MLB DFS Picks Today (9/16): Kikuchi Is The Leverage Anchor

Yusei Kikuchi — one of the featured players on today's slate.

This is the recap of Wednesday's MLB DFS Live Before Lock. The FanDuel early slate locked during the show and the DraftKings main slate locked around 7:05 p.m. ET; what follows is the portfolio Eric Lindquist actually built and why.

In Summary

• Yusei Kikuchi (Angels) Is Eric Lindquist's DraftKings Anchor, landing in roughly 59% of his portfolio against a projected field of 28%, a 31-point leverage gap on a cheap tag. His DraftKings salary never came up on the show; on FanDuel he priced at $7,900 and was the optimal-lineup pitcher there.
• Shota Imanaga (Cubs) Is The Slate's Chalk And Lindquist Is Still Overweight Him Anyway, building to 40-45% against a field near 35% on a pitcher he's normally lower than the market on, because wind blowing in at Wrigley against a flyball arm is a real, repeatable edge.
• George Kirby (Mariners) Is This Slate's Fade: a pitcher Lindquist expects to land as the slate's second-most-popular DraftKings arm, a favorable matchup against a light Angels lineup, and Lindquist is staying underweight anyway to spread exposure across Kikuchi, Imanaga, Cristian Javier and Chris Bassitt.
• Chris Bassitt At $5,500 Is The Value Idea Nobody's Touching, and Lindquist is playing him in roughly a quarter to 30% of his lineups on a slate where the field won't click on him.
• Houston And Kansas City Are His Favorite Construction, a stack-the-Astros-and-fade-Javier-with-the-Royals double play that covers roughly 42% of his portfolio between the two teams.

Watch The Video

Eric Lindquist runs the full FanDuel-then-DraftKings build live, Sims screen share and all, on Stokastic's MLB DFS Live Before Lock. Watch the full show here: Watch on YouTube.

The Quick Answer

Lindquist's top DraftKings pitcher for Wednesday's slate is Yusei Kikuchi (Angels) against Seattle: a cheap tag that Lindquist rosters in roughly 59% of his lineups against a 28% field, the single largest leverage number on his board. The best stack is a Houston-Astros-plus-Kansas-City-Royals double play, Houston against Daniel Lynch IV and Kansas City against Cristian Javier, worth 42% of his portfolio combined. The fade is George Kirby, whom he expects to be the slate's second-most-popular arm despite a favorable matchup. The full pitcher pool for both sites, the FanDuel and DraftKings stacks behind it, and the three home run bets Lindquist actually fired are below.

Today's MLB DFS Slate At A Glance

Wednesday's card ran 11 games on the FanDuel early main slate, which locked during the show, and seven games on the DraftKings main slate with a lock right around 7:05 p.m. ET. Lindquist opened by saying he has never hated the pitchers on a single slate more than this one, and that's the thesis worth carrying through the rest of the slate: a lineup of arms he's historically been lower than the market on (Shota Imanaga, Yusei Kikuchi, George Kirby), all landing on the same night. That distaste doesn't mean fading all of them. It means the process case for each one has to clear a higher bar than usual, and where it does, he's playing them anyway even when it "doesn't feel good," in his words.

FanDuel and DraftKings split the slate differently, which is why the FanDuel top three don't exist on DraftKings at all. FanDuel's early main groups Blake Snell (Dodgers at Cincinnati), Zack Wheeler (Phillies at Washington) and Logan Henderson (Brewers at Pittsburgh). Snell, Wheeler and Henderson are the three FanDuel-only arms; Kikuchi, Imanaga, Kirby and Bassitt are on both boards, and DraftKings' later main slate is where those four carry the pool. That is why Lindquist can be well over the field on Imanaga at 7% FanDuel ownership and still treat him as chalk on DraftKings: different pools, different competition. Keep that split in mind, because it's the reason Lindquist can be "well over" the field on Imanaga at low FanDuel ownership while treating him as unavoidable chalk on DraftKings. He's not contradicting himself; he's building two different pools.

Picking Your Pitchers

FanDuel: A Different Top Three

Blake Snell (Dodgers) is the FanDuel chalk against Cincinnati, and he should be, but Lindquist flags a real caution: this is the first time since Snell's return that he's pitching on four days' rest instead of the Dodgers' usual five-or-six-day cushion, with a 16.5-outs prop that isn't gigantic and a Dodgers bullpen he calls disarrayed while the team pushes for the top seed. He's "maybe a little under" on Snell relative to the field. Zack Wheeler (Phillies) draws a tough Nationals Park with CJ Abrams back in Washington's lineup after missing Tuesday; Lindquist is right around the field's 14-15% on him. Logan Henderson (Brewers) rounds out the early top three against Pittsburgh, and Lindquist is a little surprised the field has him this far behind Snell and Wheeler, so he wants a bit more of him.

The pitcher he keeps coming back to, though, is Shota Imanaga (Cubs) against Atlanta at low FanDuel ownership (around 7%), which he thinks is too low. Wind is blowing in at Wrigley, Imanaga is a flyball pitcher facing a lineup with real lefty power, and Lindquist is usually out on him precisely because he gives up home runs and has been lucky stranding runners, with negative regression due on a 4.69 FIP. On Wednesday the 3.77 SIERA, the wind in and the lefty-heavy Atlanta lineup add up to a much better than typical Wrigley spot for him. He calls it the one place on FanDuel where he's "well over" the field.

DraftKings: Kikuchi, Chalk Imanaga, And The Kirby Fade

Yusei Kikuchi (Angels) against Seattle is the DraftKings anchor. He's a cheap tag relative to the top of the pool, and once Lindquist's Sims run settled, the exposure landed at 59% against a projected field of 28%, a 31-point leverage gap he calls out directly on screen. Shota Imanaga (Cubs) carries over as DraftKings' most popular pitcher, and Lindquist is still building above the field: with the field near 35%, he is landing in the 40-45% range as his final Sims re-ran through the show, on the same case from the FanDuel section: a flyball arm who normally gets punished by lefty power, in a park where the wind is blowing in. The only thing capping him there instead of higher is the $8,800 tag, on a slate where he thinks a sub-$7,000 arm can break your way.

Cristian Javier (Astros, $6,000) is this slate's most-discussed price tag, and the reason the field lands on him at 16% is mechanical: a $6,000 arm is the salary relief that lets a lineup afford a five-man Coors Field stack. His last two starts show 13 strikeouts and a surface that looks locked in, but Lindquist's box-score dive finds the read is fragile. Javier's four-seamer and changeup have both been poor, and the one pitch grading well, his slider, is a pitch he throws about 1% of the time. His overall Stuff+ of 97 is propped up by a nearly irrelevant offering. The field is projected around 16% on Javier and Lindquist is over that number, though short of the 37% number on his screen. He also stacks Kansas City against him, but by his own count he has more lineups with Javier in them than against him, which is normal when a portfolio needs 200% pitcher exposure filled and only one five-man stack per lineup. Chris Bassitt (Orioles, $5,500) is the contrarian idea: a pitcher he specifically chose not to cover in the FanDuel segment because "the field's not there for it," now getting a real stand at roughly a quarter to 30% of Lindquist's DraftKings lineups on a slate where he expects almost nobody else to click on him, despite a recent strong start in a return trip to his former team.

George Kirby (Mariners) at Los Angeles is the fade. Lindquist has historically been lower than the market on Kirby, and the surface strikeout numbers back it up: outside of one nine-strikeout outing a few starts back that he calls a "red herring," Kirby's whiff stuff has been down for weeks. The matchup argues the other way (the Angels lineup he'd be facing has almost no concerning left-handed bats, since Wade Meckler is more average than power), but Lindquist stays underweight anyway rather than fight a plan that spreads onto Kikuchi, Imanaga, Javier, Bassitt and others. The other half of that fade is the bats behind it: he wants more Angels stacks than he currently has, because fading Kirby and stacking the lineup he faces is the same bet twice.

The Kirby row is the one worth sitting with: a good matchup and second-most-popular billing usually means "play him," and Lindquist is passing anyway because his conviction elsewhere is higher. That's the whole slate in one decision: trust the process over the eye test, but only where the process actually clears the bar.

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Top Stacks To Target

The pitcher fades above set up the stacks, and Houston is the clearest example. Kansas City's Daniel Lynch IV has been an excellent bullpen arm for the Royals all year (a 1.96 run average and 3.06 FIP out of the pen) but is starting Wednesday, and Lindquist's read is blunt: pitchers who thrive in short relief bursts routinely lose their feel once they're stretched out as starters, and his seven starts this year back that up, a small sample the host flags himself: a 12.5% strikeout rate, rising home run and walk rates, and a 5.44 SIERA and 5.24 xFIP as a starter against his elite bullpen numbers. Houston is both his favorite stack and the Sims' favorite stack for exactly that reason, with Yordan Alvarez the anchor and Isaac Paredes among his top third basemen. His three most-rostered catchers on the slate are Yainer Diaz, Cal Raleigh and Carter Jensen, with a little more Diaz than Raleigh and Jensen above 15%, so the Houston lean reaches the catcher slot too. The flip side of the same game is Kansas City stacked against Cristian Javier, using Bobby Witt Jr., Vinnie Pasquantino, Michael Massey and Jac Caglianone, which Lindquist calls the fourth-highest-owned stack on the board even though he's "so far over" it himself. Combined, Houston and Kansas City cover roughly 42% of his portfolio, by far his heaviest construction of the night.

San Diego is the slate's overall chalk, and Lindquist is playing plenty of it (Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado, Jackson Merrill, Ty France, Jake Cronenworth, Dustin Harris) at just under 25%, enough to acknowledge it's the popular side without full five-man stacking every lineup. Seattle, at roughly 15%, is the other side of the same Angels-Mariners game: if he's 55-60% Kikuchi, "there's not a planet that I'm not playing a lot of Seattle on the other side," so the lineups without Kikuchi take the Mariners' bats rather than leaving the game blank. Miami is the stack he's warming to late, an Esteury Ruiz, Heriberto Hernández, Otto Lopez, Griffin Conine and Javier Sanoja group against Arizona's Merrill Kelly, who has a 13% strikeout rate against lefties this season and a .410 xwOBA allowed to them that Lindquist reads as regression waiting to happen, with Xavier Edwards struggling enough to sit seventh in the order.

Over half of his lineups carry some Houston or Kansas City exposure, and the split is deliberate: Astros bats against Daniel Lynch IV in the large-field builds, Royals bats against Houston's own Cristian Javier when he wants the less popular side. The single-entry card goes to the Royals, and the reason is below.

FanDuel Early-Slate Stacks: Dodgers, Rockies, Rays

The FanDuel early slate is where Lindquist's biggest stack conviction actually lives, even though he's playing far less volume there. San Diego is the chalk and he's fine with it, but the team he loves is the Dodgers against Andrew Abbott, a pitcher whose last month on Lindquist's screen showed a .624 expected ISO allowed. "This is insanity," in his words: "You might see that for an individual game. You don't see this for multiple outings." Kyle Tucker "looks like a different human being at the plate" lately, Miguel Rojas brings multi-position eligibility at $2,400, and Will Smith is the most popular non-Coors bat at catcher/first base. He doesn't need you to have Smith, but he likes him a lot. Colorado against Robbie Ray is the other clear one: Ray "walks the universe," the Rockies' righties should have fun at altitude, and the one lefty he'd still play, Jake McCarthy, carries a .390 wOBA against lefties this year. Tampa Bay against Brady Basso is his differentiating stack, a move-the-line group (Junior Caminero the lone big-power bat) against a starter whose fastball he calls a meatball and an Athletics bullpen that intimidates no one. Philadelphia is where he pumps the brakes: second-most-popular on FanDuel, but Jared Simpson is a lefty, and outside of Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper the Phillies' left-handed bats (Trea Turner's power has been absent this year, Luis Arraez doesn't hit the ball hard) make him lower than the field. Houston is fine there too, nothing crazy.

The Dodgers row is the one that matters most: a .624 expected ISO over a month is the kind of number that usually belongs to a single blowup, not a stretch of starts, and it's why Lindquist's preferred FanDuel build runs through Tucker, Rojas and Smith rather than a fifth Padre.

Example Lineup: Why His Single Entry Takes The Less Popular Side

Houston is the stack that keeps showing up in Lindquist's large-field DraftKings builds, and that is exactly why his single-entry lineup doesn't use it. Houston projects a little more popular than Kansas City, and he assumes other people running the Sims will see what he sees and land on the same Astros stack. So the single entry goes to the Kansas City side: a Royals stack against Cristian Javier, San Diego pieces around it, and one Astro. He needs Javier's ownership to go "mega nuclear" for that card to pay.

The mechanic behind the apparent contradiction of playing Javier in more lineups than he stacks against him is simple portfolio math. A DraftKings MLB portfolio has 200% pitcher exposure to fill (two starters per lineup), but each lineup only gets one five-man stack. Wanting to stack against a pitcher and rostering him a lot are both true at once; the pitcher slots outnumber the stack slots.

A second viewer question got a related answer. Asked whether to save $400 or $100 by choosing Jackson Merrill over Yordan Alvarez, his answer was "why not both": Merrill projects better, Alvarez sits further down the list, so in a single lineup it's Merrill, but the portfolio carries plenty of each. And there's no reason to five-man stack the Padres in every lineup to reach Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Merrill; the Houston-Kansas City builds still get to them.

The Home Runs Lindquist Actually Bet

Lindquist closed the show reading a long list of viewer home run submissions from chat, but only three carry his own first-person "I bet"; the rest were fan picks, not his plays, so they're left off this board. He bet Bobby Witt Jr. (Royals) to go deep against Cristian Javier before the show, targeting anything close to +400 at Daikin Park (he'd have preferred Kauffman Stadium in 90-degree heat, but took the number anyway). He bet Esteury Ruiz (Marlins) at +525 before the show, and said on air that price was already better than anything left in the market. And he bet Gunnar Henderson (Orioles) Tuesday night at a number over +800. None of those prices are quoted as available now.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is the top DraftKings MLB DFS pitcher today (9/16)? Yusei Kikuchi (Angels) against Seattle. He's a cheap tag that lands in roughly 59% of Eric Lindquist's DraftKings lineups against a projected field of 28%, the largest ownership-versus-exposure gap on his board Wednesday.

What is the best MLB DFS stack today? Houston against Kansas City's Daniel Lynch IV, a bullpen arm stretched into the rotation. It's both Lindquist's favorite stack and the Stokastic Sims' favorite stack, and it pairs with a Kansas City stack against the Astros' Cristian Javier, and together the two stacks are his heaviest construction of the night.

Is Chris Bassitt worth playing on DraftKings (9/16)? At $5,500 against a Mets offense Lindquist calls "absolute killers," it's a real value stand rather than a lock; he's building him into roughly a quarter to 30% of his lineups precisely because the field won't click on that price tag, pointing to a recent strong start in a return trip to his former team as part of the case.

Why is George Kirby a fade despite a good matchup? Kirby's strikeout stuff has been down for weeks outside of one nine-strikeout outing Lindquist calls a red herring, and even though the Angels lineup he faces is light on dangerous left-handed bats, Lindquist stays underweight to keep his exposure concentrated on Kikuchi, Imanaga, Javier and Bassitt instead.

The Bottom Line

Forty-two percent of Lindquist's DraftKings portfolio rides on one game, Royals at Astros, split between Houston bats against Daniel Lynch IV and Kansas City bats against Houston's own Cristian Javier. Around it he plays the chalk where the process backs it up (Imanaga's wind-and-flyball case, Kikuchi's cheap leverage), fades the popular arm with the good matchup when his conviction sits elsewhere (Kirby), and takes the one value idea the field won't touch (Bassitt at $5,500). That is a portfolio built from arms he has been lower than the market on for years, played anyway where the numbers cleared the bar. Run the next slate through the Stokastic DataHub for MLB before its lock, and see today's MLB DFS picks hub for the current board. New to some of the terms above? The MLB DFS glossary covers ownership, leverage and stacking, and how to build winning MLB DFS lineups walks through the construction process end to end. Playing FanDuel instead? The FanDuel MLB DFS cheat sheet and the DraftKings MLB DFS cheat sheet track both sites' pricing every slate.

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