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
George Kirby ($9,200) Seattle Mariners (-126) vs. Milwaukee Brewers
Like most of the Mariners’ pitching staff, George Kirby has fairly drastic home/road splits this season. Away from Seattle, his ERA is an ugly 5.40. At home, it’s a much better 3.62. Normally I’d be happy to dismiss that as noise — but given the Park Factor in Seattle, it’s a fairly reliable discrepancy.
T-Mobile Park is to pitchers what Coors Field is to hitters, with the average game there featuring 17% fewer runs than the MLB average. With all of Kirby’s underlying numbers much lower than his 4.50 ERA, he’s not benefited from his home stadium as much as he should have and is arguably even better than his home numbers indicate.
I wouldn’t be mentioning any of this is Seattle wasn’t at home tonight, where they host the Brewers. Milwaukee has a roughly average lineup against right-handed pitching — and the lowest implied total on the slate.
That makes Kirby a relatively safe pick to start your lineups with, and his 25.2% strikeout rate gives him solid upside as well.
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MLB DFS Value Pick
Jacob Lopez ($6,800) Athletics (+104) at Texas Rangers
The Athletics temporary home in Sacramento is on the other side of the Park Factor equation. Sutter Health Park has boosted scoring more than any park except for Coors Field this season, an average of 21% per game.
Which makes road games the right time to target Athletics’ starters, like Lopez. The lefty is getting his first real shot at the starting rotation this season, after making a handful of appearances mostly from the bullpen in his first two MLB stints.
He’s been solid if unspectacular, with a 4.02 ERA as a starter through ten outings. He sports an impressive 27.9% strikeout rate, which helps make up for the fact that his average start has been a bit under five innings.
He also gets to face the Rangers, the 28th-ranked team in the majors against left-handed pitching this season. Texas also strikes out at a 25% clip, giving Lopez massive upside relative to his price tag. He’s the leader in Pts/Sal projection by a wide margin, with the added benefit of fairly reasonable ownership.
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MLB DFS GPP Pick
Brandon Woodruff ($9,600) Milwaukee Brewers (+105) at Seattle Mariners
Obviously, two starting pitchers get to ply their trade in Seattle tonight. Outside of Kirby, we also have Woodruff, who leads our projections in median and ceiling.
He’s a much riskier option, as he’s made just two starts this season after missing the entirety of the 2024 campaign. The early results have been promising, though, with 16 strikeouts across just over ten innings of work. Some of that was due to the matchups — he faced Miami and Washington — but it’s still a great sign.
Plus, Woodruff’s strikeout rate was consistently around 30% before his injuries, so this isn’t some unexpected new occurrence. The Mariners rank top ten in both strikeout rate and wRC+ against righties. which makes this a high-variance spot for Woodruff.
For that reason I’m more interested in him for GPPs than cash games, since Kirby is a safer pick in that salary range.
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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 an aggregate projection set belongs to the St. Louis Cardinals:
I’ve referenced a couple of other ballparks in relation to Coors Field, but we’ve got a game at the classic version on tap tonight as well. The lucky visitors are the Cardinals, who come into the contest with a 6.5-run total that’s a full run higher than any other team on the slate.
They’re taking on Austin Gomber ($4,500), a southpaw with a 5.65 ERA and similar underlying numbers on the season. The latter factor is important, since it indicates his performance isn’t exclusively a factor of where he plays his home games.
The former Cardinal does have an ERA north of seven at home though, making this a great spot for his former team. St. Louis is a bit pricey, but probably not expensive enough, all things considered. The value on Lopez at pitcher also makes it fairly easy to fit the Cardinals stack.
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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.
Ketel Marte 2B ($5,700) Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Houston Astros (Colton Gordon)
I’m interested to see the ownership at second base tonight. We currently have Marte projected slightly ahead of the Cardinals’ Donovan, but I’d be surprised if that held. Donovan is much cheaper and the leadoff hitter for what should be the slate’s most popular stack, making him a better value.
If my intuition proves correct, Marte is an interesting pay-up-to-to-be-contrarian choice. He has elite numbers against left-handed pitching, as can be seen in PlateIQ:
With Arizona implied for one of the highest totals on the slate against a mediocre southpaw, he’s an excellent choice as a one-off or as part of Diamondbacks mini-stacks.
Mookie Betts SS ($4,400) Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Minnesota Twins (David Festa)
Mookie Betts is having a down year by his standards, hitting just .240 with a .684 OPS. All in all, he’s been a slightly below-average hitter on the season — but we all know he’s much better than that.
As long as his salary stays in the mid-$4K range, he’ll be a consistent buy-low candidate. Still just 32 years old, it’s fairly unlikely his performance has actually dropped off a cliff. His BABIP and HR/FB ratio are both well below his career average, both of which point to bad luck more than poor performance.
There’s nothing about this matchup in particular that makes this the time to jump on Betts, but odds are he turns things around at some point. I want to have some exposure at a cheap price if and when he does.
Jurickson Profar OF ($3,600) Atlanta Braves vs. San Francisco 49ers (Hayden Birdsong)
The nice thing about the Cardinals stack today is that it leaves all three outfield positions open. That gives plenty of roster flexibility and allows you to hunt cheap values as well as high-upside players, both of which are found in abundance in the outfield.
Profar is more of the former, as he’s pretty clearly underpriced. He’s set to lead off a Braves lineup implied for 5.2 runs tonight, with plenty of big bats behind him.
I’m not rushing to force Profar into my lineups, but we do need to save some salary to fit the Cardinals stack and he represents an easy way to do so.
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Pictured: Nolan Arenado
Photo Credit: Imagn
