MLB DFS Picks: HRs, Stacks, Ownership DraftKings + FanDuel

I’ll be honest, I took the night off entirely in MLB DFS. Jumping on the Live Before Lock show late in the game was more than I wanted to trust my computer with under the circumstances, so I’m content to just have hit the George Springer home run pick to get off the schneid on those calls after a cold week following up the hot start. Taking a look through box scores, it seems like Wednesday came down to a mix of Dodgers, Angels, Mariners and Diamondbacks bats, at least some of which I’m sure we hit on in a few of these formats.

Thursday brings us a weird slate even for Thursday MLB DFS slates. DraftKings is starting up early with the 6:05 games and creating a seven-game slate, while FanDuel starts at 7:07 and includes just five games on the main slate, though the blue site is offering a five-game early slate as compared to just the three available on DraftKings. However you like to approach things, there should be numerous options available even on a short slate.

MLB DFS Quick Hits: Top HR Options, Stacks and Pitchers

Home Run Ratings

Home runs are our 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’m going to give one of the top choices from each team.

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

Arizona Diamondbacks: Christian Walker – 9.41

Atlanta Braves: Austin Riley – 10.00

Baltimore Orioles: Chris Davis – 12.55

Boston Red Sox: n/a

Chicago Cubs: Kyle Schwarber – 6.62

Chicago White Sox: Eloy Jimenez – 11.28

Cincinnati Reds: Eugenio Suarez – 14.97

Cleveland Indians: Franmil Reyes – 7.88

Colorado Rockies: Nolan Arenado – 21.71

Detroit Tigers: n/a

Houston Astros: Alex Bregman – 6.25

Kansas City Royals: Sal Perez – 5.24

Los Angeles Angels: Justin Upton – 10.10

Los Angeles Dodgers: n/a

Miami Marlins: Jesus Aguilar – 10.57

Milwaukee Brewers: Ryon Healy – 8.21

Minnesota Twins: Max Kepler – 12.71

New York Mets: n/a

New York Yankees: Giancarlo Stanton – 16.21

Oakland Athletics: Matt Olson – 10.51

Philadelphia Phillies: Rhys Hoskins – 13.98

Pittsburgh Pirates: Josh Bell – 7.67

San Diego Padres: n/a

San Francisco Giants: Wilmer Flores – 8.90

Seattle Mariners: Daniel Vogelbach – 8.13

St. Louis Cardinals: n/a

Tampa Bay Rays: n/a

Texas Rangers: Joey Gallo – 13.16

Toronto Blue Jays: Teoscar Hernandez – 5.30

Washington Nationals: n/a

MLB DFS Picks: Stacks & Ownership Plays

(Quick note: if it says 1-5 it means hitters 1-2-3-4-5, otherwise I’ll specify spots)

We’re picking a few standout spots and teams to look at for potential plays here. Make sure to check out the ownership projections for critical updates and monitor the top stacks tool throughout the day for changes.

Orioles at Marlins (but really at Camden Yards) – Orioles – 1-2-4-6-7

The Orioles are never a comfortable team to roster in MLB DFS, but this is an overall good spot for this lineup with Jordan Yamamoto (I think) taking the mound for the Marlins. With the game pivoting from Miami to Baltimore for this one, the offenses gain a bit on the park factor, and ultimately I like how the hometown Orioles are grading out early on. This is firmly in the grounds of “wait and see how things look in the top stacks tool and what Awesemo thinks of these teams,” which will likely depend on the lineup that they throw up against Yamamoto here.

Despite the platoon disadvantage, Austin Hays is a developing young slugger that I want to roster every time I go to the Orioles bats. For his career in the minors, the young stud prospect is well over a .200 ISO and has only lacked for health in getting a true shot to this point. Anthony Santander ranks strong in my home run model and in early projections, as do Rio Ruiz, Chris Davis and Renato Nunez.

With those names in the mix, a lot of what I do with the Orioles will depend on how things look in the stacks tool and how widely people get to them. Ultimately there should be salary-based value available on both sites, so I expect this to be a popular-ish turn for a lot of MLB DFS owners. We should be able to mix and match enough bats and combine with small two- and three-man stacks on a short slate to keep unique enough, however, and we want to target the high-end bats to combine with anyone from this team.

The Suggested Stack includes: Hays – Santander – Ruiz – Davis – Nunez

Chicago Cubs at Kansas City Royals – Cubs – 1-5

The Cubs are not likely to be a big secret on tomorrow’s main slate, they’re in a great spot and are carrying one of the night’s higher implied team totals. I expect people to be getting to this roster in significant numbers, yet still I like getting to them overall. Brad Keller, the Royals starter, is not going to be mistaken for an ace. His 48 major league starts have yielded a 4.63 xFIP and a strikeout rate of just 16.9%. This is a pitcher to target with bats, and the Cubs are the right team to go after him.

The Cubs feature five hitters in a row starting off their batting order who all have ISO projections in excess of .210 for the season, which is just a staggering amount of power. Each of those hitters had a WRC+ in excess of 14% above league average as well, so this is a lineup that produces at a consistently high level. The Cubs should be highly popular, but spending up for bats like Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez up top seems obvious.

Kyle Schwarber is unsurprisingly drawing this team’s highest individual power projection for me, and he should be included in most Cubs stacks. Although, I like the idea of looking at Willson Contreras as an alternative on both sites or as an add-on for DraftKings lineups that require catcher plays. Rostering both Contreras and Rizzo on FanDuel is another way to get unique with things.

The Suggested Stack includes: Bryant – Rizzo – Baez – Schwarber – Contreras

HR Call: Ronald Acuna Jr. (Braves)

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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.