Welcome to the MLB Yahoo Cup Hot Corner! This free-to-enter, single-entry fantasy baseball 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 Yahoo Cup Fantasy Baseball Picks | Round 19
MLB DFS Pitcher: Jameson Taillon — $42
The trade deadline will have come and went by the time lock rolls around at 7:05 p.m. ET, but there is no doubt the Marlins have a substantially worse baseball team now than earlier in the week. With the departures of Starling Marte to the Athletics on Wednesday and now Adam Duvall to the Braves Friday morning, the outfield plate productivity went from stout to non-existent in less than 48 hours. That opens up massive opportunity for any and all pitchers going forward this season, starting with Yankees righty Jamison Taillon tonight.
Nothing about Taillon’s season is all that remarkable; 4.36 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, 40.7% hard-hit rate and just a 23.1% strikeout rate are not the numbers of a priority MLB DFS target. But the Awesemo Top Pitchers Tool has Taillon as the third-most likely pitcher to finish in the optimal lineup on Yahoo at 14.8%. And the significant downgrades to the Marlins lineup cannot be overstated, as Lewis Brinson with his brutal 32.2% strikeout rate is likely to be an everyday player for this team going forward. Add in the massive park upgrade pitching is Miami as opposed to Yankee Stadium, and Taillon’s $42 salary looks like one of the safer bets to utilize in MLB Yahoo Cup lineups tonight.
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The talent-rich Dodgers got even richer on Thursday, acquiring Max Scherzer and Trae Turner from the Nationals without giving up any relevant assets to their back-to-back championship aspirations. But that is not the only thing the Dodgers are celebrating on Friday, as Corey Seager is expected back against the Diamondbacks tonight. That does not bode well for righty starter Zac Gallen, who now has to contend with the deepest lineup in the National League. The Awesemo Top Stacks Tool loves the Dodgers as well, currently pegging them with the second-best odds of finishing as the top scoring team on the board at 8.4%, trailing only the Blue Jays’ 11.2%. And at only $17, Seager makes for an easy salary saver in the stack and perhaps an underrepresented one if the MLB Yahoo Cup opposition is not aware that he is due back in the lineup.
MLB DFS Outfielder: Cody Bellinger — $9
If Corey Seager is considered a salary saver at $17, that makes Cody Bellinger practically free at $9. Bellinger has been riddled by injuries himself this season, leading to only 188 plate appearances with a .160 batting average and .556 OPS. But positive regression has to be in store for Bellinger, who boasts a career .264/.345./.526 career slash line with three straight seasons of at least 25 or more home runs from 2017 to 2019. Even in the shortened 2020 season Bellinger had 12 homers in 54 games, and that is more indicative of his abilities than the mere five he has in 44 games this year. Buy into Bellinger stock at its lowest point and reap the rewards before he is back to a $20-plus tag.
