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
Max Meyer (R) $8,800 Miami Marlins (-140) at Colorado Rockies
It’s a relatively weak slate for pitching on Thursday night, with no teams implied for fewer than four runs and no pitcher above $8,800 or a median projection of 16 points. The leader in both of those categories is the Marlins’ Meyer, who comes into this game with excellent numbers (2.80 ERA, 26.7% strikeout rate) and a plus matchup – but is playing at Coors Field.
The matchup for righties against the Rockies is only moderately positive, as Colorado continues to have extreme platoon splits. They’re a slightly below-average unit in both strikeouts and run scoring when facing right-handed pitching but remain awful against lefties. On its own, that’s not nearly enough to justify rostering visiting pitchers against them.
Meyer’s abilities are what potentially tips the scales. A relatively high strikeout rate and sub-40% fly-ball rate (on balls in play) are both important details for a game in Colorado, especially with hitter-friendly weather on top of the usual park factors. The other important detail is the lack of clear better options, even with Meyer’s salary leading the slate.
Since he has such a wide range of outcomes and isn’t among the Pts/Sal leaders, I consider him more of a tournament option than a cash game play. For cash games, I’d rather take my chances on two cheaper options with a flatter distribution of likely outcomes and save the salary for bats. For tournaments, rostering Meyer should lead to some fairly unique builds, which could pay off if he shuts down the Rockies.
MLB DFS Value Pick
Tatsuya Imai (R) $7,300, Houston Astros (-135) vs. Minnesota Twins
Our other top option tonight is a fellow Japanese pitcher, but this time with an opposite regression case. Tatsuya Imai has an ugly 5.36 ERA through his first 11 MLB starts, but his underlying numbers are all right around 4.00. That’s not elite by any stretch but is probably good enough given the dearth of obvious pitching values on the slate.
More importantly, he has an elite 28.7% strikeout rate on the season, which gives him plenty of upside. The Twins strike out at a below-average rate – and are a top-5 team by wRC+ – against righties, so Imai is far from a sure thing, but we wouldn’t expect that from a pitcher in his price range.
Plus, this game features neither elite hitting weather nor a difficult ballpark, with Daikin Park providing about a 1% boost to bats on average, while the game is indoors. That normally wouldn’t be notable, but with nearly every other game on the slate featuring one or both of those concerns, it’s an important consideration.
Imai is tied for the lead in Pts/Sal projection with a very solid upside, making him my favorite price-considered option on the slate.
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MLB DFS Tournament Picks
Shane Drohan (L) $7,000, Milwaukee Brewers (-165) vs. Cincinnati Reds
Drohan has an identical Pts/Sal projection as Imai, though he’s arrived at it in a different way. Like Imai, he has an indoor game, although his have even better park factors. Unlike Imai, he’s a low-ish strikeout rate pitcher with an ERA in the low threes. The Reds have an above-average strikeout rate against lefties, which helps that a bit, but broadly speaking, I view him as a safer but lower-upside version of Imai.
Shane McClanahan (L) $8,500, Tampa Bay Rays (-135) at Kansas City Royals
I’ll have at least one lineup featuring “southpaw pitchers named Shane” as a bit tonight, but McClanahan is legitimately one of the better options on the board. He’ll likely never recreate his 2022/2023 pre-injury magic, but he’s returned as a dependable arm with an ERA in the low threes and a 23.4% strikeout rate. Kansas City hits lefties at a below-average rate as well, so as long as he can overcome the weather factors, he’s a solid option.
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 Miami Marlins:
Marlins hitters are certainly enjoying their road trip this week, putting up 14 runs last night after going for ten on Monday. While it’s probably unreasonable to expect that upward trend to continue again, their 6.3-run implied total is the highest on the board, with the added benefit of being the road team.
Tonight’s matchup is against Kyle Freeland ($5,000), whose minimum price hints at his likeliest outcome here. The 33-year-old has a 7.50 ERA, and his xERA is 5.85. That difference is likely due to home games at Coors, but he doesn’t get any relief in that department tonight, plus a 5.85 ERA would still be awful. It’s also worth considering the fatigue that Colorado’s bullpen is likely facing after two brutal pitching days. They’ll be in a rough spot if Freeland is chased early.
Plus, with this stack still somehow reasonably priced, it’s hard to come up with a reason to fade them. I’m all in on Miami tonight.
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.
Gary Sanchez C ($3,900) Milwaukee Brewers vs. Cincinnati Reds (Andrew Abbott)
Milwaukee as a team has some of the most extreme (negative) platoon splits when it comes to facing southpaws. Against righties, their team wRC+ is 112, third-best in the league. Against lefties, that number drops to 91 (21st). Of course, they still have some bats that do well against lefties, with PlateIQ showing us who:
There are three clear options, but Jackson Chourio ($5,600) is expensive and Andrew Vaughn ($3,700) doesn’t fit well with the Miami stack. That leaves us with Sanchez, who is extremely underpriced for the matchup considering he’s a .300 hitter with a .969 OPS against lefties this season.
Jonathan Aranda 1B ($4,300) Tampa Bay Rays at Kansas City Royals (Seth Lugo)
The Rays are implied for 5.8 runs tonight, and that somehow ranks third among the seven road teams on the board. On a normal slate, everyone would be rushing to roster them, with the first three bats in their lineup all having median projections of at least 11 DraftKings points – while being fairly reasonably priced as a whole.
The cheapest of that group is Aranda at $4,300 and batting second. Unfortunately, he’s not a good match for Marlins stacks. Nor can you roster the first three Tampa bats (they’re all eligible at some combination of first and third base). With that said, I’ll be mixing and matching them where I can, with a lean toward Aranda for his salary savings.
Freddie Freeman 1B ($5,700) Los Angeles Dodgers at Athletics (J.T. Ginn)
Freeman trails Miami’s Otto Lopes by just a couple hundredths of a point for the highest median projection on the slate, as his Dodgers also narrowly trail the Marlins for the highest implied total. The problem with stacking LA is that you can’t roster a 1–5 hitter stack since their leadoff hitter is only eligible at pitcher.
Obviously we can’t roster all of the first basemen I’ve discussed here today, but I wanted to highlight how elite of a spot it is for the Dodgers in general. They’re the best offense in baseball by a pretty wide margin, both overall and against righties, and playing at the second-best hitter’s park in baseball. I’m not forcing exposure to any particular hitter from their lineup, but it’s probably a bad idea to fade them entirely.
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Pictured: Max Meyer
Photo Credit: Imagn
