Welcome to the MLB Yahoo Cup Hot Corner! This free-to-enter, single-entry contest consists of 27 rounds where the top 1,075 overall entries and the top 70 entries per round share $10,000, with $1,000 to first and $50 to first per round. Scoring will be cumulative across all rounds, with your seven lowest scores dropped at the end. You may join this multi-round MLB DFS contest at any point, but enter today to give yourself the best chance to take home the title. Click here to begin the chase!
Let’s focus on three players — one pitcher, one infielder and one outfielder — to be MLB DFS picks for tonight’s MLB Yahoo Cup contest.
MLB DFS Pitcher: Johan Oviedo — $25
The pitching pool is wide open on this 14-game main slate. According to Awesemo’s Top Pitchers tool, there is not a single pitcher on Yahoo with over a 20% chance of finishing as a top-two pitcher at the end of the night. That means gamers can think a little outside the box with SP2, especially if it’s a cheap arm that provides some valuable savings to fit as many big bats into MLB Yahoo Cup lineups as possible. So while it might sound extremely uncomfortable to roster a pitcher in Coors Field, consider rostering Johan Oviedo at the minimum pitcher salary of $25.
Oviedo admittedly has less-than-impressive numbers this season, sporting a 5.23 ERA, 1.58 WHIP and 11.3% walk rate. But he has some pretty drastic platoon splits, accumulating 22 strikeouts in 90 plate appearances against righties this season (24.4% strikeout rate) as opposed to just 13 in 108 plate appearances against lefties (12.0% strikeout rate). And most importantly for pitching in Coors, Oviedo limits hard contact at an elite level, as evidenced by his 31.1% hard-hit rate and low 86.6 mph average exit velocity. Factor in the matchup against a Rockies team with a league-worst 73 wRC+ to right-handed pitching, and this could be a better spot for Oviedo than meets the eye. Take the extreme savings with Oviedo here, and put that money to good use rostering a top-tier stack.
MLB DFS Infielder: Carlos Correa — $27
If going down to the basement to play Oviedo, there is going to be access to some stacks that others simply won’t have the funds to afford. Most notably, the Astros have massive tags on their best hitters, making them the most expensive stack on the board. And according to the Awesemo Top Stacks tool, they are the third-most likely stack to break the slate but are only being rostered at a 1.2% clip. That gives them by far the best leverage score on the slate, making all of their top hitters a priority if trying to fade Coors to make up ground in the MLB Yahoo Cup.
This write-up could easily be about Jose Altuve as well, but he and Carlos Correa have to be priorities when putting together this contrarian stack. Correa has a .466 xSLG and 44.8% hard-hit rate, and although he has been slightly better against righties this season, his career numbers are more in line with him destroying lefties slightly more. Correa is also the most expensive hitter shortstop by $7, which should make him even more contrarian as most lineups will opt for the likes of Trevor Story and Tim Anderson for cheaper. But that’s the reason for finding the money for Correa, as he can easily play the role of slate breaker against Sam Hentges in Cleveland tonight.
MLB DFS Outfielder: Shohei Ohtani — $26
The entire Cardinals outfield makes for incredible plays on Yahoo this evening, especially with discounted salaries for Dylan Carlson ($18) and Tyler O’Neill ($21) in Coors Field. But if trying to shake up rosters to get a bit different, look no further than the hottest hitter in baseball, Shohei Ohtani. He leads all of MLB with 28 home runs after an insane road trip where he racked up five in five days, and now he returns home to face the Orioles and their reprehensible pitching staff all Fourth of July weekend.
While some may see the exorbitant $26 tag and shy away from Ohtani in a lefty/lefty matchup against Orioles starter Keegan Akin, look at it as an opportunity to get perhaps the highest ceiling player in a spot where he won’t be rostered nearly enough. Plus, Ohtani has eight homers in just 97 plate appearances against southpaws this season to go along with a .667 slugging and .997 OPS. Those are elite numbers against any handedness, making Ohtani a surprise under-the-radar play despite being the most talked about player in baseball.
