The MLB Breakdown offers data-driven analysis using the FantasyLabs Tools and predictive metrics to highlight notable players within our MLB Player Models.
MLB DFS Pitching Picks
MLB DFS Stud Pick
Bryan Woo (R) $9,000 Seattle Mariners (-171) vs. Chicago White Sox
While not as extreme as they’ve been in past seasons, the home/road splits for Bryan Woo remain notable. That tends to be the case with Mariners pitchers, as T-Mobile Park is effectively the only stadium that actually matters in terms of boosting pitchers’ performance. Over the past three seasons, overall scoring is down about 8% from expectation there.
This year, Woo’s ERA is about half of a run lower at home compared to on the road, and he’s also had more road starts. It’s not a huge difference, but it’s enough to make him a better value. Plus, his ERA indicators suggest he’s been better than his overall mark, and he’s probably due for more strikeouts than his current 22.3% rate based on his swinging strike rate.
While the White Sox are a roughly league-average team in terms of run production, they strike out a lot, with the third-highest rate in the majors against righties. That’s an ideal matchup for Woo at home, since we aren’t especially worried about runs. On the off chance you were, it’s worth noting that the Sox’ 3.1-run implied total is easily the lowest on the board.
Our projections have Woo as the best median, ceiling, and Pts/Sal option. Obviously that will also come with high ownership, but it’s a big enough slate where we can get unique elsewhere.
MLB DFS Value Pick
J.T. Ginn (R) $7,500 Athletics (-130) at Los Angeles Angels
The Athletics have the inverse home/road situation as the Mariners, with their home ballpark the best hitters’ park in the American League, trailing only Coors Field in terms of overall run inflation. A road game at a neutral venue should cut scoring by about ten percent relative to A’s home games. J.T. Ginn is a stark example of that, with a 5.21 ERA at home and a 1.48 mark on the road.
I’d be shocked if the discrepancy stayed that wide all season, but there’s definitely something there given the A’s home Park Factor. Fortunately, Ginn is on the road tonight, facing an Angels team that ranks 26th in wRC+ and first (or last, depending on your perspective) in strikeout rate against righties.
Ginn is a pretty bad strikeout pitcher all things considered, but a matchup with the Angels at least gives him a hint of upside, especially if he can last deeper into the game thanks to not allowing nearly as much offense as he would in a typical home game. We also don’t need a ton of upside at his salary, and he’s projecting for reasonably low ownership, making him an excellent SP2 if you’re rostering the chalky Woo.
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MLB DFS GPP Picks
Mackenzie Gore (L) $8,000 Texas Rangers (-152) at Colorado Rockies
The Rangers were probably expecting better from Mackenzie Gore when they traded for him this offseason, as he brings a 4.50 ERA into the contest. He also has a 26% strikeout rate and is facing a Rockies team that strikes out at a 29.8% clip against lefties, by far the highest rate in the league. The game being at Coors Field doesn’t help his cause, but the Park Factor doesn’t matter much if you don’t put the bat on the ball. There’s some evidence to suggest the thin air reduces spin rate for pitchers (and thus movement and strikeouts), so it’s not a smash play, but it’s an interesting GPP flier.
Noah Schultz(L) $7,300 Chicago White Sox (+144) at Seattle Mariners
You know who else gets to benefit from playing in Seattle? Whoever the Mariners are facing. Today, that’s Noah Schultz, a White Sox rookie southpaw. He’s not nearly as good as Woo, with an ERA approaching five, but the Mariners are a bottom-five team against lefties in terms of wRC+. Plus, the former first-round pick has far more talent than his current numbers show, so this could be the perfect breakout spot.
MLB DFS Hitters and Stacks
Notable Stack
With the Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters.
Also, don’t forget that for large-field tournaments, you can utilize our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups.
The top DraftKings stack in the FantasyLabs MLB Player Model when generated by rating using our tournament model belongs to the Texas Rangers:
“Visiting Team at Coors” is pretty much a guaranteed top stack, although it’s a much tougher decision today. Texas is the worst team in baseball against left-handed pitching this season, by a fairly wide margin. To illustrate, the gap between them and the 29th-ranked Padres is the same as the gap between 29 and 22.
I bring this up since they’re facing lefty Jose Quintana ($5,500) at Coors today. Quintana has a 3.97 ERA but considerably worse underlying numbers, which suggests he’s somehow been lucky despite roughly half of his innings being in the best hitter’s park in the MLB. He somehow has a slightly lower ERA at home, which is even more surprising.
None of that is likely to hold up for Quintana, of course, so we’ll see if it turns around tonight. That makes the Rangers more of a “wide range of outcomes” stack than a lock-button smash, but their 5.3-run implied total is second-best on the board, and they’re cheap.
Not interested in messing around with optimizer settings? No worries, you can use our MLB DFS Simulations and let it find the best way to control your stacks, exposure, correlations, and more!
Other MLB DFS Hitter Picks
One of the great features of being a FantasyLabs Pro member is the option to purchase additional items in the FantasyLabs Marketplace.
In addition to our in-house MLB projections, THE BAT X from Derek Carty of RotoGrinders is available in our marketplace. With this purchase, you can use his projections alone or create aggregate projections within our Player Models.
For this example, we created a 50/50 blend with THE BAT X and the FantasyLabs projections to pinpoint some hitters that stand out.
Jackson Chourio OF ($5,200) Milwaukee Brewers at Chicago Cubs (Shota Imanaga)
Rather than blindly just roster “road team at Coors” tonight, I’m more interested in the game at Wrigley Field. The weather there boosts scoring by more than 20% based on a 75-game sample size in Weather Edge, nearly double the impact of the Coors Park Factor.
Most of the field will be on the Cubs, for good reason, since Milwaukee is bad against lefties and facing a very tough one in Shota Imanaga ($9,500). I turned to PlateIQ to see if there were any exceptions to that rule and found an obvious one:
Chourio is still overpriced for the matchup, but he’s an interesting GPP flier given the conditions and his splits against lefties.
Michael Busch 1B ($4,300) Chicago Cubs vs. Milwaukee Brewers (Brandon Sproat)
Of course, the Cubbies are the real attraction tonight at Wrigley. They’re not all that expensive – especially in the context of being implied for six runs – and have an elite matchup with Brandon Sproat ($6,900). Sproat has a 5.75 ERA, a low strikeout rate, and a flyball rate about 5% above league average – which you might recognize as bad things when the wind is blowing out at more than 15 mph.
There’s not really a wrong answer from the Cubs side, but Sproat is worse against lefties than righties, with a .412 wOBA vs. left-handed hitting compared to .349 against right-handed. Plus, I used the advanced features on PlateIQ to look for Cubs hitters with good flyball rates, and Busch was the obvious answer:
Aaron Judge OF ($6,500) New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays (Patrick Corbin)
Aaron Judge is at home against Patrick Corbin ($6,200). If you’re even a casual baseball fan, that’s more than enough information. Is $6,500 hard to find? Sure, but you’ll find a way. I believe in you.
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Pictured: Bryan Woo
Photo Credit: Imagn
