MLB DFS Picks, Ownership, Projections & Stacks

The litany of pitching lousiness on today’s slate lends itself to some teams nearing double-digit run totals by the end of the night. There are bad starters taking the mound ahead of bad bullpens in a number of spots, while even the slate’s best starters are in tough matchups. Getting to a wide range of hitting combinations and gambling somewhat by freewheeling the bad pitching options is a good tournament approach. Using Awesemo’s expert MLB DFS projections, we can find some of the best MLB DFS lineup picks and stacks today for DraftKings and FanDuel.

MLB DFS Tournament Strategy: Top HR Options

Home runs are the holy grail when making MLB DFS picks. Finding the right combination of sluggers who will knock one, or better two, out of the park to drive in the teammates you stack with them is critical to winning GPPs. Identifying the likely home run hitters is trickier than just looking at the big names. Using a model of my own design, based on a blend of several predictive statistics for the batter-pitcher matchup, I will give one of the top choices from each team. However, it will not always be the absolute top-ranked player, particularly when there is an obvious star in that spot every day.

Home Run Ratings

Check out all of Awesemo’s top-notch baseball content and free MLB DFS picks.

Scale: 5-10 Average; 10-20 Good; 20-25 Very Good; 25+ Great

Arizona Diamondbacks: Ketel Marte — 10.85

Atlanta Braves: Ozzie Albies — 6.84

Chicago Cubs: David Bote — 4.18

Chicago White Sox: Jose Abreu — 10.39

Colorado Rockies: C.J. Cron — 10.58

Houston Astros: Yordan Alvarez — 6.40

Kansas City Royals: Andrew Benintendi — 5.78

New York Yankees: Gary Sanchez — 9.10

Oakland Athletics: Matt Olson — 15.86

Pittsburgh Pirates: Colin Moran — 11.46

Seattle Mariners: Ty France — 8.70

Toronto Blue Jays: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. — 5.87

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Power Index

This is intended to capture the full range of home run upside for each team. It is not meant as a stack ranking and does not account for pricing or popularity — only home run potential. The first column is the average rating for the full projected lineup (pitcher bats not included in non-DH games), and the second is for the top six hitters in the projected lineup.

MLB DFS Pitchers, Optimal Stacks & Leverage Plays

This section will feature a few standout MLB DFS spots and teams to look at for potential plays on DraftKings and FanDuel. Ensure to check out the Awesemo Ownership Projections for critical updates and monitor the top stacks tool throughout the day for changes.

On the Hill

A rough Monday pitching slate is topped in terms of talent by Lance Lynn of the White Sox, but the veteran righty will be facing a very challenging Blue Jays squad. On the other side of the same contest, young Alek Manoah will be similarly challenged by Lynn’s supporting cast of excellent hitters. Neither starter is safe, but they represent the two clearest paths toward upside. The slate continues with a broad range of soft-tossing mediocrity, including Jordan Montgomery, Kyle Hendricks, Zack Greinke and Marco Gonzales. From its peak to the very bottom, the Top Pitchers Tool for this slate is balanced, even the bottom options have a comparable chance of coming up with a relevant MLB DFS score. Of these wild cards, Antonio Senzatela seems to be in the best situation, taking on a deeply depleted Cubs team.

Lynn is typically reliable to get through enough innings to reach a quality start and a win bonus. He has thrown 123.2 innings in 22 starts this season, posting a 3.93 xFIP with a 1.07 WHIP while striking out 27.8% of hitters. He walks a few too many at 7.8% but he induces an 11.6% swinging strike rate and is great at limiting premium contact. Through the season, Lynn has yielded just a 6.2% barrel rate and a 33.3% hard-hit rate. He will be facing a Blue Jays squad that ranks first in baseball with a 4.76% home run rate against righties. The Toronto active roster has a collective .201 ISO in the split and they strike out merely 20.9% of the time, the third-best mark behind San Diego’s 20.8% and Houston’s 20.3%. The Blue Jays create runs 17% better than average by collective WRC+ in the split, which falls second behind only the Astros. Lynn will be justifiably popular for $9,900 on DraftKings and $10,100 on FanDuel. He is currently drawing ownership that is roughly level with his probability of success. If Lynn gets more popular during the day, it would make sense to consider a minor undercut to the field.

On the other side, Manoah will be facing a White Sox lineup that ranks eighth best in run creation against righties, coming up eight% ahead of the curve. Chicago has a .167 ISO and a 3.63% home run rate in the split that at or around the league average, while their 24% strikeout rate drops to the bottom half of the league, which could be encouraging for Manoah’s upside. He has struck out 28.3% of opposing hitters through 62 innings in 12 starts this season. He has an elevated 8.5% walk rate and allows an 8.3% barrel rate, but the strikeouts help him avoid significant trouble with sequential hitting and run creation. Manoah induces an excellent 12.7% swinging strike rate but could improve upon a 28.2% CSW. He has limited hard hits to just 33.1%, another strong indicator of his overall quality. He will be owned at nearly twice the popularity as Lynn for just a $500 discount on the blue site, while he is coming up as the highest-owned starter on DraftKings for just $8,500.

Montgomery facing a heavily right-handed power hitting Braves team is not exactly anyone’s idea of a secure MLB DFS play. On this slate, however, Montgomery is one of the leading contenders for ownership shares and as likely as any other candidate to put up one of the night’s highest scores on the mound. He has had a quality season overall, pitching to a 3.95 xFIP over 119.1 innings in 22 starts. He has a 24.6% strikeout rate and a 7.5% walk rate, while inducing a surprising 13.5% swinging strike rate but compiling just a 28.7% CSW. Montgomery yields a 36.3% hard-hit rate and 7.9% barrel rate, mid-range numbers that play generally well for contact. The concern in this matchup comes from a Braves lineup that is likely to feature only one left-handed hitter, namely Freddie Freeman. He slashes .269/.350/.439 with a .170 ISO while creating runs 14% better than average against fellow lefties for his career, he does not provide a defilade for opposing southpaws. The Braves active roster is sixth in baseball with a 4.22% home run rate against lefties and they have a .187 team ISO that sits second in the split, behind a three-way tie at .189 between the Giants, White Sox and Dodgers. Atlanta strikes out at a 23.1% rate in the split, around the middle of the league, while they create runs exactly at the league average by WRC+. Montgomery stands a chance of getting through this lineup cleanly, but the smart money is on the powerful Braves offense. For just $8,000 on FanDuel, however, Montgomery’s single-digit ownership is likely too low. He is owned at only 15% on the DraftKings slate but carries a whopping $10,000 price tag on the site, making him a wildly different play.

Senzatela has a 15.5% strikeout rate over 112 innings in 20 starts this season. That anemic mark represents a three-year high for the righty, while his 4.9% walk rate is a three-year low. The limited strikeouts are a major problem for the starter in terms of allowing sequencing and run creation, but his ability to limit free passes at least keeps his head slightly above water. Senzatela has a 4.16 xFIP with a concerning 1.40 WHIP, a number that is largely inflated by a .333 batting average on balls in play against for the season. He allows far too much hard contact, coming in with a 44.1% rate and a 90.7 mph average exit velocity, though he is somewhat helped by a 7.3-degree average launch angle and six% barrel rate. He has yielded just nine home runs this season for a 0.72 HR/9, while his career mark is better than expected at 1.09. Ultimately, he is not anything close to a good pitcher, but Senzatela takes on a Cubs team that is among baseball’s worst, coming in with a bottom-ranked 25.9% strikeout rate against righties. Chicago has just a .144 collective ISO and a 3.14% home run rate in the split, while creating runs 17% worse than average. Even if he is not good, Lynn stands a chance of getting through six innings of limited damage and reaching a quality start. Any strikeouts he finds along the way would be a bonus, but for the price and limited popularity on both sites, Lynn is in play.

Seattle Mariners

The Mariners are in Oakland to face Paul Blackburn in just his second start of the season. Blackburn threw 88.2 innings in Triple-A this season, posting a 4.55 xFIP with a 4.97 ERA and a 20% strikeout rate. For his career at the major league level, Blackburn has just an 11.9% strikeout rate and a 6.9% walk rate over 105 innings. This is a targetable pitcher for run creation and sequential hitting, and the Mariners are trending to be under-owned from the middle of the Top Stacks Tool‘s rankings. Getting to underappreciated stacks in good spots is the name of the game, viable Mariners bats include JP Crawford, Mitch Haniger, Kyle Seager, Ty France and Abraham Toro. Additional quality can be picked up by adding hitters like Jake Fraley, Luis Torrens, Jarred Kelenic and Cal Raleigh from the bottom of the order, depending on the final lineup as well as price and position requirements.

Atlanta Braves

For a team that is heavily on the proper side of splits, the Braves are going slightly under-owned on both sites in their matchup against Montgomery. The right-handed power that Atlanta possesses is obvious, with sluggers like Jorge Soler and Adam Duvall in the lineup. Freeman’s quality in same-handed matchups from the left side of the plate was profiled above. Among other hitters, leadoff man Ozzie Albies finds all his power upside as a righty hitting against lefties, making this an excellent spot to roster the second baseman. His double-play partner at shortstop has under-appreciated power, Dansby Swanson hits from the right side of the plate and has blasted 24 home runs with a .223 ISO this season, and just to his left third baseman Austin Riley is having a major breakout year. Adding in Guillermo Heredia and William Contreras can help offset price and popularity concerns.

Chicago White Sox

The White Sox are perhaps the best lineup that is drawing positive leverage on both DraftKings and FanDuel tonight. Chicago has a high-end offense but is unpopular due to both high pricing and the popularity of the opposing pitcher. Rostering a team of this talent when they are at positive leverage by probability of being the best stack, while also attacking a significant share of the field’s pitching, is always a strong GPP strategy.

Tim Anderson has missed several recent games due to what the team has labeled general lower body soreness. Anderson is expected back at shortstop, and in his customary leadoff role, making him a great way to get a stack started. Anderson is slashing .303/.330/.460 with a .157 ISO and 14 home runs with 17 stolen bases this year. He has created runs 17% better than average and is both an individual upside play and a strong correlation to hitters following him in the batting order.

Luis Robert is inexpensive at just $4,000 on DraftKings. He costs the same on the blue site, but he will be owned in just single digits across the industry. He is slashing .326/.361/.493 over 147 plate appearances this season. He has three home runs and five stolen bases on the season and is creating runs 34% better than average. He has major upside.

Jose Abreu is slashing .255/.336/.482 with a .227 ISO and creating runs 24% better than average by WRC+. He has a 50% hard-hit rate and a 10.7% barrel rate on the season and he stands a strong chance at a home run on this slate according to the home run model. Abreu has hit 25 home runs in 506 plate appearances this season. He hit 19 in 262 tries last year and 33 in 693 plate appearances the year before. Abreu is a go-to option on any slate.

Eloy Jimenez has six home runs in 91 plate appearances since returning to the White Sox lineup after missing most of the season. Jimenez is slashing .299/.319/.575 with a .276 ISO and has created runs 41% better than average in the short sample. He makes hard contact 47% of the time and has a team-leading 13.6% barrel rate.

Yoan Moncada slashed .315/.367/.548 with a .233 ISO and 140 WRC+, with 25 home runs in 559 plate appearances two years ago. This year he has managed just 11 home runs and a .256/.371/.397 triple slash in 480 tries. He has created runs 19% better than average and is still a viable part of the White Sox machine with his excellent on-base skills, but he has more talent simmering.

With first base and outfield eligibility, Andrew Vaughn is a great way to move pieces around to unique combinations within this stack. Vaughn costs just $2,700 on FanDuel and $3,000 on DraftKings, which is too low for a hitter with a 48% hard-hit rate and 10.4% barrel rate. He has translated the quality contact into 15 home runs and a .191 ISO while creating runs 16% better than average through his excellent rookie season. Vaughn is slashing .260/.332/.451 on the season.

Brian Goodwin provides underrated power from the left side of the plate. He comes into tonight slashing just .230/.317/.410 but has hit seven home runs and has a .180 ISO while creating runs three% ahead of the curve. He has been limited for quality contact in his 209 plate appearances, hampering the potential pop with just a 32.1% hard-hit rate and a 6.4% barrel rate. Goodwin is best utilized to offset price and popularity, but he can be rostered in most combinations.

Cesar Hernandez has hit 20 home runs in 516 plate appearances this season, but he is slashing a limited .228/.306/.404 with a .176 ISO this season. He has created runs seven% behind the average for the year but makes just 35.5% hard contact and has an 8.3% barrel rate. Hernandez costs $3,100 on FanDuel and $3,800 on DraftKings and is a mix-and-match piece who should likely be less costly on both sites.

Seby Zavala has made 81 plate appearances and has hit five home runs with a .239 ISO this season. He is slashing .225/.295/.465 and has demonstrated similar upside in the minors throughout his career. Zavala is not a standout option, but he could provide some low-owned positional quality where necessary.

HR Call: Matt Olson — Oakland Athletics

To get even more action down on tonight’s MLB slate, check out the betting markets and Awesemo’s expert MLB betting picks for today.

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Author

Terry McBride

Terry used to do other things, now he writes words on the internet. He hopes his more than 20 years’ experience in season-long and daily fantasy sports and his custom models for MLB, NBA, and NFL don't steer you too wrong when he writes columns and makes picks on Awesemo.com. A lifetime of experience keeping odd hours make Terry ideal to cover KBO baseball overnight until the world returns to normal. Most of those late night hours have been spent on the couch watching sports, T.V., and movies; just try to shut him up about any of the above. You can find his pop-culture ramblings and more on Sideaction.