Monday’s holiday has MLB action throughout most of the day. Each site is handling things a little differently with the early action locking at 1:05 p.m. ET and then a four-game featured slate at 8:07 p.m. ET 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, including RHP Dylan Cease and the Chicago Cubs offense.
MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers and Top Stacks
MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers
Main Slate Primary Pitching Target: RHP Mike Soroka at Oakland Athletics — 4.1 implied runs
First Pitch: 8:07 p.m. ET
- DFS Salary: DraftKings $7,800 | FanDuel n/a | Yahoo $36
Tonight RHP Mike Soroka is expected to make his first MLB start since 2020. Since that time he has been rehabilitating not one, but two Achilles tears and Atlanta has been easing him back to a full workload. He returned to action last season with half a dozen starts from mid-August through September, mostly with Triple-A Gwinnett. So far this season in eight starts for the Stripers, he has worked his way up to 96 pitches in his last appearance against the Durham Bulls.
The main season long projections systems have Soroka sliding into a range just below what he produced in his 34 starts between the 2018 and 2019 campaigns. That means something in the 6.9-7.3 strikeouts per nine innings range, with a 50% ground ball rate that should keep home runs in the one per nine innings range. Tonight he will be facing an anemic Oakland offense that has struggled to produce all season. Please note: at the time this article was published, FanDuel had not released their 8:07 p.m. ET contests, though Soroka was not included in the “all day” contest player pool. Since this is a holiday, there is about a 50/50 chance that someone is paying attention and makes sure he is in the player pool when the next set of tournaments spawns.
Main Slate Secondary Pitching Target: RHP Bobby Miller vs. Washington Nationals — 4.1 implied runs
First Pitch: 8:07 p.m. ET
- DFS Salary: DraftKings $5,400 | FanDuel $9,200 | Yahoo $40
Tonight it’s Miller time and we have two choices. Ultimately RHP Bobby Miller wins out with his ridiculous DraftKings salary along with a matchup against the Washington Nationals. In Seattle, fellow rookie RHP Bryce Miller will be taking on the New York Yankees, though that is a far tougher ask than facing the Nats’ bats.
In his debut, Miller helped the Dodgers to an 8-1 victory in Atlanta as he held the Braves to just one run across five innings, with five baserunners and five strikeouts. Miller is the #2 prospect in the Los Angeles farm system and if he continues to perform well, he should see a few more starts with Julio Urias still out and Dustin May recently moved to the 60-day injured list. It will be interesting to see if the 24-year-old is able to improve his his curve or changeup enough to compliment a top-notch fastball and an above average slider. This iteration of the Washington offense limits strikeouts, but they also have compiled a collective .134 ISO against right-handed pitching since the start of last year, which is a bottom-five mark in the league.
Early Slate Pitching Target: RHP Nathan Eovaldi at Detroit Tigers — 3.8 implied runs
First Pitch: 1:10 p.m. ET
- DFS Salary: DraftKings $10,500 | FanDuel $11,200 | Yahoo $53
Somehow in his age-33 season, RHP Nathan Eovaldi is in the midst of a career year. Prior to this campaign, Eovaldi had logged his preceding 797.2 innings in the American League East where he more than held his own, plying his trade for the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox. Eovaldi has always possessed good velocity and after going away from his changeup in the 2016 season and working in a split-finger fastball, he has found sustained success. Mostly Eovaldi mixes in a variety of fastballs (two-seams, four-seam, cutter and split-finger) while dropping in an adequate curveball just enough (15-18%) to keep batters on their toes.
This afternoon the venerable veteran will be taking on the Tigers in Detroit and while the Motor City Kitties are improving with an 87 wRC+ against right-handed pitching this season, the two-year track record for the current group of batsmen is still a league-worst 81 wRC+ with a 24.5% strikeout rate. Weighted runs created plus is an advanced metric that neutralizes various variables such as park factor to create a league-wide scoring efficiency baseline of 100. This indicates that Detroit is creating runs 19% less efficiently than league-average and for additional perspective, they are nearly 40% worse than the Yankees, Dodgers, Cardinals and Mets during this same timeframe.
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MLB DFS Picks: Top Stacks
Main Slate Target: Atlanta Braves at RHP Paul Blackburn — 5.3 implied runs
First Pitch: 8:07 p.m. ET
Last night Atlanta took down the visiting Phillies 11-4 on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, that romp should have made the long flight to the West Coast much more tolerable and they get a great matchup tonight against RHP Paul Blackburn. The 29-year-old veteran has been recovering from an injury to the middle finger of his pitching hand and in his final start with Triple-A Las Vegas, he logged 73 pitches across five innings.
Even though the Atlanta hitters may be a little tired from their cross-country flight, they should easily dispatch Blackburn. While the erstwhile ace allows above average power, he can survive some starts with his groundball rate approaching 50% over the last couple seasons. Atlanta has an all-star laden lineup with Matt Olson, Ronald Acuna Jr., Austin Riley and catcher Sean Murphy being the regular core four. Ozzie Albies would be near the top of the order for most teams, but he still gets plenty of good pitches deeper in the lineup. Veteran outfielders Marcell Ozuna and Eddie Rosario are a nice righty-lefty combo and of course Michael Harris II will be a leadoff stalwart someday, but in the meantime he is a nice differentiation play from the bottom of the order with his speed and budding power perfectly suited for “wraparound” stacks.
Early Slate Target: Texas Rangers at LHP Matthew Boyd — 4.9 implied runs
First Pitch: 1:10 p.m. ET
After a one-year detour with the Seattle Mariners where he tallied just 13.1 innings as a reliever, LHP Matthew Boyd is back in Detroit on a one-year $10 million contract, though it is unclear who the Tigers were competing with for his services. Home runs have always been an issue for Boyd and in his worst seasons he had a rate approaching two per nine innings.
The Texas offense has been amazing and is producing just over 6.3 runs per game. Adolis Garcia and Josh Jung are both outstanding options in DFS and in the home run market. This duo boasts ISOs of .213 an .310 respectively against southpaws over the last season and change. Corey Seager (.247 ISO) and Nate Lowe (.181 ISO) each crush fellow lefties and switch-hitting catcher Jonah Heim profiles well against Boyd along with fulfilling that pesky backstop requirement on DraftKings and Yahoo. Leadoff man Marcus Semien is always in play and switch-hitting outfielder Robbie Grossman can provide salary relief from the bottom of the order.
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Final Thoughts for Monday, May 29 | MLB DFS Picks
Aside from afternoon activity in the Baltimore area that would result in nothing more than a delay, the rest of the baseball venues across the country today should have no precipitation issues.
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