MLB DFS Tournament Strategy: Leverage, Home Runs, Optimal Picks | Today, 5/11/21

A 12-game Tuesday main slate has the makings of an excellent night of MLB DFS action on DraftKings and FanDuel. There are a wealth of pitchers from up and down the salary spectrum, as well as a few standout stacks with some of the top home run projections against weaker starters. On top of it all, there a Coors game to contend with, probably; the weather in Denver is not great again today following yesterday’s snow-out. The pitching slate has a few interesting names at the highest end of the salary spectrum, leaving daily fantasy baseball players with tough decisions. Nailing the ownership spread for pitching today is going to be a key differentiator between those whose lineups can access the top of standings and those whose lineups cannot. With a few of the top-end stacks trending for lower ownership than they deserve, there are good reasons to look to the mid-tier of salary while paying up to bats in full stacks.

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Tracking the top MLB DFS pitchers will be key, as will monitoring the public ownership distributions on stacks via the Top Stacks Tool. Let’s get into the MLB DFS picks for DraftKings and FanDuel, as well as some home run candidates for Tuesday.

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: Carson Kelly — 2.87

Atlanta Braves: Ozzie Albies — 11.08

Baltimore Orioles: Austin Hays — 10.45

Boston Red Sox: J.D. Martinez — 6.78

Chicago White Sox: Adam Eaton — 5.13

Colorado Rockies: Ryan McMahon — 4.17

Detroit Tigers: Jonathan Schoop — 7.42

Houston Astros: Carlos Correa — 10.52

Kansas City Royals Hunter Dozier — 9.49

Los Angeles Angels: Mike Trout — 7.78

Los Angeles Dodgers: Corey Seager — 4.55

Miami Marlins: Brian Anderson — 11.56

Milwaukee Brewers: Tyrone Taylor — 8.18

Minnesota Twins: Nelson Cruz — 14.73

New York Mets: Pete Alonso — 24.94

New York Yankees: Giancarlo Stanton — 14.67

Oakland Athletics: Matt Chapman — 11.10

Philadelphia Phillies: Alec Bohm — 9.67

San Diego Padres: Wil Myers — 7.11

Seattle Mariners: Kyle Lewis — 9.66

St. Louis Cardinals: Nolan Arenado — 4.22

Tampa Bay Rays: Manuel Margot — 5.81

Toronto Blue Jays: Bo Bichette — 5.72

Washington Nationals: Juan Soto — 23.83

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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.

MLB DFS draftkings fanduel daily fantasy baseball home run projections

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.


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On the Hill

The top of the pitching board today has some stark separation between surprising names at surprising salaries and proven arms in tricky spots, with two noteworthy exceptions. The Dodgers Walker Buehler is the second-most expensive starter on both sites, but he has a terrific matchup against the Mariners. Meanwhile, Freddy Peralta will bring his heavy strikeout upside to St. Louis to face the league-average Cardinals offense. With Dinelson Lamet carrying minor pitch count concerns and pitching in Coors Field, and a board that is otherwise littered with interesting reclamation projects and jumped-up third and fourth starters, there is highly concentrated ownership on the first two pitchers on the board. Getting to some of the under-owned MLB DFS picks further down the Top Starters tool makes some sense on a big slate.

Of the top two, Buehler has the better matchup. He is facing a Mariners roster that is striking out 25.4% of the time against right-handed pitching, eighth-worst in baseball. Seattle has a collective .152 ISO and creates runs 7% worse than average in the split. Buehler has made six starts, throwing 37 innings and putting up a solid 26.9% strikeout rate while walking only a dazzling 1.4% of hitters. He has a 2.99 xFIP and a 0.94 WHIP on the year and is a strong option for upside given the average length of start and potential for strikeouts and a win in this matchup.

Peralta has also made six starts, pitching 32 innings. He has a massive 40.8% strikeout rate to start the season, a mark that is not out of the blue given his 37.6% rate over 29 innings last year. He was at a more realistic 30.1% mark over 85 innings in 2019, a number that is still excellent. He is likely to settle into the lower-mid 30% range as things regress, but there is no arguing with the MLB DFS point production so far. Peralta has walked too many hitters, yielding free passes to 13.1% of hitters so far, but it has not hurt him. He has a 3.21 xFIP and a 1.09 WHIP so far this year, on-pace or better than where he was last season. The Cardinals active roster sits exactly in the middle of the league with a 23.8% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching this season. Extending the sample to the start of 2019, St. Louis also ranks 15th at 23.1% in the split. Their .162 team ISO against righties this season ranks them 13th and they are creating runs 11% worse than average in the split. This is a gettable team for a talented pitcher like Peralta, though the spot is not without risk and carries heavy public ownership.

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John Means is the most expensive starter on both DraftKings and FanDuel today, which is not something anyone in the MLB DFS industry expected to write or read at any point this season. He has been spectacular to start 2021, throwing a no-hitter his last time out. Means has allowed just eight hits in his four most recent starts, inducing a .158 batting average on balls in play. He is sitting in the 76th percentile in hard hit rate allowed, the 80th percentile in strikeout rate and the 90th percentile of average exit velocity allowed, with just a 26.4% hard contact rate and a 24.5% soft contact rate induced, a dramatic spike from career norms. Means has a CSW% of 31.6%, with a swinging strike rate of 15.7%; the former number is up from 27.2% last season, while the latter is up from 12.5%, meaningful jumps if sustained over a large sample but potentially just a blip in a still-small 46 innings. Means has struck out 30.1% of hitters and posted a 3.45 xFIP with a 0.67 WHIP so far. In his largest career sample (155.0 innings in 2019), Means had a 5.48 xFIP and struck out just 19.0% of hitters while throwing the same arsenal of pitches. Means has fluctuated wildly with the velocity on his changeup, his secondary pitch, going from 80.9 mph and a 10.8 mph differential from the fastball in 2019 to an 84.9 mph changeup with an 8.9 mph differential in 2020. This season he has settled at an 83.0 mph changeup with a 9.6 mph differential so far, inducing 22 of his 49 strikeouts on the pitch. Means throws a heavy-spin arsenal, working off his 2,405 rpm four-seam fastball which is also an effective strikeout pitch when it is working. Means has gotten 20 of the 49 strikeouts with the fastball, but has a .550 xSLG on the pitch, while all three other pitches are below .200. Means is a talented pitcher who has been putting up extreme outlier games so far this season, there are clear tweaks to his arsenal but no major changes. Given that and the extremely low BABIP against, this appears to be a pitcher benefitting from some good fortune and potentially due for regression. The price tag is keeping the public away from Means on both sites, however, and his probability of success outpaces his public ownership, making him an interesting play for GPPs, though there is significant risk at ace-level prices. For those who need a tie-breaker, the home run model seems to strongly prefer the Mets bats.

Madison Bumgarner has gone from showing signs of life to downright interesting, but his price is yet to fully catch up. Bumgarner has thrown 36 innings over his seven starts, posting a respectable 4.25 xFIP and a good 1.09 WHIP with a strong 26.5% strikeout rate. He had only a 15.8% strikeout rate and an ugly 5.85 xFIP in 41 innings for the Diamondbacks, but it is noteworthy that even during his down seasons at the end of his Giants tenure, Bumgarner slipped to only a 4.32 xFIP at the low point, though the 19.8% strikeout rate in 2018 left something to be desired. If there is someone to bet on for a comeback at still only 31 years of age, Bumgarner would not be a bad name on which to land. He has a career 3.58 xFIP with a 23.7% strikeout rate over 1,924 innings. He will be facing a Marlins club that strikes out 24.7% of the time against lefties this year, which ranks 17th in baseball, though they have a .174 team ISO and have created runs a sneaky 3% better than average. Bumgarner is in a good spot to capture some low-owned upside. He ranks well on the Top Pitchers Tool and the public is still behind the curve on the renaissance.

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New York Yankees

The Yankees appear to be under-owned for their probability of success on both DraftKings and FanDuel tonight, though less so on the blue site where they are clawing more public ownership shares. New York in Tampa Bay, taking on a Rays team that gives them fits on a regular basis. The Rays are starting Luis Patino, who will be more than an opener but less than a traditional starter, likely to go around four innings. The Yankees profile well for power in the matchup, though Patino is a high strikeout rate arm. So far this season he has struck out 37.0% of hitters, though that comes in just a seven inning sample. Patino struck out 24.7% of hitters last year in 17 innings. Still, at relatively low ownership and low-for-them salaries on a number of key bats, the Yankees have strong appeal in this spot.

D.J. LeMahieu is likely to lead things off as usual. He provides eligibility at both second and third base on both DraftKings and FanDuel and is still inexpensive on the FanDuel slate at just $3,500. LeMahieu is off to a slower than expected start with the bat, going .281/.374/.391 with a .109 ISO over his first 147 plate appearances in 2021, but there is significant upside. In 216 plate appearances last season, LeMahieu had a .364/.421/.590 slash with a .226 ISO, hitting 10 home runs and creating runs 77% better than average. That stat line was no fluke. He was at .327/.375/.518 with a .191 ISO and 26 home runs in 655 plate appearances in his first year in the Bronx in 2019.

Giancarlo Stanton is hitting everything spectacularly hard this season. His lethal bat has him off to a scorching .292/.356/.558 start with a .267 ISO and nine home runs in 132 plate appearances. Stanton has only ever lacked for health. The power is obvious, and the hit tool is reasonable at worst, if not underrated. He needs only to be in the lineup every day to compete for a home run title any given season. Rostering Stanton in the outfield from the two spot in the Yankees lineup is always a good move. He will be individually popular but should not be skipped for $3,900 on FanDuel and $5,600 on DraftKings.

Fellow outfielder Aaron Judge is at just $4,500 on DraftKings, a significant bargain by comparison. Judge costs $3,600 on FanDuel and he is a terrific upside option on both sites tonight. He has a .245/.352/.473 slash to start the year, striking out 30.5% of the time. His on-base skill is fine and the strikeouts are something acceptable with a hitter who is also walking 14.1% of the time, but Judge needs to do more to facilitate the Yankees offense. He has hit seven home runs in his 128 plate appearances, posting a .227 ISO and creating runs 34% better than average, which makes it borderline unfair to say that he needs to do more, but this is still a hitter from whom gamers expect the 52 home runs and titanic .343 ISO he had in his 678 rookie plate appearances in 2017.

Luke Voit is likely to land in the middle of the lineup tonight. He has been on the shelf with an injury all season and his bat will be a welcome addition to the lineup. Last season, Voit hit 22 home runs in just 234 plate appearances, leading the league. He had a .277/.338/.610 slash and a .333 ISO, obliterating seemingly every pitch thrown his way. He lowered his strikeout rate from 27.8% in 2019 to just 23.1% last season, though his walk rate fell as well. Voit will be interesting to watch early. His power upside is obvious but the late bloomer’s hit-tool has been outpacing expectations since arriving in New York in the middle of the 2018 season.

Gio Urshela may be back in the Yankees lineup this evening after landing on the shelf with an injury over the last few games. Urshela has a .287/.342/.455 slash with a .168 ISO to start the season. He has created runs 25% better than average, but this is a hitter who belongs a few slots further down the lineup than where he is currently forecast to hit. Urshela has been good with the stick for the Yankees. He is cheap at just $2,600 on FanDuel and $4,300 on DraftKings, making him an appealing option.

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Gleyber Torres‘ ascension to superstar status seemed inevitable in 2019. He had a .278/.337/.535 slash with a .256 ISO and 38 home runs in his 604 plate appearances that season, creating runs 24% better than average. In 297 plate appearances since, covering 2020 and the start of this season, Torres has hit four home runs. His .242/.336/.308 slash to start the season is more in line with the struggles of 2020 than it is remotely close to the hitter from two years ago, though Torres has cut his strikeout rate to just 18.2% and is walking in 12.4% of plate appearances. The .067 ISO and 91 WRC+ are ugly, but there is clear upside in a young hitter trying to find his way. Rostering a low-owned inexpensive Torres is still a good approach to Yankees stacks.

Outfielder Aaron Hicks is another struggling Yankees bat. He has just a .198/.301/.340 slash to start the season, disappointing many who drafted him as a late season long sleeper pick. Hicks hit six home runs in his 211 plate appearances in 2020, putting up a .225/.379/.414 slash. His on-base tool has abandoned him so far this year, however, sapping his upside. Hicks is creating runs 14% worse than average so far in 2021.

Catcher Gary Sanchez may be in the lineup. His struggles need no additional chronicling here, though it is worth continued mention that when he does make contact he hits the ball with authority. Sanchez has three home runs and a .145 ISO to start the season, but he is struggling at just a .174/.337/.319 line. Sanchez has managed to cut his strikeouts from an awful 36.0% last season to 24.4% this year while bumping his walk rate from 10.1% to 16.3%. That has helped boost his on-base percentage to a somewhat respectable level, keeping his run creation just under the surface at only 5% below average when it could reasonably be expected to be further underwater.

Clint Frazier is another low-cost low-owned option from the bottom of the lineup if he plays tonight. Frazier has made 100 plate appearances this season and is at just .143/.280/.286 after finally securing a semi-full-time job in the Yankees outfield. He needs to do more, but he has power and speed upside. Frazier hit eight home runs and stole three bases in his 160 plate appearances last year. He has three long balls but no swiped bags yet this season. He is a mix-and-match wrap-around option if hitting ninth today.

HR Call: Pete Alonso – New York Mets

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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Author
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.

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