The Sunday afternoon main slate has been cut to a still robust 10-game affair, after the Cleveland vs Cincinnati game was postponed early in the morning. Still, among the 10 games we have numerous spots to go for both arms and bats, most of the day’s best pitchers are on the slate, as are a few less than stellar options that we can attack with stacks. The public ownership distributions are fairly concentrated in a few key spots, making flexible construction a paramount concern both in selecting stacks and the players within them. The best resource for determining our stack-plus-pitcher combinations for MLB DFS lineup picks on DraftKings and FanDuel today is going to be the Top Stacks Tool.
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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.
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Scale: 5-10 Average; 10-20 Good; 20-25 Very Good; 25+ Great
Arizona Diamondbacks: Pavin Smith — 4.20
Baltimore Orioles: DJ Stewart — 12.15
Boston Red Sox: JD Martinez — 14.15
Chicago Cubs: Anthony Rizzo — 4.59
Chicago White Sox: Jose Abreu — 13.38
Colorado Rockies: Ryan McMahon — 7.86
Detroit Tigers: Nomar Mazara — 7.72
Houston Astros: Alex Bregman — 16.89
Kansas City Royals: Carlos Santana —Â 5.65
Miami Marlins: Adam Duvall — 7.94
Milwaukee Brewers: Dan Vogelbach — 6.20
Minnesota Twins: Josh Donaldson — 16.68
New York Mets: Francisco Lindor — 4.13
New York Yankees: Gary Sanchez — 12.61
Pittsburgh Pirates: Colin Moran — 6.09
Seattle Mariners: J.P. Crawford — 3.31
St. Louis Cardinals: Paul Goldschmidt — 4.20
Texas Rangers: Khris Davis — 2.54
Toronto Blue Jays: Teoscar Hernandez — 5.98
Washington Nationals: Josh Bell — 11.79
Power Index
This is intended to capture the full range of home runs 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.
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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 here on DraftKings and FanDuel. 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 MLB DFS main slate has several top-end arms from which to choose our pitchers. With Jacob deGrom on the slate, we have one ace we can reliably lock in if we so choose, the Mets starter is simply that much better than everyone else in the league. The slate also offers up Lucas Giolito, German Marquez and Dane Dunning, among other interesting mid-range arms.
deGrom justifiably costs $12,500 on the FanDuel slate and $11,700 on DraftKings, while every other pitcher on the slate is below $10,000 on both sites. deGrom has been dazzling so far in 2021, in his 35 innings over five starts he has struck out a ridiculous 48.0% of hitters he has faced, while walking just 3.3%. The righty has a 0.57 WHIP and a 1.37 xFIP on the year and it seems that only bad luck with health would prevent a run to another Cy Young Award. deGrom is well worth the money in a matchup against the Diamondbacks here, he is an elite strikeout option and by far the most likely to post a monster start, even with heavy ownership deGrom is a worthwhile investment.
Skipping down the board to Giolito to save money on both sites is not a bad plan either. The White Sox ace has 30 innings pitched so far this year and has struck out 30.7% of hitters. That mark is down from the 33.7% that Gilito struck out last year, and his swinging strike rate has dropped from 17.3% to 15.1% in early returns. This could be a blip or indicative of more underlying concerns, which do not make themselves immediately apparent. Giolito appears to be throwing the same arsenal of pitches in the same way. If anything, he has added spin rate to his already dynamic fastball-slider combination. The starter is in a strong spot against a Royals team that rates as league-average so far, he makes for a strong option though the public’s ownership number will be out ahead of his probability of success.
Kenta Maeda is underpriced for his talent and under-owned for his matchup against the Detroit Tigers. Maeda costs just $7,400 on FanDuel and $8,300 on DraftKings, and he will not be owned remotely close to his probability of being one of the top starters, making him one of the most appealing GPP options on the board. Maeda’s soft-contact inducing specialty has been highlighted in this space before, as have his excellent strikeout numbers. So far in 2021, Maeda has slipped to just a 21.2% strikeout rate and has a 3.74 xFIP with a 1.53 WHIP, those numbers are far off of expectations and Maeda has been throwing fewer strikes in general. Both his called and swinging strike rate are down, which suggests a pitcher who may simply be struggling with his control early in the year. We have a strong enough track record with Maeda that we can expect a full turnaround, and facing this awful Tigers lineup is a great place to get started. Don’t sleep on Maeda today.
MIN — 8-1-2-3-4 – Simmons – Garlick – Donaldson – Cruz – Garver
[osBestBetsSingleGameOdds league=”mlb” date=”05/09/2021″ team=”tigers”]
Backing up their pitcher, Maeda, the Twins offense looks like one of the top options on the board and a stack that will be under-owned by the public. The Twins are facing lefty Matthew Boyd who has been a targetable pitcher at points in his career. Boyd has just a 17.3% strikeout rate so far this year and his 4.96 xFIP tells us there is plenty of run scoring potential for the opposition, a Twins team that happens to hammer left-handed pitching. Only a bad weather day stands in the way of the Twins seeming success, keep an eye on the radar going into lock.
The Twins are leading things off with Kyle Garlick again today. Garlick hit a home run at the minimum salary the other night, a boon to MLB DFS owners who managed to get him into lineups. In 45 plate appearances this season, the outfielder has a .302/.326/.535 slash with that one home run and a .233 ISO. He is not trending for significant ownership on either site, despite continued low pricing and an excellent spot in the batting order for a high-end offense.
Veteran third baseman Josh Donaldson is out to a .290/.375/.507 slash over his first 80 plate appearances. The slugger has hit three home runs and has endless power upside every day he takes the field. Donaldson has created runs 47% better than average so far this year and stands at a .217 ISO, hitting for power and doing everything right at the top of the Twins lineup. For $5,000 on DraftKings he makes a strong piece of this stack, he is very underpriced at $3,000 on the blue site.
Nelson Cruz is facing a lefty pitcher today, which is pretty much all we need to know. Cruz has made a living tattooing lefty pitching throughout his career, most notably over the past few seasons, there is no reason to expect that to stop. So far this year the ageless one is off to a .294/.350/.550 start with a .257 ISO and eight home runs in his 123 plate appearances. There is little sense in skipping Cruz in Twins stacks.
Mitch Garver slots in nicely as a catcher play and will be under 10% owned on the DraftKings slate, though that does make him the most popular Twins player on that site. Garver has a .200/.268/.480 slash to start the season but has hit six home runs and has a .280 ISO, everything he makes contact with is being driven with authority. Garver is simply one of the top offensive catchers in baseball, hitting in the middle of this lineup for a low price and little popularity makes him an outstanding option.
Jorge Polanco ably mans the middle infield for the Twins, slotting in at both spots for MLB DFS purposes. Polanco has hit two home runs and stolen two bases so far this year, but the switch hitter has not quite caught up to previous seasons’ production with the bat, he sits at just .236/.306/.373 over his first 124 plate appearances this year. Polanco will be largely unowned on both DraftKings and FanDuel, which is the case for the entire back-half of this lineup, giving them some sneaky upside.
Willians Astudillo is a hit tool specialist who is sitting at .313/.308/.484 over 65 plate appearances this year. In his largest Major League sample, Astudillo made 204 plate appearances in 2019, he struck out just 3.9% of the time and put up a .268/.299/.379 slash with a .258 babip. This is a player who continually puts the ball in play, which is a solid engine for an offense at worst. Astudillo is not a spectacular option for MLB DFS purposes, but he is not a dead spot in the lineup either.
Big lefty outfielder Max Kepler has a career .226 ISO against right-handed pitching, against the same hand that number plummets to just .149. He strikes out 22.4% of the time against fellow southpaws as compared to just 16.6% against the opposite hand. Kepler has produced runs 26% worse than average on this side of split and has just 19 of his 103 career home runs against lefty pitching. Kepler is not a go-to option, but he is on the board as a late lineup dart-throw, particularly if we follow the thinking that the Twins will chase Boyd early, leading to plate appearances against the weak Tigers bullpen.
Andrelton Simmons is another excellent hit tool option from the bottom of the lineup. Simmons has specialized in putting the ball in play throughout his career. In 600 plate appearances in 2018, Simmons struck out just 7.3% of the time and went .292/.337/.417 with a .300 babip for the Angels. he hit 11 home runs and stole 10 bases that season. Those are consistent trendlines throughout Simmons’ now long career, dating to his early days with the Braves. If nothing else, this is a reliable professional hitter who will give us good at bats at no cost and no ownership from late in a Twins stack, he makes a quality wraparound option to the top of the lineup or can be deployed as a sneaky endcap to mid-lineup stacks.
Trevor Larnach is hitting ninth, looking for his first Major League hit. The rookie has made five plate appearances so far, getting on base once (.200), but he is a high-profile prospect with excellent power indicators in traditional scouting, where he rates with 60-grade game power and 65-grade raw power. Larnach hit 13 home runs across more than 500 plate appearances in high A and AA in 2019 and is a still-developing bat. He could be a very sneaky option, but should not be used too much on today’s slate.
HR Call: Josh Donaldson — Minnesota Twins
To get even more action down on tonight’s MLB slate, check out the betting markets and Awesemo’s MLB betting model.
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