MLB DFS: Thursday, June 20 has a quick two-gamer for getaway day and a solid 10 game “main” slate for our MLB DFS fix on Yahoo, DraftKings, FanDuel, and FantasyDraft. Fortunately, there are several pitchers to target against and some excellent hitting environments, but before you lock in your fantasy baseball lineups, make sure to check out Awesemo’s MLB rankings and projections. Not a member? Sign up HERE and use Promo Code: MLBSTACKS for 50% off any one month subscription.
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Greetings Gamers! We have a fun one here with lots of new faces as well as old familiar ones on the bump Thursday and there will be some opportunities we can exploit. Let’s see what we can find!
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Early Slate
Arizona Diamondbacks vs. RHP Jeff Hoffman – 5.1 implied runs
With just two games on the main slate, often times just focusing on the bats with the most upside will provide enough of a unique lineup that can easily best a stack, particularly if no team really “goes off” for crooked numbers.
We will not be alone looking to the Arizona hitters because RHP Jeff Hoffman is arguably the least talented hurler of the quartet going in the afternoon action. Over his last 179 batters faced in The Show (84 lefties / 95 righties) Hoffman has a palatable 4.61 xFIP, though the other numbers along with the results have been pretty heinous with a 8.9 BB% combined and .373 wOBA / .176 ISO to lefties and an eye-popping .413 wOBA / .279 ISO to righties.
Eduardo Escobar, David Peralta and Christian Walker our the power trio to focus on and the differentiation move would be to move ahead with Ketel Marte.
On DraftKings for the short-slate, the D’Backs are appropriately expensive and they are moderately priced for the Yahoo all-day slates… and over on FanDuel, it seems like once again they are offering buy one, get one free pricing.
Main Slate
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim at LHP Clayton Richard – 5.6 implied runs
Wow, this series could not have lined up much better for Mike Trout than it actually did… here we are with yet another suspect southpaw with LHP Clayton Richard taking the bump on Thursday and as the saying goes, if you are gonna be a bear, be a Grizzly! What does that mean you ask? Well in this convoluted example Grizzlies eat salmon, not Trout so that means that Trout could potentially be a Grizzly! (though I was never good with the transitive property rule so I could be wrong…. Anyhoooooo).
Just play Mike Trout, though wouldn’t it be something if he gets a night off before heading out to St Louis for the weekend series.
The bane of Clayton Richard’s existence is of course right-handed hitters and he has allowed a .361 wOBA, .200 ISO, 10.0 BB% with just a 14.6 K% over the last 608 he has faced, so we want to look to Albert Pujols who got the night off on Wednesday, Justin Upton and Jonathan Lucroy from the right side of the plate and of course Shohei Ohtani and Tommy La Stella can hold their own in lefty/lefty matchups – so hopefully the less informed will look for other options.
Evening Slate
Milwaukee Brewers vs. RHP Tanner Roark – 5.3 implied runs
While I was a fan of having RHP Tanner Roark on the Nationals as he was a solid #3 pitcher, his skills have started to decline and he will be 33-years old the week after this season ends. He usually got by with decent location and timely mistakes, but the hard hit and fly ball rates are inching up along with the walk rate while the strikeout rate is going backwards and was never overly stellar to begin with.
We know the drill by now for what to do when the Brew Crew is facing a right-handed pitcher and that is to start lineups with Christian Yelich, Mike Moustakas and Yasmani Grandal with Eric Thames who can hopefully shake out of this slump and Travis Shaw as a potential differentiation plays as they have slid lower in the batting order when Milwaukee is at full strength.
Late Slate
Seattle Mariners vs. RHP Dylan Bundy – 4.9 implied run total
If you listened to the Thursday episode of the Early Bird podcast, then you know that I do have some preliminary interest in RHP Dylan Bundy against this Mariners squad that is without Ryon Healy and Mitch Haniger who are on the injured list and power bats Edwin Encarnacion and Jay Bruce are now with the Yankees and Phillies respectively. Seattle is still frisky with Domingo Santana, Dan Vogelbach and Omar Narvaez, who should be in the heart-of-the-order, but these guys are inconsistent and still working on their respective games.
Then things really start to drop off with Kyle Seager (missed a lot of time the last two seasons with injuries and he will be 32-years old this off season), Dee Gordon and Mac Williamson at the bottom of the order and with very little power (33 combined home runs in nearly 4,000 at bats) and at the top J.P Crawford and Mallex Smith are not particularly scary.
So yes, popularity pending, it does look like I will be giving strong consideration to Bundy, though I will have a few counter-stacks of the power trio in the middle of the Mariners lineup for good measure.
Of course, please do stop by our Awesemo YouTube channel for loads of FREE MLB DFS content, including fantasy MLB lineup advice on The Strategy Show with Josh Engleman and Loughy, as well as MLB picks on Four Corners with Chris Spags, and the MLB Deep Dive with Awesemo, Loughy and ShipMyMoney, where they’ll discuss Awesemo’s MLB rankings.