MLB DFS Tournament Strategy: Leverage, Home Runs, Optimal Picks

The main slate kicks off at 1:05 p.m. ET on both sites. The Awesemo team will be here for all of it, providing updates to tools and data throughout, including the Strategy Show, which you can find on YouTube. Speaking of tools, if you aren’t visiting the Top Stacks Tool regularly, you’re just making your MLB DFS picks incorrectly. The Top Starters Tool is every bit as important in deciding who takes the hill for your daily fantasy baseball lineup.

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MLB DFS Tournament Strategy: Top HR Options

Home Run Ratings

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 won’t always be the absolute top-ranked player, particularly when there is an obvious star who would be in that spot every day.

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

Baltimore Orioles: Maikel Franco — 13.25

Boston Red Sox: J.D. Martinez — 12.30

Chicago Cubs: Joc Pederson — 8.28

Chicago White Sox: Jose Abreu — 12.93

Cleveland Indians: Jose Ramirez — 10.28

Detroit Tigers: Jonathan Schoop — 4.32

Kansas City Royals: Jorge Soler — 12.77

Los Angeles Angels: Jared Walsh — 16.60

Miami Marlins: Adam Duvall — 12.07

Milwaukee Brewers: Jackie Bradley Jr. — 12.32

Minnesota Twins: Max Kepler — 11.11

New York Mets: Michael Conforto — 6.31

New York Yankees: Gleyber Torres — 12.42

Pittsburgh Pirates: Gregory Polanco — 11.95

San Diego Padres: Trent Grisham — 22.21

Seattle Mariners: Ty France — 14.73

St. Louis Cardinals: Tyler O’Neill — 7.51

Tampa Bay Rays: Mike Brosseau — 8.27

Texas Rangers: Nate Lowe — 9.80

Toronto Blue Jays: Randal Grichuk — 6.07

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MLB DFS Optimal Stacks & Leverage Plays

(Quick note: if it says 1-5, it means hitters 1-2-3-4-5. Otherwise, I will specify spots)

This section will feature 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.

On the Hill

Today’s pitching slate is a mess. There are essentially no high-level pitchers starting on the main slate, give or take your opinion of Marcus Stroman. The list of starters after Stroman is a mixed bag of age, mediocrity and long-undelivered-upon upside. Fortunately, none of these pitchers are expensive, which should allow for incredible flexibility in building lineups with bats while creating a diverse spread of pitching combinations.

Utilizing the Top Starters Tool is a great help in threading the needle between pitchers, particularly when there is a list of fourth and fifth starter options from which to choose. On days with ace-level pitchers going, there are typically standout starters at the top of the board drawing significant shares of the probability of being the top option. Today’s top-rated pitcher is under 10% likely to be the best option, and the spread to the bottom-ranked starter is only 7 percentage points. With the variability implied by that little spread between options, and most of the pitchers at fair prices, gamers can play the leverage game to significant degrees today while maintaining exposure to all of the good (relatively speaking) pitching options.

Both Chicago starters stand out as potential options who will be slightly under-owned by the field. Trevor Williams is pitching for the Cubs and taking on the Pirates, his former team. He has not had stand out seasons the past two years; in 2019 he struck out just 17.8% of hitters in his 145 innings. While that mark jumped to 19.4% last season in 55 innings, Williams was still below league average. His 4.94 xFIP and 1.57 WHIP also reveal his quality as well as that of the pitching options on this slate. What Williams brings to the table is a demonstrable ability to limit hard contact and keep the ball in the park. Over the course of his career, he has several seasons of under 1.0 HR/9, while posting xFIPs around 4.50. He is not a star — he might not even be good — but on this slate against a Pirates team with significant strikeout potential — even for Williams — in the back of the lineup, it makes sense to look his way.

White Sox starter Dylan Cease is the upside play of the day. The word “filthy” was invented to describe Cease’s arsenal of pitches — when he is going right he has elite stuff. His spin rate is among league leaders on three of his primary pitches: A devastating 98-mph fastball, a wicked slider and an excellent curveball. Cease has yet to fully harness his abilities and remains an unpredictable option. He posted just a 17.3% strikeout rate and an ugly 13.3% walk rate with a 5.87 xFIP and 1.44 WHIP in 58 innings last season. However, in 2019 he made 14 starts and put up a 24.9% strikeout rate, though he did still have a 10.7% walk rate, a 5.19 xFIP and a 1.55 WHIP. Cease is a major upside play with ace potential. If he harnesses his stuff against a good Royals lineup with plenty of strikeouts in it, he could have a great day. The volatility is significant, this is a tournament upside play at a great price.

San Diego Padres

This section is just to let everyone know that they are smashing through the top of the home run model today and look like a spectacular bet for offensive fireworks in their matchup against Mike Foltynewicz. Foltynewicz threw just 3.1 innings last season, allowing three home runs in the process. In 2019 he gave up 23 in just 117 innings. This season’s first start went no better; he gave up four earned runs and two long balls in just four innings. San Diego will be a very popular stack today. They are expensive and drawing a negative leverage mark on the Top Stacks Tool, but there is a lot to like if you can get to them while getting different elsewhere.

NYY — 1-2-3-5-6 — LeMahieu — Judge — Hicks — Torres — Sanchez

Speaking of teams with a lot of firepower, everyone seems to have forgotten about the loaded Yankees lineup after they haven’t been on a main slate in a few days. The team is in Tampa Bay to take on rookie Brent Honeywell Jr. and the Tampa bullpen, and they project well up and down the lineup. The team is dramatically underpriced on FanDuel and largely affordable on DraftKings, yet they rank out as under-owned by the public among the top teams on the stacks board.

D.J. LeMahieu is the best leadoff hitter in baseball and seems to get better each season. After putting up a .327/.375/.518 slash in his first season in the Bronx, he topped those marks with a monstrous .364/.421/.590 slash with a .226 ISO and a WRC+ 77% above league average in his 216 plate appearances in 2020, earning every penny of the big contract he received in the offseason. LeMahieu is underpriced on FanDuel at just $3,500.

No one needs to be introduced to Aaron Judge. He is one of the most unique presences in the game, with his immense power and hulking frame. Judge is a threat whenever he is in the lineup and is a better pure hitter and on-base man than he gets credit for. In 2019, Judge put up a .272/.381/.540 slash in his 447 plate appearances, though that dropped to .257/.336/.554 in a very limited 2020 that gave him just 114 plate appearances. Judge blasted nine home runs in that small sample, a year after hitting 27 in the 447 chances. He is also too cheap on the blue site, though DraftKings has him priced appropriately at $5,400.

Outfielder Aaron Hicks gives the heavily right-handed Yankees lineup versatility with his ability to hit from both sides of the plate. Hicks has both power and speed, but his best tool is his ability to get on base. In 211 plate appearances last year, Hicks got on at a .379 clip, helping him create runs 24% better than average despite just a .225 average and a .414 slugging percentage. Hicks hit six home runs and stole four bases last season, though there is upside for more. He is very affordable on both sites and builds into the three spot in Yankees stacks very well.

Giancarlo Stanton was on a Hall of Fame home run pace at one point in his career before injuries derailed him from that track. With just 166 plate appearances over the past two seasons, Stanton has much to prove, including that he can simply stay on the field. When he plays, the power is mostly still apparent. In 94 plate appearances in 2020, Stanton hit four home runs and had a .250 ISO. Stanton has managed one home run so far this year, but he is healthy and active, so he should not be skipped in stacks, particularly at these prices.

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Gleyber Torres and Gary Sanchez have had their reputations tarnished by some bumpy numbers over the past year. Torres exploded onto the scene in New York, mashing 38 home runs in 604 plate appearances in 2019. He dropped to just three last season, despite seeing 160 opportunities. His slash also plummeted to a lowly .243/.356/.368 with just a .125 ISO. Sanchez, on the other hand, seems to either hit a home run or strike out. He has had an ugly run at the plate, bottoming out at a .147/.253/.365 last season, though he still hit 10 home runs in 178 plate appearances and posted a .218 ISO. There is upside for days in both players and they are easily affordable at the five and six spots.

Depending on who rounds out the lineup, there are several interesting plays available, including outfielder Clint Frazier, who is a player on the rise after finally seizing the left field job for keeps this spring. Frazier is still at bargain pricing on both sites; he has not fully clicked to start the season — in a ridiculously small sample so far of course. There is plenty to like about him as a potential wraparound stacking option, Frazier brings both power and speed to the plate. In 2020 he hit eight home runs and stole three bases in a part time role, getting just 160 plate appearances. In 2019, he saw 246 opportunities and hit 12 home runs, though he swiped just one bag.

Gio Urshela is still more of a defender than a hitter, but he has demonstrated his skills with the bat with regularity in the Bronx. Last season he put up a .298/.368/.490 slash, walking 10.3% of the time and striking out just 14.4%, while putting up a WRC+ 33% above average. He makes for a good mix-in option to differentiate lineups to some degree.

If newly acquired Rougned Odor is in the lineup, he makes for a weird option. Odor has some power, but has been bad for two seasons. For Texas last year he put up just a .167/.209/.413 slash, though he hit 10 home runs in his 148 plate appearances. The year before he was at .205/.283/.439 with a solid 30 home runs in 581 plate appearances. Odor and Gary Sanchez together in a lineup is a frightening proposition for real baseball, but for MLB DFS there could be wild upside.

HR Call: Trent Grisham — San Diego Padres

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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.