MLB DFS Perfect Lineup: DraftKings Top Plays For Monday, July 6

The Stokastic tools just turned a holiday-weekend dart throw into a $50,000 score. Tyler Scanlon fired a few lineups from the lake, spotted some overlay, and came home to a first-place surprise. On Monday's episode of The Perfect Lineup, Josh Ingram and Dave Loughran ran the July 6 MLB DFS slate through the Stokastic MLB Sims and built a DraftKings tournament lineup around it. Here is the read on the pitchers, the stack, and the finished build.

In Summary

• SP1: Kevin Gausman (TOR). Oracle Park caps his home-run risk, and the Giants' scary-low team strikeout rate is misleading.
• SP2: Griffin Jax (TB), $7,500. Stokastic's second-highest projected arm on a thin pitching slate. Eric Lauer (LAD) is the cheaper pivot.
• Stack: A Five-Man New York Mets Stack against Reynaldo López: cheap, balanced, and third in projected ownership.
• The Sims-Built Lineup: Gausman, Jax, the Mets five, plus Jose Altuve (HOU), Daulton Varsho (TOR), and Shohei Ohtani (LAD) simulated a 29% ROI.
• Build your own with the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims & projections. Code PERFECT20 takes 20% off Stokastic MLB.

Watch: The Perfect Lineup (July 6)

Josh and Dave walk through the full build live in the video below, including the single-lineup sim run. Watch on YouTube.

The Pitching: A Rough Slate With Two Arms Worth Trusting

This is an objectively rough pitching slate, and it starts with the fact that there just are not many strong arms on the board. Three of the better options, Kevin Gausman among them, all draw the three lowest-strikeout lineups in baseball against right-handers: the Rays, Giants, and Blue Jays, each under a 19% team K rate.

That is where the Sims and a little digging separate the fair from the good.

Kevin Gausman (TOR), SP1. The Giants' team K rate is a trap. Luis Arraez (roughly a 2.5% strikeout rate) and Jung Hoo Lee (around 8%) drag the number down so far that the lineup looks impossible to strike out. Look past those two and it flips: Rafael Devers (SF), Willy Adames (SF), and Heliot Ramos (SF) all sit in the 25-29% range against righties, and five of San Francisco's projected starters carry a 23%-plus strikeout rate versus right-handed pitching. Add Oracle Park, one of the best pitcher's parks in the game and about the toughest place in baseball to hit a home run, and you have cover for an arm who has fought the long ball at times this year. The Giants own the second-lowest team total on the slate at 3.8 runs. Gausman is inconsistent and we know it, but the strikeout upside and the park make him a necessary evil here. His props back it up: a 5.5-strikeout line and a 17.5-outs line juiced heavy to the over.

Griffin Jax (TB), $7,500, SP2. Jax projects surprisingly well for the price. Stokastic's data has him as the second-highest projected pitcher on the entire slate, behind only Cam Schlittler (NYY) at $11,000, and he ranks second in top-two-pitcher probability and second in value percentage despite being just the sixth-priciest arm. The one knock is a limited pitch count since he moved into the rotation, but he has been efficient with what he throws: five-plus innings in each of his last five starts over the past month, a 25% strikeout rate, a 4% walk rate, and a 14% swinging-strike rate. It helps that no team on the slate has a lower implied total than his opponent, the Yankees at 3.7 runs. His outs prop is juiced to the under, which fits a limited-pitch-count arm, but at this salary the projection wins.

The cheaper pivot: Eric Lauer (LAD). If you want to run two value arms and pay up for bats, Lauer is live. He is not a great pitcher, but the Rockies are dreadful against left-handed pitching, second-worst in wRC+ (ahead of only Cleveland) and a league-high 26% strikeout rate versus lefties. He also carries real win equity with the Dodgers sitting as roughly -231 home favorites, this time not at Coors.

Pitcher	Role	The read
Kevin Gausman (TOR)	SP1	Oracle Park kills the HR risk; Giants' low team K rate is Arraez/Lee-inflated.
Griffin Jax (TB)	SP2	2nd-highest projected arm on the slate; efficient, but watch the pitch count.
Eric Lauer (LAD)	Value pivot	Rockies are helpless vs. LHP; a big home favorite for win equity.

The Stack: A Cheap, Balanced Five-Man Mets Build

The bats come from the New York Mets, and Josh leaned on the Top Stacks Tool to get there. The Mets grade out fourth in top-stack rate and fifth in top-value, and they sit third in projected ownership. That balance is the appeal on a slate like this: strong process without a chalk price tag.

The target is Reynaldo López (ATL), who has not looked like his 2024 self. His July 1 start was solid, but the underlying data is still pointing the wrong way, so this is a fine arm to attack.

Be honest about the offense: the Mets rank 26th in wRC+ and 26th in ISO against right-handers, so this is not a juggernaut. What makes it work is the price. Juan Soto (NYM) is the one real tag at $5,800, and after that it gets cheap in a hurry. Bo Bichette (NYM) at $4,300 and Francisco Lindor (NYM) at $4,200 give you the middle of the infield at manageable numbers, and the stack rounds out with Francisco Alvarez (NYM) behind the plate and Jared Young (NYM). Spend up on Soto, fill the middle with Bichette and Lindor, and the cheap complementary pieces let the rest of the roster load up everywhere else.

20% off Stokastic MLB with code PERFECT20. The Top Stacks Tool, the projections, and the single-lineup sim behind this whole build all live inside Stokastic MLB Sims. Code PERFECT20 takes 20% off weekly, monthly, or All Access: Get Stokastic MLB.

Building The Perfect Lineup In The Single-Lineup Sim

With Gausman, Jax, and the five-man Mets stack (Francisco Alvarez, Jared Young, Bo Bichette, Francisco Lindor, and Juan Soto) locked in, the build left about $4,400 per remaining spot for a second baseman and two outfielders. That is a strong floor, so Josh let the single-lineup sim complete the roster around the core.

The "complete this lineup" fill returned the three best plays that fit the salary and projections: Jose Altuve (HOU), Daulton Varsho (TOR), and Shohei Ohtani (LAD), with $100 to spare. The full nine: Gausman, Jax, Alvarez, Young, Bichette, Lindor, Soto, Altuve, Varsho, Ohtani. Running it through the contest sim produced a 29% simulated ROI, a 33% cash rate, and a 0.1% chance to win the tournament.

From there it is about flexibility. A second build added 5% randomness, dropped Jared Young, slid Ohtani to first base, and worked in Jake Cronenworth (SD) plus another outfielder. Same five-man Mets stack, slightly different ownership profile, and still a 24% simulated ROI. The takeaway is that it is very easy to build multiple distinct Mets stacks off this core, and that flexibility is exactly what you want in a large-field tournament.

How To Play It

If you want the same Sims, Top Stacks Tool, and single-lineup sim Josh and Dave used to build this lineup, code PERFECT20 takes 20% off Stokastic MLB, whether you go weekly, monthly, or All Access. Start with the Stokastic MLB DFS Sims & projections, or grab the discount here:

Get 20% off Stokastic MLB. Millions of simulations per slate power the projections, ownership, and Top Stacks reads behind this build. Use code PERFECT20: Get Stokastic MLB.

FAQ

Who are the top MLB DFS pitchers for July 6? On a thin pitching slate, Kevin Gausman (TOR) is the SP1 with Oracle Park capping his home-run risk, and Griffin Jax (TB) is the second-highest projected arm on the board at $7,500. Eric Lauer (LAD) is the cheaper pivot against a Rockies lineup that struggles badly versus lefties.

Which MLB DFS stack does The Perfect Lineup like on July 6? A five-man New York Mets stack against Reynaldo López: Juan Soto, Bo Bichette, Francisco Lindor, Francisco Alvarez, and Jared Young, chosen for its price and balance (fourth in top-stack rate, fifth in top-value, third in ownership).

What is the Stokastic MLB DFS promo code today? Code PERFECT20 takes 20% off Stokastic MLB (weekly, monthly, or All Access) at the Stokastic pricing page.

What are Stokastic MLB Sims? Stokastic runs millions of simulations of each slate to produce projections, projected ownership, top-stack rates, and simulated ROI. The single-lineup sim then builds and tests a full DraftKings lineup, which is exactly how this Perfect Lineup was built.

Recap of The Perfect Lineup with Josh Ingram and Dave Loughran (July 6). Watch the full show on YouTube.