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
Gavin Williams (R) $9,300 Cleveland Guardians (+105) at Milwaukee Brewers
Yesterday’s slate gave us a plethora of very strong pitching options. Today gives us a handful of solid choices, but no elite options. The closest exception to that rule is Gavin Williams, the Guardians righty who narrowly leads all pitchers in median and ceiling projections.
The key factor for Williams is his strikeout upside. He has the highest K prediction on the slate and comes into the game with a 28.7% strikeout rate. His ERA of 3.32 is also very strong, but with the Brewers implied for four runs today, keeping runs off the board isn’t the main appeal of Williams – especially with his xERA more than a full run higher than his actual ERA.
The issue – and this is a recurring theme with the solid pitchers today – is the matchup. Milwaukee is a top-five offense against right-handed pitching and strikes out at a below-average rate. Good pitching can obviously overcome that, but the odds are lower than if the matchup were softer.
I don’t consider Williams a must-play, as there’s a tightly packed group of pitchers with similar raw projections and identical Pts/Sal projections. If you have the salary to afford Williams, he’s a fine choice, but I’m not going out of my way.
MLB DFS Value Pick
Brandon Sproat (R) $5,800 Milwaukee Brewers (-125) vs. Cleveland Guardians
One of the reasons Williams is a tough click is due to his opponent. Brandon Sproat has better Vegas data than Williams, with a $3,500 discount on his price tag.
Sproat isn’t the pitcher that Williams is, coming into the game with an ERA on the wrong side of five and just a 21.8% strikeout rate. However, he has a much easier matchup in front of him. The Guardians’ wRC+ against righties is 20 points lower than the Brewers’ this season – and that’s not even factoring in the lack of Jose Ramirez in Cleveland’s lineup.
Cleveland has managed just one run in the two games without Ramirez so far, so anything but the game’s worst pitchers are at least worth considering against them. They’re also much worse against right-handed pitching than southpaws, though some of that is due to Ramirez.
Salary isn’t especially tight on this slate, but rostering Sproat allows you to play pretty much whomever else you want. He has a massive lead in Pts/Sal projection and is currently projecting for fairly low ownership, though I expect that to come up throughout the day.
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MLB DFS Tournament Picks
Carlos Rodon (L) $8,700 New York Yankees (-190) vs. Chicago White Sox
I could copy-paste the section on Williams almost word-for-word here and have it remain true, just with Rodon $500 cheaper and projecting for about half a point less. He has a strikeout rate in the high 20s, an ERA in the low threes, and an opponent with a 112 wRC+. One notable difference is his former team strikes out way more against lefties than Milwaukee does against righties, giving Rodon a wider range of outcomes and making him more of a tournament play. Ownership and salary are more pressing concerns than trying to pick the best pitcher in this price range, but all things considered, I slightly prefer Rodon over Williams.
George Kirby (R) $9,000 Seattle Mariners (-145) vs. Baltimore Orioles
Kirby is another Mariners pitcher who, somehow, has a worse home ERA than road ERA this season despite T-Mobile Park being the best pitcher’s park in baseball. That feels like an anomaly, given that throughout his career he’s been nearly a full run better at home. Baltimore is also a tough matchup, with a 109 wRC+ against righties, but managed just one run last night in Seattle. Kirby’s median projection is identical to Rodon’s, but his ownership is lower, making him a clear “pay up to be contrarian” pitcher.
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 Chicago Cubs:
The Cubs continue to draw attention from Vegas, with their 5.7-run total the best on the slate, as it has been the past couple of days. They’ve scored a disappointing seven runs across their two home games with Colorado, despite consistently elite hitting weather.
The story remains the same today, with sustained winds at double-digit speeds blowing directly out to center field. They also have another winnable pitching matchup against Sean Sullivan, who is making just his second MLB appearance. In his first, he threw three scoreless innings – but he had a 5.60 ERA in AAA this season.
Going back to the well with Chicago is a bit scary, but they aren’t especially expensive and have the best team total on the slate by a wide margin. There’s some rain in the forecast, but it looks like it should clear around game time, so it’s hard to come up with a justification for fading them.
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.
Miguel Vargas 3B ($5,000) Chicago White Sox at New York Yankees (Carlos Rodon)
We’re showing a relatively even ownership distribution between the three top pitchers on the slate – Rodon, Williams, and Kirby. Obviously, you can play at most two of them in any given lineup, which means an opportunity for leverage by rostering against whichever one you fade.
I’ll start with Rodon, who has a tough matchup in general against the White Sox thanks to their strong splits against lefties. There’s a lot of green on their PlateIQ page, but Miguel Vargas stands above the rest:
I’m going so far as including multiple hitters from the opponents of whichever pitcher I’m fading, with Chicago providing plenty of choices. The sample size on Vargas makes him the easiest to trust as a one-off, though.
Brandon Lowe 2B ($5,800) Pittsburgh Pirates at Athletics (Aaron Civale)
Of course, the best raw projections on the slate belong to hitters in the Athletics game, as the park factors in Sacramento rival Coors Field for hitter friendliness. The Pirates have also been a top-five offense against righties this season, with that in large part driven by Lowe.
While he’s hitting just .237, he’s belted 18 home runs despite home games at the toughest park in baseball for dingers. He’s hit two more long balls on the road despite eight fewer games played than at home, including one last night against the A’s. Now he’s facing a pitcher with a 47.6% fly ball rate, nearly ten percent higher than the league average.
In addition to rostering Lowe in as many lineups as I can afford, I’ll be betting him to go yard.
Nick Kurtz ($6,400) athletics vs. Pittsburgh Pirates (Braxton Ashcraft)
I’m slightly more interested in the visiting Pirates tonight, as they have a higher total, are a better overall team against righties, and get the guaranteed ninth inning of at-bats. However, there are still some incredibly strong A’s batters, none more than star first baseman Nick Kurtz.
He’s hitting .292 with 18 home runs of his own and ranks third in all of baseball with his 172 wRC+. He has a tougher matchup against the Pirates’ Braxton Ashcraft ($9,800), but it’s still projecting very well. In fact, he trails only Lowe for the highest median projection among all hitters on the slate.
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Pictured: Gavin Williams
Photo Credit: Imagn
