Sunday winds down the weekend with wall-to-wall baseball starting at 11:35 a.m. ET on Peacock and culminating with ESPN Sunday Night Baseball. This will bring plenty of fun and a variety of contests on DraftKings, FanDuel and Yahoo. Before you build lineups, several Stokastic tools can help identify daily MLB DFS Top Stacks, key pitchers and MLB DFS picks. Let’s dig into the player projections and popularity for DraftKings, FanDuel and Yahoo lineups.
MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers and Top Stacks
MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers
Main Slate Pitching Target: RHP Kevin Gausman — 3.4 implied runs
First Pitch: 1:37 p.m. ET
- DFS Salary: DraftKings $11,400 | FanDuel $11,400 | Yahoo $60
This is an easy recommendation of RHP Kevin Gausman against the injury-riddled Minnesota Twins. Gausman is on the shortlist for American League Cy Young Award contenders, with LHP Shane McClanahan slightly ahead of the pack. Last year Gausman led the league with a 2.38 FIP, and he is the frontrunner again this season with an even lower 2.29 FIP. His 12.4 home runs per nine innings and 113 total strikeouts are behind only RHP Spencer Strider. If any more confidence was needed, Gausman has allowed two or fewer runs in 8 of 13 starts.
Byron Buxton, Joey Gallo and Jorge Polanco are currently on the injured list, and Carlos Correa, Max Kepler, rookie Royce Lewis have all been dinged up recently as well. This attrition means the Twins are counting on youngsters Alex Kirilloff and Trevor Larnach while also keeping the likes of Willi Castro, Donovan Solano and Michael A. Taylor in the day-to-day lineup. The projected batting order has a collective 25.2% strikeout rate against right-handed hurlers dating back to last season. Enjoy!
Mid-Afternoon Slate Pitching Target: RHP Freddy Peralta vs. Oakland Athletics — 3.4 implied runs
First Pitch: 2:10 p.m. ET
- DFS Salary: DraftKings $8,800 | FanDuel $10,200 | Yahoo $40
This has been an up-and-down season for RHP Freddy Peralta, who has held opposing offenses to three runs or fewer in 8 of 12 starts. Home runs have been the main culprit, with the 27-year-old All-Star suffering them at a career-high 1.5 per nine innings, which is a 50% increase on his career rate. Fortunately, he gets one of the best matchups in the league for right-handed hurlers, so we can roster him with confidence on all slates.
Dating back to last year, the Oakland offense has a 23.5% strikeout rate, a .150 ISO and a 94 wRC+ against right-handed pitchers. Somehow the Athletics are on a four-game winning streak and have plated 27 runners during this stretch. For the season, they have tallied the second-fewest runs and are averaging only 3.59 per tilt.
Late Slate Pitching Target: RHP Logan Gilbert at Los Angeles Angels — 4.7 implied runs
First Pitch: 4:07 p.m. ET
- DFS Salary: DraftKings $9,900 | FanDuel $9,800 | Yahoo $51
The Mariners have decided to switch RHP Logan Gilbert, and scheduled starter RHP Bryce Miller will instead pitch on Monday. Miller has allowed 15 runs in his last two starts in just seven innings, albeit at the hands of the Yankees and in Texas against the Rangers.
Gilbert will be on regular rest, having last pitched on Tuesday when he held the Padres to only one run across seven innings in Petco Park. Today marks Gilbert’s 69th career start, and he has improved his strikeout rate to 10.0 per nine innings this season. While it is never fun facing the Angels when Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani are healthy, the current roster has a collective .185/.284/.323 triple slash line over 65 at-bats against Gilbert.
Considering there are only two games on the late slate, and it appears the San Francisco Giants will be employing an “opener” for the second time this weekend, differentiation will need to be found with hitters on DraftKings and Yahoo with the two-starting pitcher requirement.
MLB DFS Picks: Top Stacks
Main Slate Target: Los Angeles Dodgers at RHP Taijuan Walker — 5.3 implied runs
First Pitch: 1:35 p.m. ET
On Tuesday, RHP Taijuan Walker spun a seven-inning gem, allowing just two hits and striking out eight in a matchup against Detroit. Considering how bad the Tigers are on offense, this may be more cubic zirconium than a real gem. Walker’s strikeout rate has declined for the fifth straight year, down to 7.41 per nine innings. Additionally, his 4.06 walks and 1.40 home runs per nine innings are also approaching career lows. Surprisingly, Walker carries a lot of name recognition for a pitcher who has not logged more than 160 innings since his career-high 169.2 in the 2015 season for the Mariners.
There is a lot of green across the Los Angeles hitting chart, with Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Max Muncy, J.D. Martinez and catcher Will Smith all boasting elite power against right-handed hurlers. It is going to be in the upper-80s today in Citizens Bank Park, with an 8 to 12 mph breeze out to right field.
Betts has been stellar over his last 26 games, with a 1.010 OPS and 15 extra-base hits, including 10 home runs. Freeman has been even better, with a .402 average and 1.201 OPS in his last 28 games, accompanied by 21 extra-base hits and SIXTEEN multi-hit efforts. Discount dandies David Peralta and Jason Heyward can provide differentiation while averaging down the salary cap hit for full stacks.
Afternoon Slate Target: Cincinnati Reds at RHP Adam Wainwright — 4.1 implied runs
First Pitch: 2:15 p.m. ET
The Stokastic Top Stacks tool salutes RHP Adam Wainwright for a long and decorated career. However, we are in the present, where a frisky Cincinnati squad is taking on a pitcher who made his debut in The Show when rookie Elly De La Cruz was just a toddler. Waino turns 42 in August. Yes, he still has a knee-buckling curveball, but his 87 mph fastball has dropped two miles per hour to a career low 87 mph — also known as the Zack Greinke zone. The venerable veteran is also posting a career-low 5.4 strikeouts per nine innings, and if he can’t coax the opposition into ground balls, the high contact rate can lead to crooked numbers.
De La Cruz has already made several highlight plays with his bat, glove and speed. Five games into his career, he already has a triple, a home run and a pair of stolen bases. The 10 strikeouts are a lot, but we should not be picky. Outfielder Jake Fraley (wrist) is on the injured list, but TJ Friedl has returned from a hamstring issue that kept him out for the 10-day minimum. He is all but assured of five at-bats from the leadoff slot, and while he may not be swiping bags just yet, he is still a productive fantasy option.
Jonathan India has finally been able to stay healthy, which has been a major boost the Reds. Fellow youngsters Spencer Steer, Matt McLain and catcher Tyler Stephenson provide a variety of stacking options, which cover nearly every position.
Late Slate Target: Seattle Mariners at RHP Griffin Canning — 4.5 implied runs
First Pitch: 4:07 p.m. ET
This afternoon RHP Griffin Canning will be making his 10th start of this season after missing all of last year and half of 2021 with a stress fracture in his lower back. Prior to the injury that flared up on and off for two seasons, Canning was a top five prospect for the Angels while also being a fringe top-100 honoree on several industry lists.
Canning is a back-of-the-rotation starter who has just enough strikeouts (nearly one per inning) to offset his 1.5 home runs per nine innings. This season he has improved his ground ball rate from the mid-30% range to 45.4%. If that continues, we can start to look at Canning as a stream against weaker teams, though against above-average offenses he should be avoided. Currently the Mariners fall in the middle of those two camps.
The Mariners have lost seven of their last 10 games, though they did take care of business last night with a 6-2 victory at the expense of LHP Patrick Sandoval. Budding superstar Julio Rodriguez and late-blooming prospect Jarred Kelenic are strong options, and they can be joined by fellow outfielder Teoscar Hernandez. Leadoff man J.P. Crawford projects to be popular with the platoon advantage, so leaving him off of stacks is an easy way to gain differentiation with the extremely shallow player pool.
Other DFS and Sports Wagering Opportunities
This afternoon, as long as the Rockies and Padres can dodge the rain, they should be a fun source of some sports wagering opportunities. Colorado is going to start things off with RHP Dinelson Lamet, and San Diego already has an implied run total of seven, which is an enticing figure.
OddsShopper has created a new “True Odds” feature, which helps identify which books are putting out soft or sharp lines. For example, we can see that Matt Carpenter is +480 to hit a home run, while his “True Odds” are +412. This is the equivalent of receiving a 15% booster from the sportsbook without actually doing any legwork.
We can see that this works in reverse as well, with Michael Conforto having a +525 home run line against mediocre RHP Hayden Wesneski. While we would want Conforto in the DFS world with the platoon advantage against a marginal hurler, his “True Odds” of hitting a home run are +1002, which indicates the books are looking for suckers who do not have the OddsShopper and Stokastic Bet Pro tools at their disposal.
Here are some other notable home run matchups:
Longshot Joey Meneses +900 with +780 True Odds (+15.4%) in Atlanta against RHP Bryce Elder.
Respectable option Juan Soto +350 with +339 True Odds (+3.2%) in Coors Field.
Same-Game Parlay candidates Ryan O’Hearn +520 with +480 True Odds and Anthony Santander +390 with +360 True Odds, with each around a 7% expected value proposition in Kansas City against the Royals in a bullpen game. Keep in mind it is going to be in the upper-80s with a 10 to 15 mph breeze out to left field in Kauffman Stadium this afternoon.
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Final Thoughts for Sunday, June 11 | MLB DFS Picks
There is rain in the Midwest, so Cleveland pushed the game between the Guardians and Astros forward to 12:40 p.m. ET — DraftKings moved up their lock time to accommodate. FanDuel excluded this game and will be locking at the 1:35 p.m. ET Sunday standard time. Detroit is hosting Arizona for the Peacock featured game, which already has an early start time of 11:35 a.m. ET.
St. Louis is the other venue that will be impacted, so keep tabs if you are rostering Reds and Cardinals. Coors Field also looks to have some challenges, though that game is not on the DraftKings or FanDuel featured slates.
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