MLB DFS Picks: HRs, Stacks, Ownership DraftKings + FanDuel: August 21

Well that was a fun ride. Looks like Matt Chapman‘s second homer of the night just knocked me off the top of the heap over on FanDuel but we’ll see what happens as things wind down on tonight’s MLB DFS slate. No better time to dig into tomorrow’s action. With the site’s salary structure not changing I’ve been poking around for alternate approaches in Fantasy Cruncher’s excellent rewind tool and, well, we’ll see what happens with that too.

Tomorrow’s slate has dropped the Mets vs. Yankees game already after a Mets player and staffer tested positive for Covid-19 on Thursday afternoon. We should still have a nice meaty 12-games of action to sink our teeth into, however, and it looks like a great slate. We have a lot of power popping in the home run model, a number of mediocre pitchers to attack and a lot of meaty looking stacks we could go in a lot of directions here. As of writing this sentence I have no idea where we’ll land in the stacks. Catch you below home runs and we’ll find out together.

Don’t forget to check out the loads of free content on our Fantasy Football home page, including more fantasy football breakouts. Sign up for just $29.95 (includes a $35 credit at FFPC for new users). Sign up HERE!

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: David Peralta – 5.20

Atlanta Braves: Freddie Freeman – 8.00

Baltimore Orioles: Anthony Santander – 6.38

Boston Red Sox: J.D. Martinez – 10.77

Chicago Cubs: Kris Bryant – 8.48

Chicago White Sox: Edwin Encarnacion – 9.66

Cincinnati Reds: Mike Moustakas – 8.09

Cleveland Indians: Carlos Santana – 10.29

Colorado Rockies: Nolan Arenado – 7.97

Detroit Tigers: Jeimer Candelario – 9.06

Houston Astros: Carlos Correa – 9.66

Kansas City Royals: Jorge Soler – 6.25

Los Angeles Angels: Shohei Ohtani – 10.05

Los Angeles Dodgers: Cody Bellinger – 9.32

Miami Marlins: n/a

Milwaukee Brewers: Keston Hiura – 10.20

Minnesota Twins: Nelson Cruz – 12.73

New York Mets: n/a

New York Yankees: n/a

Oakland Athletics: Khris Davis – 11.79

Philadelphia Phillies: Bryce Harper – 10.00

Pittsburgh Pirates: Josh Bell – 6.81

San Diego Padres: Fernando Tatis Jr. – 11.46

San Francisco Giants: Mike Yastrzemski – 6.34

Seattle Mariners: Kyle Lewis – 7.09

St. Louis Cardinals: Matt Carpenter – 7.84

Tampa Bay Rays:n/a

Texas Rangers: Todd Frazier – 10.33

Toronto Blue Jays: n/a

Washington Nationals: n/a

MLB DFS 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 MLB DFS 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.

Milwaukee Brewers @ Pittsburgh Pirates – Brewers 1-5 – Avisail Garcia – Christian Yelich – Keston Hiura – Justin Smoak – Ryan Braun

The Brewers went off for a 9-run game on Wednesday but were shut down other than a Justin Smoak homer on Thursday. I’m liking their chances to have a big Friday against Pirates starter Chad Kuhl. The pitcher is finally mostly stretched out after going five in his last outing and he has been pitching reasonably well to start the year. The strikeout and whiff rates have been strong in the small sample size, Kuhl is currently sitting in the 86th percentile in strikeout rate and 77th percentile in whiff rate. He has been getting by so far by reducing his fastball usage from above 50% to around 39% while taking his slider from 20% usage to 37%. The slider has been an effective pitch for him so far, generating a good amount of swing and miss, but the quality of contact numbers suggest that the tables could turn on Kuhl quickly against bats like these. Kuhl gives up significantly more home runs to left-handed hitters, with a career 1.53 HR/9 in the split and has yielded 41 home runs in his 322 career innings as a starter.

The Brewers have several big bats who will be hitting from the left side of the plate here. Primary among them, of course, is Christian Yelich. The former NL MVP. Yelich is at .205/.333/.500 before accounting for Thursday’s action. The average may leave the casual MLB DFS player skipping to someone else, while the six home runs, .295 ISO and WRC+ 22% above league average are fare more in line with the quality of the hitter. The outfielder is an all-world talent and like we saw with Cody Bellinger this week, we can benefit from getting in ahead of the curve where the public may get turned off for the wrong reasons.

The entire top half of the Brewers lineup is crushing my home run model right now, this could be a good spot to scoop some power. I like Avisail Garcia in the leadoff role for this team in the absence of Lorenzo Cain. Garcia has been around a .330 on-base percentage guy over his last 600 plate appearances and has shown the ability to get on at a higher clip when called upon. In 2017 with the White Sox, Garcia posted a .380 OBP over 561 plate appearances. Getting on at a clip in between those two marks ahead of the sluggers in this lineup would be ideal but we also know that Garcia can break a slate on his own; over the past three seasons has averaged 19 home runs.

I’ve mentioned my affection for Keston Hiura several times already this season. The stud second baseman has been on my dynasty league team since I drafted him in our minor league system several years ago – this is in the running for the most complex league in the country, I’ll put it up against anyone – and he’s done nothing but deliver on his promised upside since arriving in the league early last year. So far in 2020 Hiura has a just .247/.306/.472 slash but is still carrying a .225 ISO with his six home runs and there is more coming as the other numbers round into form. The second baseman has added 11 runs, 13 RBIs and even two stolen bases to his fantasy point totals as well, making him a terrific option at $3,300 on FanDuel and $4,700 on DraftKings.

Justin Smoak was standing out a bit in the home run model for me on Thursday and he got one; he looks strong here again for tomorrow. The slugging first baseman will be on the good side of his splits again here. The switch-hitter has a .207 career ISO as a lefty against a right-handed pitcher, with 152 of his 193 career home runs coming on this side of the split. Smoak comes at a big discount on both sites at just $2,700 on FanDuel and $3,100 on DraftKings. On FanDuel you have to use both the first base spot and the utility spot if you want to play Smoak along with Ryan Braun, DraftKings makes this easier by listing Braun as an outfielder. Either way, I still like the aging former star to perform for us and he represents the bottom man in the totem pole of my very strong home run metrics for tomorrow for this team in the currently projected batting order. Braun came into Thursday mostly scuffling, but his 2019 was underrated, particularly for MLB DFS purposes, though many didn’t notice he posted a .285/.343/.505 slash with 22 home runs and 11 stolen bases in his 508 plate appearances in 2019. We can count on at least some of that still being alive inside Braun here.

The back-end of this lineup leaves a lot to be desired, admittedly, so focus most of your attention to the top half for your stacking needs. With that said, don’t be too shy about using the bargain basement options at the end of this lineup to differentiate your constructions. At an average of $3,200 on DraftKings and just $2,100 ($2,125 technically) on FanDuel, any of Omar Narvaez, Ben Gamel, Luis Urias or Eric Sogard could provide what we need here. Sogard and his ability to post irritating at bats and see a lot of pitches helps him make a quality wrap-around option as a secondary leadoff man, while Narvaez could be a low-owned catcher play on DraftKings, depending on how the public is viewing this one. Keep an eye on the top stacks tool and the individual ownership as you put this one together tomorrow.

Texas Rangers @ Seattle Mariners – Rangers – 1-5 – Shin-soo Choo – Danny Santana – Todd Frazier – Joey Gallo – Nick Solak

The Rangers weren’t a very popular option against strikeout artist Dinelson Lamet on Thursday but they get a very different matchup against overflowing gas tank Nick Margevicius. For his career over a limited 71 innings, Margevicius has a 4.86 xFIP and a 16.7% strikeout rate. The lefty has a fastball, slider and curveball mix that generates very little swing and miss. While he’s gotten by in his brief outings and his most recent five inning appearance, the pitcher has allowed mostly quality contact all season. He ranks in the bottom 9th percentile in exit velocity allowed, 12th percentile in hard hit rate allowed, 26th in barrels, 42nd in xWoba, 33rd in strikeout rate and 32nd in whiff rate. This just isn’t a very good pitcher so far and he’s not going to get better before taking on the somewhat powerful Rangers offense tomorrow. I’ll take the bats and it appears that Vegas agrees with a solid early implied team total.

The Rangers will be missing two players that we like to talk about in this space in Willie Calhoun and Elvis Andrus. I’m hopeful that will send some of the public looking in other directions so we can get to this spot as a sneaky option instead of something where we’re just riding chalk.

The big bat in the Rangers lineup as we’ve long since established is Joey Gallo. Here’s hoping the public is still sleeping on the fact that Gallo excels in same-handed matchups. For his career the big lefty has a .325 career ISO and a WRC+ 24% above league average against fellow southpaws. This seems like a time to mention that in his brief career so far, Margevicius has yielded a 2.35 HR/9 to left-handed bats. Fire away.

Adding to the chaos that I expect the Rangers bats to create tomorrow will be Shin-soo Choo who needs to get things going soon. Choo is at a highly uncharacteristic on-base percentage below .300 so far this season but will no doubt come around. Over the course of his now 15-year major league career the outfielder has amassed a career slash of .274/.377/.447 with 216 home runs and 154 stolen bases. He’s also apparently second to only Chase Utley over that span in being hit by pitches. What it says about Utley that he was hit 45 more times in just 160 additional plate appearances, I have no idea. Anyway, Choo is an underrated player in real life and for MLB DFS, act accordingly.

Danny Santana got into one tonight for this team and he’s coming up with a quality home run mark for me again in this matchup. The now 29-year-old saw his the biggest opportunity of his career last season and delivered a .283/.324/.534 slash with a .251 ISO, 28 home runs, 21 stolen bases and a WRC+ 11% above league average. He hasn’t been nearly back to that level so far in 2020 but we did get a home run from him on Thursday night and we know there is good quality in the bat against a bad pitcher. I like the chances hitting second in this lineup ahead of the big thumpers. Santana also offers positional flexibility at both outfield and first base on DraftKings, making him an even more dynamic play for MLB DFS.

Todd Frazier still mostly counts as one of those guys. Even Steamer thought so coming into the season, giving him a .213 ISO projection for the year. The veteran third baseman costs just $2,600 on FanDuel and $3,900 on DraftKings where he also carries first base eligibility. Frazier is out to a good start in 2020 with a .284/.369/.459 slash with two home runs and a WRC+ 21% above league average. The slugger has a career .245 ISO against lefties and has hit 68 of his 216 home runs in the split.

We can find reasonable mix and match options in this lineup with Rougned Odor, who we typically don’t like to deploy as much against lefties. I think in this spot we can get to him if he’s in the lineup and his reputation might keep others away. We can also look to Nick Solak who has a .280/.379/.387 slash through 87 plate appearances coming into Thurdsay. The outfielder is a cheap differentiation option but it’s nice to see him providing some upside with a WRC+ nine percent above league average. Jeff Mathis is going to be a low-owned inexpensive catcher option if he’s in, he provides mostly zeros but every now and then can hit one out. Isaiah Kiner-Falefa and Yadiel Rivera are also probably going to be in this lineup and that’s the best thing I can say about either as an MLB DFS option. Both can be mixed in with minimal utilization.

HR Call: Joey Gallo (Rangers)

Follow us on all of our social channels! Check out our Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube for more great Awesemo content.

Looking for more MLB DFS picks content? We’ve got loads of articles, data, cheatsheets and more on the Awesemo MLB home page, just click HERE.

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.