not a 150-max portfolio. You get one shot, so the goal is a build with real upside that the field is underweight on, not the highest-projected roster on the slate. That framing is why the host leaned toward leverage over chalk as the night went on, and it is the lens for everything below. (New to single-entry tournament strategy? Start with the Stokastic DFS Sims for free.)

The Pitchers: Sean Burke and Shane Baz

Both arms came straight off our Perfect Lineup video, where Sean Burke was the SP2 and Shane Baz the SP1. Burke was the chalkier of the two, sitting as the highest-owned value pitcher on the board (around 35% in our projections), with Robbie Ray among the other value arms drawing ownership in the 20s.

Baz is the more interesting read. At $8,200 his price is friendly, and OddsShopper had his strikeout prop at 5.5 with no juice, while the outs prop near 17.5 leaned slightly to the over. The host was honest about the warts: Baz's strikeout rate and swinging-strike rate are both down from last season. But the matchup is a soft one, and the point of the combo is salary. As the host put it, "between him and Burke you really do just have the ability to do almost anything" with the bats. A cheaper pitching pair is what funds the stacks.

The Stacks: Boston Chalk vs. Baltimore for Leverage

Once both arms were locked, the host generated a lineup pool, filtered it down to that exact pitching combo, and read the stacks the Sims kept building. It was not close at the top: 45% of the ownership share in that pool went to Boston, 25% to Baltimore.

Boston was the obvious one. The Red Sox graded out number one in top-stack, number one in top-value, highest ownership share, and number one in stack score by a mile across the Sims. That is why they were the overwhelming chalk, and the host did not even bother explaining it ("that's not even worth an explanation"). He treated loading up on it as the premier hitting spot the whole field piles into, the kind of stack you only differentiate from, not chase.

Baltimore is the more interesting spot. The Orioles draw Ryan Johnson, a young Angels arm who has been hit hard by both lefties and righties in a small big-league sample, and the Orioles carry real pop through Gunnar Henderson, Coby Mayo, Samuel Basallo, and the rest of that order. As the host noted, stacking the Orioles also brings a little correlation with our pitcher.

Here is the tradeoff that decided the night. When the host swapped the low-owned core for the full Boston chalk version, the Sims gave back a clear read:

Roughly three and a half points of projection cost twenty-seven points of ownership. For a single-entry tournament, that is a lot of field to take on for a small projection bump, and it is exactly the leverage math that separates a GPP build from a cash build.

Worked Example: Building the Single Bullet in the Sims

This is where the Sims did the work, and it is worth walking through step by step. Inside the single-lineup Sim, the host dropped in both pitchers, then a five-man Baltimore stack, then a three-man Padres group of Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr., and Jackson Merrill. The first version graded out, in the host's words, "like an absolute gem," with almost no ownership anywhere outside the two pitchers.

From there it was small, deliberate tweaks. To open the build up, the host went from a 5-3 to a 4-3-1, dropping Jackson Holliday from the Orioles stack for a low-owned one-off (Nate Eaton) to free a little salary and add a unique piece. That version held nearly the same projection and ownership while grading out just as well, so it became the placeholder, favorited, exported, and uploaded straight to DraftKings. Build the pool, let the Sim find the shape, make two manual moves, done.

Get the same tools the show uses. The Stokastic MLB DFS Sims build and grade your lineups, the Top Stacks tool surfaces the stacks the field is underweight on, and Ownership projections show you where the leverage is. Get 15% off any DFS or Props package with code MLBLBL.

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The Alternatives the Host Weighed

The placeholder was not the only option on the table, and the back half of the show was a tour of the leverage menu:

• Full Boston chalk with a double Cincinnati stack (Elly De La Cruz and Suarez). Highest projection, but the ownership jump above made it a tough single-entry play.
• A two-man Dodgers piece (with Mookie Betts in the mix) to peel ownership off the Reds.
• A sneaky three-man Arizona stack of Ketel Marte, Geraldo Perdomo, and Gabriel Moreno, the kind of low-owned third stack that gets you off the field entirely.

The host kept circling back to the same idea: respect the premier hitting spot, but do not pay full chalk price for it in a single-entry tournament. The lead build leaned Baltimore-first with a low-owned secondary stack, treating Boston as the spot to get different from, not the spot to pile into. For how the same read-the-board process ran the night before, see our previous Live Before Lock recap.

FAQ

Who are the top pitchers on MLB DFS Live Before Lock for June 23? Sean Burke and Shane Baz ($8,200, in a soft matchup the host liked) off our Perfect Lineup were the two arms the show built around. Robbie Ray and other value arms also drew ownership as options.

What stacks did the Sims like on June 23? The Burke-led lineup pool concentrated on Boston (45% of the ownership share, the overwhelming chalk) and Baltimore (25%, against Ryan Johnson). Padres, Reds, Dodgers, and Diamondbacks came up as secondary stacks.

Why fade the full Boston stack? The host did not fade it outright, but the full Boston chalk added only about 3.5 projected points while adding about 27 points of aggregate ownership. In a single-entry tournament, that is too much field to take on for a small projection bump, so the lead build used Boston for leverage instead of loading up.

Where can I build these MLB DFS lineups myself? The Stokastic MLB DFS Sims, Top Stacks, and Ownership projections are on the Stokastic MLB DataHub. The single-lineup Sim shown on the stream is part of the same toolset.

Build Your Own Single Bullet

Everything on the show ran through the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims: build the player pool, filter to your pitchers, read the stacks, and grade your final lineup before you lock. Top Stacks shows you which teams the field is over and underweight, and Ownership projections turn that into real leverage. Try it on tonight's slate and take 15% off any DFS or Props package with code MLBLBL.

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