MLB DFS Picks Today 7/7: The Two-Ace deGrom Build

Some slates hand you the answer. This nine-game Tuesday is not one of them. It is a pay-up-at-pitching day, where the single decision that shapes everything is how much salary you are willing to sink into two starting pitchers. On Stokastic's Perfect Lineup, Dave Loughran and Josh Engleman made that call early and let the rest of the board bend around it. Here is the build, why it works, and the honest twist at the end: the obvious version of this lineup, the one that jams the chalk and spends all the way up, actually graded out underwhelming. The perfect one took work.

In Summary

• Anchor Pitcher: Jacob deGrom (TEX) at home vs the Angels. Chalky, but a slate-high 7.5 strikeout prop against the worst strikeout offense on the board.
• Second Arm (Contrarian): Justin Wrobleski (LAD) vs the Rockies, outside Coors, with an 18.5-outs prop and low projected ownership at $9,000.
• The Stack: Boston Red Sox vs White Sox lefty prospect Noah Schultz, a value stack with zero double-digit-owned bats.
• Pivots The Crew Flagged (Not Rostered): Taj Bradley (MIN) vs Cleveland, Payton Tolle (BOS) vs the White Sox.
• New to this? Start with today's MLB DFS picks board and how to use the MLB DFS Sims, then build with the Stokastic MLB single-lineup simulator

Watch The Video

Dave Loughran and Josh Engleman walk through the full build, pitchers, stack, and the live Sim, on the Perfect Lineup show: Watch on YouTube.

Top Pitcher Today: Jacob deGrom Vs The Angels

Start with the arm everyone will be on. Jacob deGrom (TEX) is going to be popular, and the read here is not some brave contrarian dart. It is leaning into a spot that is simply too good to fade. The Los Angeles Angels have been a disaster against right-handed pitching: only the Reds carry a higher strikeout rate versus righties, and only three teams have a lower wRC+ on the season. This deep into the year, approaching the All-Star break, that is not a small-sample mirage. That is who they are.

The one nagging asterisk is history. deGrom has inexplicably struggled against the Angels, tagged for a couple of home runs in these matchups. But there is little underneath it to suggest he should get clobbered, and the underlying arm is as sharp as ever: a strikeout rate north of 30%, and a 17% swinging-strike rate that trails only Jacob Misiorowski (17.3%) for the highest in baseball. Do not confuse a handful of ugly starts in one matchup with a pitcher in decline.

Now line the numbers up the way the show did, setup to reveal. The Angels own a slate-low 3.2 team total. They are 25th in ISO and 24th in home runs, so the power that used to fuel their big innings is not there. And deGrom draws a slate-high 7.5-strikeout prop pitching at home, where he has been excellent all year. That is the punchline. The one bullet you dodge by getting here is Zack Wheeler (PHI) against an equally punchless Reds lineup, but Cincinnati sits a full run higher in team total and plays in a much friendlier park at Great American with temperatures near 90. deGrom is the cleaner spot, and he is the one we keep coming back to.

Second Starter: A Contrarian Shot On Justin Wrobleski

Paying up for deGrom is only half the pitching bill, and this is where the build stops being obvious. Instead of a second strikeout monster, the Perfect Lineup took a shot on Justin Wrobleski (LAD), a name that admittedly may not sim out or grade in the strikeout department the way the arms we usually target here do. The case is not whiffs. It is the matchup and the leash.

The Rockies own the highest strikeout rate in baseball against left-handed pitching, over 25%, and rank 29th in wRC+, and crucially this game is outside Coors Field, at Dodger Stadium. Wrobleski is expensive at $9,000 and his 5.5-strikeout prop is only fine, but the number that matters is his 18.5-outs prop. That is a starter the book expects to work deep. Give a lefty seven frames against a bad offense that strikes out this much and a seven-strikeout game locks into range, at low projected ownership in a premier spot. It is a bet on volume and matchup instead of raw stuff, and it is the kind of shot we will take in a tournament every time.

The row that carries this table is Wrobleski's outs prop. It is the whole reason a modest strikeout arm is even in the pool. The two starters together run $18,500, and that combined spend is not a footnote. It is the constraint that dictates everything after it.

Top MLB DFS Stack Today: Boston Red Sox

Two arms at $18,500 means the bats have to be cheap, so the stack is not chosen in a vacuum. It is chosen to make the salary work. Josh Engleman went to the Boston Red Sox against White Sox lefty prospect Noah Schultz, and it fits on both counts. Schultz has the pedigree, a top-100 prospect with a big-time lefty slider, but he has not translated it to the majors yet in a small sample, and the hope is he hangs that slider over the plate. Boston, meanwhile, has quietly mashed lefties: sixth in wRC+ and 12th in ISO versus left-handed pitching. That points you toward the right-handed bats.

The value is the tell. Boston grades out near the top in stack score (nominally fifth, but really tied for third with two other teams) and fourth in top value, sixth in aggregate ownership. After the righty bats up top, there is not a single Red Sox regular projected at $4,500 or higher, so getting to the pieces you want is easy: Romy Gonzalez (BOS) at first, with Ceddanne Rafaela (BOS) and Wilyer Abreu (BOS) in the outfield. And here is the payoff to that deGrom-is-chalk point from earlier: this stack has no player projected for double-digit ownership. You get to eat the chalkiest ace on the slate and play a stack the field is not on, both sides of the coin, in one lineup.

Worked Example: Completing The Perfect Lineup

This is where the show earned its name, and where we learned that the obvious lineup was not the answer. Loading deGrom and Wrobleski into the single-lineup simulator with a cheap Boston core left roughly $4,500 for a catcher, a shortstop, and one more outfielder. The instinct is to just spend it all on the best plays. Complete the lineup and it happily hands you Shohei Ohtani (LAD) in the outfield, the full bag spent. Run that build through the Sim, though, and it comes back underwhelming, the kind of result we do not usually see here, a byproduct of forcing the cheapest Boston pieces and jamming every dollar into the obvious names.

So we did the work. Moving the flex spots to about $3,600 apiece and dialing in randomness, the Sim kept spitting out Ohtani, Ohtani, Ohtani at 5%, until 10% randomness finally opened up a different lineup: Patrick Bailey (SF) at catcher, Francisco Lindor (NYM) at short, Kyle Tucker (CHC) in the outfield. That build worked its way into positive simulated ROIs, around a 0.1% chance to win with a 27% cash rate. Not a slate-breaker, but a live, differentiated tournament lineup that the spend-all-the-way version could not produce.

That is the lesson of the day. On a two-ace slate, the perfect lineup is rarely the one the optimizer hands you first. It is the one you nudge, re-sim, and check.

Pitcher Pivots To Consider

If you want off these exact arms, the show named two starters worth a look, leans rather than official plays. Taj Bradley (MIN) sets up nicely against Cleveland, and Payton Tolle (BOS) carries a very nice strikeout prop against the White Sox in the other side of Boston's game. Neither made the final build, but both are reasonable ways to reshape the pitching if you are fading deGrom's chalk or Wrobleski's price.

Build your own Perfect Lineup. The single-lineup simulator, projections, and stack tools that powered this build are all in Stokastic MLB. Code PERFECT10 takes 10% off any week or month.

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More on this:

• MLB DFS Hub: Every Live Stokastic MLB Page
• MLB DFS Picks Today (8/18): Gausman Is Chalk On A 17-Point Pitching Slate
• MLB DFS Picks Today (8/18): DraftKings & FanDuel Lineups

FAQ

Who are the top MLB DFS pitchers today (7/7)? On Stokastic's Perfect Lineup, the build anchored to Jacob deGrom (TEX) at home vs the Angels, a slate-high 7.5-strikeout prop, paired with Justin Wrobleski (LAD) as a contrarian second arm against the Rockies outside Coors Field. The two combine for $18,500 in salary.

What is the best MLB DFS stack today? The show went to the Boston Red Sox against White Sox lefty prospect Noah Schultz. Boston rates sixth in wRC+ and 12th in ISO versus left-handed pitching, and the stack carries no double-digit-owned bats, so it is cheap, live, and low-owned.

How do I build the perfect MLB DFS lineup? Anchor to your pitching, let that spend dictate a value stack, then use the Stokastic single-lineup simulator to fill the last spots and check your lineup's simulated win and cash rates before you enter.

Plays, stacks, and simulated results via Stokastic's Perfect Lineup and the Stokastic MLB Sims. For entertainment; play responsibly.