MLB DFS Live Before Lock (7/30): Lindquist's Sasaki
July 30, 2026
Thursday's six-game main slate came down to a pitching decision Eric Lindquist made before a single lineup card even dropped: Roki Sasaki, not the field's two most popular arms, is his stand. Sasaki was projected around a quarter of DraftKings ownership behind Nolan McLean and Eury Pérez, and Lindquist built his 150-lineup max toward him anyway, running him in roughly 70% of his builds against a Seattle Mariners lineup that can absolutely burn a walk-prone pitcher back. A late weather delay for the Miami-Mets game complicated the picture right up to lock, and the way Lindquist worked through it, capping one arm here and nudging a Boston pivot there, is the read below.
Roki Sasaki — one of the featured players on today's slate.
In Summary
- Roki Sasaki (LAD) is Lindquist's most leveraged pitcher against Seattle, running around 70% of his 150 DraftKings lineups. He calls it the best raw stuff on the slate even though Sasaki was pulling roughly a quarter of the field's ownership and comes with real risk of ruin: he walks hitters and gives up power, including to right-handed bats.
- Nolan McLean (NYM) projects as the slate's top pure fantasy-point arm against Miami and lands in about 55% of Lindquist's lineups, with Eury Pérez (MIA) the other side of that game around 35%, both adjusted in real time as the Miami-Mets weather delay played out.
- JP Sears (SD) is a hard fade. Lindquist traces Sears' last four starts and finds a pitcher being deliberately capped at four days' rest every turn, and he is at 0% despite roughly 8-9% DraftKings ownership.
- Boston (BOS) is his top stack at Athletics' Sutter Health Park (around 35%), with the Atlanta Braves (ATL) as his clear second stack (around 30%) behind Grant Holmes, and lighter exposure to Pittsburgh and Seattle bats layered around his pitching bets.
- Nick Kurtz (ATH) had an injury scare (forearm MRI) before being confirmed back in the Athletics' lineup batting leadoff, a real-time swing Lindquist tracked live on air.
Watch The Video
Eric Lindquist runs the full build live below, from the early San Diego bullpen questions through the Miami-Mets weather call right up to Thursday's lock.
Why Roki Sasaki Is The Stand, Not The Field's Two Most Popular Arms
Lindquist opened the show flagging how condensed this slate's pitching pool is: 11 realistic MLB DFS pitcher options across six games, with most of that pool concentrated behind Nolan McLean and Eury Pérez in the weather-delayed Miami-Mets game. Between the two of them, he was looking at roughly 200% combined ownership potential, McLean the more popular of the pair and the pitcher he considers the slate's best pure fantasy-point projection.
But Sasaki is where he wanted his heaviest exposure. "I see no planet where Roki should be 25% of anything," he said, pointing to a trailing-month stuff profile he trusts more than the field does. Sasaki carries real risk of ruin, he was upfront about it repeatedly: he walks hitters, gives up hard contact when he falls behind in counts, and Seattle rolls out a lineup with real right-handed and switch-hitting power in Julio Rodríguez, Randy Arozarena and Cal Raleigh that can punish exactly that profile. Lindquist's answer was to lean into the process instead of dodging the variance: get ahead in counts and let the splitter play, and if Sasaki does that, "people can't touch it."
| Pitcher | Team | Matchup | Lindquist's exposure | The read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roki Sasaki | LAD | vs. SEA | ~70% | Best raw stuff on the slate; real walk/power-against risk |
| Nolan McLean | NYM | vs. MIA | ~55% | Top pure fantasy-point projection; weather-delayed game |
| Eury Pérez | MIA | at NYM | ~35% | Field's other popular arm in the same delayed game |
| Sonny Gray | BOS | at ATH | Field-level, boosted late | FanDuel pivot; quality-start streak into Thursday |
| JP Sears | SD | vs. SF | 0% | Capped at four days' rest every turn; workload red flag |
| Grant Holmes | ATL | vs. WSH | Small exposure | Backs the Braves stack behind him |
| Bryan Woo | SEA | at LAD | ~10-15% (hedge) | Fly-ball tendencies away from home; hedge against Sasaki exposure |
The row that matters most after Sasaki is Nolan McLean and Eury Pérez, because that Miami-Mets game was the one piece of the slate still moving in real time as lock approached.
You can see the same projections, ownership and stack data the show runs live in the Stokastic MLB DataHub, and each day's full board is on the MLB DFS picks hub. Get 10% off any MLB or All Access package with code MLBLBL.
The Weather Delay That Kept One Arm's Exposure Moving Until Lock
Miami at New York carried a delayed start most of the show's runtime, and Lindquist checked in on it repeatedly rather than setting his McLean/Pérez split once and walking away. He put himself at roughly 80% confident the game plays as a slow-moving shower rather than anything worse, noting the two clubs could still make up a doubleheader the next day if needed, which lowers the practical downside of a delay. His hedge was Sonny Gray: if the delay had worsened, he was ready to push Gray, who carried a real quality-start streak into Thursday's start at Sutter Health Park, up toward 60% as a safety valve. Because the shower looked like it was clearing, he left McLean and Pérez roughly where he had them, with a small bump to Gray anyway to smooth his overall variance rather than betting the whole build on one radar read.
That same Sonny Gray look is also his favorite FanDuel angle away from Sasaki. On a site where Sasaki and McLean both carry real ownership, Gray gave him a way to get off the top of the board without giving up quality, especially with the Athletics' order missing its top power piece for most of the show until Nick Kurtz's status was confirmed.
The JP Sears Fade: A Workload Red Flag Hiding Behind Ownership
This is the clearest outlier read on the slate, and it runs the opposite direction of the field. JP Sears carries the Padres' start against San Francisco, and Lindquist walked through his last four turns on the mound live: every one of them has come on exactly four days' rest, and his pitch counts and batters-faced totals in that stretch are unusually light for a starter, not the workload a team gives an arm it plans to stretch out. San Diego's rotation is thin enough behind him that the team keeps capping him rather than letting him work deep, and Lindquist expects the same treatment Thursday regardless of how the game script plays out.
The field hasn't caught up: Sears was pulling roughly 8-9% ownership on DraftKings and a small share on FanDuel. Lindquist's number is zero on both sites. "You are so much better off playing zero percent JP Sears today than 15% JP Sears today," he said, framing it as a workload-driven fade rather than a stuff or matchup call — the earlier bullpen news out of San Diego (Sears' own start plus late relief question marks behind him) only reinforced it.
Stacks: Boston Leads, Atlanta Is The Clear Second Team
With most of his attention on the pitching decision, Lindquist kept his stacking simpler than usual. Boston, facing Mason Barnett at Athletics' Sutter Health Park, is his top stack at roughly 35% of lineups, the same hitter-friendly park environment that made Boston bats a factor in Tuesday's build too. Atlanta, at home against Washington behind Grant Holmes, is his clear second team at around 30%, with lighter exposure layered into Pittsburgh (holding hands with the field rather than pushing an edge) and Seattle bats, the latter functioning as a direct hedge against how much Sasaki he's rostering on the mound.
| Stack | The matchup | The read |
|---|---|---|
| Boston Red Sox | at Mason Barnett (ATH), Sutter Health Park | Top stack, ~35%; hitter-friendly park repeats from earlier in the week |
| Atlanta Braves | vs. Washington | Clear second team, ~30%, behind Grant Holmes at home |
| Pittsburgh Pirates | at Cincinnati | Lighter, field-level exposure across the order |
| Seattle Mariners | vs. Roki Sasaki (LAD) | Direct hedge against his own heaviest pitcher exposure |
He ultimately passed on building any Miami or Mets stacks around the McLean-Pérez game. "The pitchers are too good to pass up. I don't think I need the stacks," he said, choosing to take both arms without doubling down on either offense.
Worked Example: Building The 150 Around A Contested Top Of The Board
In practice, Lindquist's build runs Roki Sasaki as his top pitcher seat in roughly 70% of his 150 DraftKings lineups, Nolan McLean in about 55%, and Eury Pérez in about 35%, with the overlap and gaps between those numbers explained by how MLB DFS pitcher ownership actually stacks: some lineups pair two of the three, some run just one, and a small share carry none of them at all. Boston fills the top stack seat in roughly a third of his builds, Atlanta the clear second team, with Pittsburgh and Seattle bats rotated in around the edges, the Seattle exposure doubling as a hedge against his own Sasaki number. On FanDuel, Sonny Gray becomes his preferred pivot away from the two most popular arms, and Nick Kurtz's return to the Athletics' leadoff spot after his forearm scare firmed up his interest in that game's top of the order.
The Through-Line: One Contested Arm, Then Hedge The Rest
Every decision on this slate traces back to the same tension: Roki Sasaki's upside was real enough for Lindquist to override the field's ownership and make him the single most leveraged pitcher of the day, and everything else, the McLean/Pérez weather math, the Sonny Gray pivot, the Seattle stack as a direct hedge, exists to manage the risk that stand carries. For the framework behind builds like this, see our MLB DFS stacking guide, our MLB DFS correlation strategy guide and our guide to using the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims. For Wednesday's board, see the July 29 Live Before Lock recap, and for sizing a 150-lineup split like this one, our MLB DFS multi-entry strategy guide and MLB DFS contrarian strategy guide cover the exposure math.
Build Your Own Lineups
Everything on Thursday's show ran through the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims: refresh projections when a lineup drops, cap or push any pitcher, and watch which stacks the simulations keep building around before lock. Try it on the next slate with code MLBLBL for 10% off any MLB or All Access package.