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
Logan Gilbert (R) $10,000 Seattle Mariners (+107) at Milwaukee Brewers
Things didn’t go great for the Mariners yesterday, to put it mildly. They lost 22-0 in the biggest shutout loss since 1887. Most of those runs came after starter Bryce Miller‘s exit, but his five runs over 4.2 innings also weren’t ideal if you paid up to roster the Mariners righty.
We’ve got a chance to do so again today with Gilbert, who comes in $500 more expensive than Miller did yesterday. Gilbert is the better pitcher, though, with an ERA about a half run lower and a strikeout rate a few percent higher than his counterpart. Crucially, and paradoxically, Gilbert has actually been better on the road this season, so his numbers aren’t propped up by the park factors in Seattle.
It’s still a difficult matchup, though, with the Brewers’ outburst yesterday pushing them into the #4 spot for wRC+ against right-handed pitching. The Mariners are slight underdogs, with Milwaukee implied for 3.7 runs, which makes the five-figure price tag on Gilbert a somewhat tough ask, especially with the Dodgers stack once again eating up plenty of salary.
Gilbert has a narrow lead in median and ceiling projections today, but his price tag means there’s somewhat better value. I’m interested in Gilbert if his ownership projections show him as a contrarian play, but I’m not willing to eat the chalk and salary in a tough matchup.
MLB DFS Value Pick
Ethan Pecko (R) $6,000 Houston Astros (-158) vs. Los Angeles Angels
The demand for available salary to spend on the Dodgers means we’re going to continue to see budget pitchers propped up from an ownership perspective, with today’s lucky winner likely to be Astros rookie Ethan Pecko. The 23-year-old is making his MLB debut tonight after an unremarkable minor league stint this season in which he totaled a 4.53 ERA.
That’s not particularly encouraging, but the Vegas data is. Despite the matchup, the Angels are implied for fewer than four runs and are the 28th-ranked team in baseball against right-handed hitting. Usually, a pitcher who is a moderate moneyline favorite with an opponent team total below four costs somewhere around $9,000, making Pecko a massive discount based on Vegas odds.
Also on the optimistic front, he had a 3.09 ERA and a strikeout rate above 30% in AAA last season, so the talent is (theoretically) there. On most slates, I’d be wary of a debuting pitcher with his numbers, but given the need to save salary, he’s worth taking the risk in tournaments tonight.
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MLB DFS Tournament Picks
Parker Messick (L) $9,200 Cleveland Guardians (-216) vs. San Francisco Guardians
As of this morning, we have Messick projecting just behind Gilbert but with lower ownership. My guess is that those latter numbers flip, with Messick $800 cheaper in a better matchup and with better Vegas data. Cleveland is the heaviest moneyline favorite on the slate, and the Guardians have the smallest implied total, making him theoretically the best play, as long as his ownership doesn’t get steamed too heavily on a slate where you can’t really play multiple $9,000+ pitchers.
Drew Rasmussen (R) $9,700 Tampa Bay Rays (-207) vs. Toronto Blue Jays
Rasmussen is basically an arbitrage Messick tonight, except he costs an additional $500 for some reason. He has very similar underlying numbers, a slightly tougher matchup, and slightly worse Vegas data but is super close in each of those categories. That makes it hard to spend extra for him on paper but could make him extremely valuable in tournaments if his single-digit ownership percentage holds. Messick is basically 51/49 to outscore Rasmussen but with 4x the ownership, making the latter a better large-field tournament play by a mile.
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 Los Angeles Dodgers:
For the third straight day, the Dodgers are extremely expensive but projecting for enough points to be worth it, as they carry an outsized implied total into Coors Field. They’ve scored 18 runs in the first two games of this series, with both games going for more than their 6.8-run mark today, and Shohei Ohtani scoring a combined 56 DraftKings points.
At this point, discussing the pitching matchup is effectively meaningless. A) It’s the best lineup in baseball playing in the best hitter’s park, and B) Do the Rockies have a starter who would make you want to avoid the Dodgers? Didn’t think so.
Despite the growing price tag on Ohtani, this stack as a whole is actually the cheapest it’s been this week (thanks, Tommy Edman!), and coupled with Pecko, it’s mildly possible to fit the whole group in your lineups, which you probably should try to do. It’s the Dodgers at Coors, after all.
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.
Ben Rice 1B/C ($5,800) New York Yankees at Baltimore Orioles (Chris Bassitt)
The Yankees are in Baltimore tonight at a top-five run-scoring park that boosts home runs by left-handed hitters specifically by 20%. The weather also adds another 20%+ to home runs, with the wind blowing out to right field likely to amplify that for left-handed bats since that’s where their pulled balls go. Lefty Ben Rice is a top-ten hitter in all of baseball by wRC+, with 33 home runs on the season.
On top of all that, their opponent Chris Bassitt is terrible against left-handed hitting, with his ISO allowed nearly 5x what it is against righties, per PlateIQ:
And yet, nobody is going to play Rice because the expensive Dodgers stack is sucking up all the salary. That feels like a mistake, and much of the same logic applies to Trent Grisham OF ($4,300).
Elly De La Cruz SS ($6,000) Cincinnati Reds vs. St. Louis Cardinals (Matthew Liberatore)
Another expensive bat likely to go overlooked is the Reds’ Elly De La Cruz, who has a home game in one of the best home run parks in baseball against a struggling pitcher. Matthew Liberatore has an ERA over five on the season and, crucially, is left-handed.
De La Cruz has a batting average 100 points higher against lefties this season, and 40% of his home runs have come against them in just 26% of his plate appearances. He’s also stolen 21 bases in 107 games, giving him upside with both his bat and his legs. Rostering him is betting on the Dodgers to underwhelm (since you can’t fit him around their stack), but it’s a solid contrarian tournament option.
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Pictured: Logan Gilbert
Photo Credit: Imagn
