MLB DFS Live Before Lock Picks: July 9, 2026

Thirteen games on the board Thursday, and host Eric Lindquist spent the show making the case for spreading out. There is no single chalk pitcher to build around this time. Four arms grade out close together in the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims, the highest-owned stack (the Los Angeles Angels) is barely a plurality, and the most-talked-about lineup on the slate, the Phillies against Cincinnati, is one he is actively trying to trim. The through-line: on a slate this flat, the leverage is in who you're NOT overweighting, not who you are.

In Summary

• The Most Underowned Arm: Bryce Miller (Mariners), The Most Expensive Pitcher On The FanDuel Slate. The host called him the best pitcher on the slate on pure stuff, but he's stuck behind Nathan Eovaldi, Jesús Luzardo, and Reid Detmers in ownership because of a tougher strikeout matchup, so the Sims are pushing exposure up to him anyway.
• The Chalk Four: Nathan Eovaldi (Rangers), Jesús Luzardo (Phillies), Reid Detmers (Angels), And Bryce Miller. The host is "handholding with the field" across all four rather than picking a single favorite.
• The Wildcard: Jack Perkins (Athletics). Real strikeout upside, but Jose Suarez may open the game ahead of him, muddying how deep Perkins actually goes.
• The Leverage Dart: Brady Singer (Reds), Around 10% Exposure. A fade of the popular Phillies stack. Singer strikes out lefties at a notably higher clip than righties, and the Phillies lineup is stacked with them.
• Top Stack: The Los Angeles Angels, Again. But it's a far more spread-out build than Wednesday's near-20% exposure night.

Watch The Video

Watch the full 13-game breakdown, including every pitcher exposure and stack read straight out of the Sims, on Thursday's MLB DFS Live Before Lock. Watch on YouTube.

The Pitchers: Four Arms, No Clean Favorite

Nobody on this slate separated the way Wednesday's chalk did. Instead, the host framed it as four pitchers bunched together: Nathan Eovaldi (TEX), Jesús Luzardo (PHI), Reid Detmers (LAA), and Bryce Miller (SEA), with a fifth name, Jack Perkins (ATH), as a calculated, capped-exposure wildcard.

Nathan Eovaldi (TEX) vs. Los Angeles Angels. The most popular pitcher on the slate, and the host's projected highest-owned arm at roughly 44% on DraftKings. The case is simple: he's a strong bet to clear seven and a half strikeouts, and he's pitching in Arlington, not a bandbox. The catch is that popularity. On a slate that rewards spreading out, Eovaldi is the pitcher the host is least trying to differentiate from the field on.

Jesús Luzardo (PHI) at Cincinnati Reds. The best raw stuff on the board. The host's read leans on the skill-independent numbers rather than the ugly ERA: a 3.24 SIERA and 2.98 xFIP against a 3.75 ERA, with a .337 BABIP dragging the surface stats down. That gap is mostly a Great American Ball Park problem, a top HR park where his home starts have been rough, but not one that inflates the process stats that actually predict forward performance. He was around 68% of the host's Wednesday builds. Thursday, he's trimming that toward the low 50s and reallocating straight into Miller.

Reid Detmers (LAA) vs. Texas Rangers. The cheapest of the big four and the host's highest-owned arm alongside Luzardo and Eovaldi. Nothing exotic here: he's a clean, affordable anchor that lets the host spend up elsewhere in the lineup.

Bryce Miller (SEA) at Miami Marlins. The host's actual favorite arm on the board, and the one he's most actively buying up. "Bryce Miller has been the best pitcher, but he is in the worst spot of these four," was the framing: his strikeout upside (around 5.5 Ks) trails the other three because of matchup, and that's exactly why he's stuck near single-digit ownership on FanDuel (about 8.5%) despite being the most expensive pitcher on that slate. The host moved him from roughly 4% up toward 19% of DraftKings builds over the course of the show, trimming Luzardo to fund it. loanDepot park (MIA) is a pitcher-friendly environment, which reinforces the case.

Worked Example: How The Sims Moved Ownership Live On Air

The clearest number on the show was the Luzardo-to-Miller shift. The host started the stream around 68% Luzardo and roughly 4% Bryce Miller across his DraftKings player pool. By the end, Luzardo had come down toward the 50-55% range he settled on, and Miller had climbed to roughly 19%, funded almost entirely by that trim. Nothing else in the pool moved to make room for it. That's the whole thesis in one number: Miller graded as the better process pitcher all show, and the ownership gap between him and Luzardo was the inefficiency worth trading into, not a reason to avoid either one.

This is the exact read the Sims are built to surface. Run a slate tens of thousands of times and you can see when the field is bunching ownership on the obvious names while the better process-based arm sits underowned. Get the same MLB DFS Sims the show runs on with 30% off any monthly All-Access DFS or Props package with code JULY30: start here.

Pitcher	Team	Role	The read
Nathan Eovaldi	TEX	Most popular	~44% DK owned; strong K bet in a hitter-neutral park
Jesús Luzardo	PHI	Best stuff	Elite SIERA/xFIP; trimmed from ~68% toward the low 50s
Reid Detmers	LAA	Cheap anchor	Affordable, high-floor arm; frees salary elsewhere
Bryce Miller	SEA	Most underowned	Best pitcher on the slate per the host; pushed 4% → ~19%
Jack Perkins	ATH	Wildcard	Real K upside, but Jose Suarez (ATH) may open ahead of him

Jack Perkins (ATH) at Detroit Tigers is the one arm outside the top four the host is willing to touch, purely for strikeout ceiling. The complication: Jose Suarez (ATH) may be the one who actually starts the game, which leaves Perkins' innings, and therefore his fantasy ceiling, genuinely uncertain. It's a capped stand, not a lineup-defining one. For more on how to structure exposure around a bunched pitcher pool like this one, our MLB DFS contrarian strategy guide walks through the framework.

FanDuel: The Same Four, Priced Differently

FanDuel ownership concentrates even harder on the same top three. Detmers, Luzardo, and Eovaldi are drawing the bulk of the field, which the host estimated at roughly 140 of 150 lineups if he ran a full FanDuel slate. His ranking there: Reid Detmers first (cheapest of the bunch), Bryce Miller second (the priciest arm on the board, but with a matching quality-start price at -170 to go over one and a half), then Luzardo and Eovaldi rounding out the top four. The gap the host kept coming back to: Miller sitting around 8.5% owned on FanDuel is "disingenuous to how good [he's] been" relative to the top three.

This is the leverage a live ownership read gets you. The Stokastic MLB DFS Sims show exactly where the field is bunching, in real time, so you can move off the popular arm before lock instead of after. Take 30% off any monthly All-Access DFS or Props package with code JULY30: start here.

The Stacks: Angels On Top Again, But Spread Thin

Unlike Wednesday's near-20%-exposure night on the Los Angeles Angels, Thursday's build is far more diffuse. The Angels vs. Eovaldi remain the host's highest-owned stack in the Sims, but at a fraction of the prior concentration. The pitch is the same logic as before (stacking the field against the slate's most popular arm), just sized down because no single stack dominates the Sims output the way it did against Mackenzie Gore the night before.

Los Angeles Angels vs. Nathan Eovaldi. Zach Neto (LAA) is the host's favorite tournament shortstop on this slate and his second-highest-owned batter at 25%, alongside Nolan Schanuel (LAA), whom the Sims grade "well above the field." Mike Trout (LAA) and Jo Adell (LAA) both delivered for the host in Wednesday's build against Gore, and the Angels carry over as a lineup the Sims still favor even against a tougher arm in Eovaldi.

Philadelphia Phillies at Cincinnati Reds is the popular stack the host is fading down, not building up. Great American Ball Park is a genuine home-run park but a below-average one for hits and doubles, which caps how many different ways a Phillies stack actually pays off. Kyle Schwarber (PHI) and Bryce Harper (PHI) both carry outlier home-run pricing on the board, but the host's plan is to chop off two or three of the popular bats rather than roster the full stack. That's exactly what makes Brady Singer (CIN) the counter-play.

Brady Singer (CIN), around 10% of the host's builds, is the direct leverage piece against that Phillies chalk. Singer strikes out left-handed hitters at nearly a 10-percentage-point higher clip than right-handers, and Thursday's Phillies lineup runs several lefty bats, including Bryson Stott (PHI), Brandon Marsh (PHI), and Schwarber, making it a better swinging-strike matchup than it looks on the surface. The pitch: rostering Singer both gets leverage on the field that's overweight Philadelphia and frees up salary for pricier bats elsewhere. Our MLB DFS stacking guide breaks down when a pitcher-as-leverage play like this is worth the exposure.

Stack / Play	Opposing pitcher	Why it's live
Los Angeles Angels	Nathan Eovaldi	Top-owned stack again; Neto and Schanuel graded well above field
Philadelphia Phillies	Brady Singer (fade)	Popular chalk the host is trimming, not stacking
Athletics	Jack Perkins/Detroit pen	Host prefers A's slightly over Detroit per the Sims
San Diego Padres	None	No single stand, but many paths to fantasy points

The Athletics graded a touch ahead of the Detroit Tigers in the Sims, and the host flagged real caution on individual Detroit bats: Matt Vierling (DET) is a lower priority today given the platoon uncertainty behind him, while Spencer Torkelson (DET) and Kerry Carpenter (DET) both project well above the field. On the other side, the host has zero exposure to Merrill Kelly, Carson Wisenhunt, and Framber Valdez (DET) across his player pool. None of the three cleared the bar for a single lineup slot.

San Diego Padres at Arizona didn't draw a heavy stand from the host, but he pointed out there are a lot of independent paths to fantasy points there: Fernando Tatis Jr. (SD) and Manny Machado (SD) both carry real home-run equity on the night, even without a full-stack commitment.

The Through-Line: A Flat Slate Rewards Spreading Out

The whole show kept circling back to the same idea: on a 13-game slate with four pitchers bunched together and no runaway stack, the edge isn't in finding one bold stand. It's in not letting any single read dictate the whole build. That's why the host is "handholding with the field" on Eovaldi, Luzardo, and Detmers rather than fading hard off any one of them, while still carving out real, capped exposure to the two genuine differentiators on the slate: Bryce Miller at pitcher and Brady Singer as the counter to Phillies chalk. Get away from those four arms entirely, the host said, and "I'm going to make a small case in large field," meaning any lineup built around a fifth pitcher needs a real reason, not just a desire to be different. For a refresher on the DFS terms used throughout this recap, see our MLB DFS glossary.

FAQ

Who are the top MLB DFS pitchers for July 9? Nathan Eovaldi (TEX), Jesús Luzardo (PHI), Reid Detmers (LAA), and Bryce Miller (SEA) are the four the host is building around. Miller is the most underowned of the four on both sites despite grading as the best pitcher on the slate by process.

What is the best MLB DFS stack on July 9? The Los Angeles Angels against Nathan Eovaldi are the host's highest-owned stack, led by Zach Neto and Nolan Schanuel, though the exposure is far more spread out than Wednesday's Angels-heavy build.

Why fade the Phillies if they're the most popular stack? Great American Ball Park is a strong home-run park but a below-average park for hits and doubles, which limits how the Phillies stack actually pays off. The host used Brady Singer, who strikes out lefties at a notably higher rate, as direct leverage against that chalk.

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

Build Your Own Lineups

Everything on the show ran through the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims: build the player pool, filter to your pitchers, read which stacks the Sims keep building around, and grade your final lineup before lock. Top Stacks shows you which teams the field is over- and underweight on, and Ownership projections turn that into real leverage. Try it on tonight's slate and take 30% off any monthly All-Access DFS or Props package with code JULY30: grab Stokastic Sims now.