Baseball

MLB DFS Slate Breakdown (5/10/21)

by
Ben
May 10, 2021

This content will be dedicated to providing you with an easy-to-follow breakdown of the elite cash plays, GPP plays, and leverage stacks.

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NOTE: Tables are embedded in the breakdown and update LIVE. The various tables will update with starting lineups confirmation, when projections are edited in the projections portal(s), and every hour. If a table is showing an error message or is blank, please wait a moment and refresh the page and it should re-populate correctly. Thanks!

Pitching

MLB DK Pitcher Table

Player	Hand	Team	Opponent	Opp. K%	Park	DK Salary	Proj. DK Pts.	FD Salary	Proj. FD Pts.	Proj. Ks	K%	BB%	HR/9	BABIP	SwStr.%	FB %	HC%	SIERA	WHIP	K-BB%	x	Player ID
Brayan Bello	R	BOS	OAK		OAK	7,600				2.43	19.80%	6.70%	1.38	0.31	10.70	28.90%	44.30%	4.18	1.34	13.00		678,394
Justin Verlander	R	HOU	TOR		HOU	9,900				2.69	21.50%	6.70%	1.00	0.27	9.90	44.80%	40.80%	4.43	1.13	14.80		434,378
Clarke Schmidt	R	NYY	ARI		ARI	7,500				2.29	21.50%	6.60%	1.36	0.31	10.20	37.70%	41.00%	4.29	1.35	14.80		657,376
Joe Boyle	R	OAK	BOS		OAK	7,500	13.37			2.54	25.00%	8.30%	0.56	0.18	8.80	55.00%	42.50%	4.37	0.81	16.70		671,212
Triston McKenzie	R	CLE	SEA		SEA	9,000	16.60			2.00	21.90%	17.80%	0.56	0.26	10.30	52.30%	45.50%	5.95	1.56	4.10		663,474
Jack Flaherty	R	DET	NYM		NYM	8,500				2.65	22.80%	10.20%	1.06	0.36	10.70	31.80%	38.20%	4.53	1.58	12.60		656,427
Kyle Gibson	R	STL	SD		SD	7,900	11.94			2.47	19.50%	6.80%	1.08	0.31	10.60	31.00%	44.50%	4.40	1.32	12.60		502,043
Emerson Hancock	R	SEA	CLE		SEA	8,000	9.76			1.06	12.20%	6.10%	0.75	0.31	7.70	37.50%	35.00%	5.31	1.33	6.10		676,106
Yariel Rodriguez			SF		LAD					0.00	20.00%	20.00%	0.00	0.33	0.00	100.00%	33.30%	8.09	2.00	0.00
Matt Waldron	R	SD	STL		SD	7,600	11.70			1.95	17.90%	6.90%	1.96	0.25	8.00	41.50%	38.50%	4.73	1.23	11.00		663,362
Sean Manaea	L	NYM	DET	22.70	NYM	7,800	14.41			3.31	25.70%	8.40%	1.07	0.29	11.10	37.10%	36.50%	3.83	1.24	17.20		640,455
Yoshinobu Yamamoto			SF		LAD					0.00	20.00%	20.00%	0.00	0.33	0.00	100.00%	33.30%	8.09	2.00	0.00
Jordan Montgomery	L		#N/A		#N/A		0.00			0.00	21.40%	6.20%	0.86	0.29	11.40	34.80%	37.80%	4.23	1.19	15.20		656,756
Blake Snell	L	SF	LAD	21.90	LAD	9,200				6.32	31.50%	13.30%	0.75	0.26	15.30	34.10%	33.70%	4.06	1.19	18.20		605,483
Player	Hand	Team	Opponent	Opp. K%	Park	DK Salary	Proj. DK Pts.	FD Salary	Proj. FD Pts.	Proj. Ks	K%	BB%	HR/9	BABIP	SwStr.%	FB %	HC%	SIERA	WHIP	K-BB%	x	Player ID

Kyle Gibson: I’ve played Gibson quite a bit this season already, and it appears that he will be third in OWN% behind Mahle and Wood. He’s been great for the Rangers this season, and his new cutter has made that possible. His hard-hit rate is down from last season, while the swinging strikes are up over 4% to 13% on the year. The strikeout rate is still average, but those swing and misses show he has room to grow in the K department. He does have a tough match-up with the Giants, who own a combined wOBA over .340 since the start of 2020 vs right-handed pitching. Gibson keeps the ball on the ground over 50% of the time to both sides of the plate, which helps him from getting blown up when things go south. I like him in all formats on Monday night.

Alex Wood: Wood has returned to his 2018 form this season pitching to a 3.20 xFIP with over 13% swinging strikes. He hasn’t walked many batters, and has even thrown 97 pitches twice. He also has an excellent match-up against the Texas Rangers. This lineup certainly has some pop, but since the start of 2020 they have a combined strikeout rate of 25% against left-handed pitching. Wood is similarly priced to both Gibson and Mahle, but is one of the top options on this small slate. It appears paying up for pitching will once again be the optimal move.

Tyler Mahle: Mahle is the strikeout artist here, with punching out over 30% of batters faced in 2021. He also draws the Pittsburgh Pirates who are a terrible offense missing some of its best offensive players. Looking at their lineup, since the start of 2020 you’ll see a combined .109 ISO and a .276 wOBA…yikes! The strikeout rate is below 21%, but that’s mainly bogged down by Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman’s sub-13% strikeout rates. There are strikeouts to be had in this lineup, and Mahle has the stuff to find them. Overall, he should be the highest-owned pitcher on this slate and rightfully so. He is the top projection tonight.

Other GPP Targets: Luis Garcia, Mitch Keller

MLB Top Batters

Batters

C

Catcher is a disaster on five game slates, and the strategy I typically use is filling in this spot last, or including it in my stack. Christian Vazquez and Pedro Severino are my top options here, while Kurt Suzuki looks like the best value play,

1B

Shohei Ohtani- “Sho Time” continues to be underpriced by the DK pricing algorithm and is always a top option for me against right-handed pitching. He sports a .254 ISO vs opposite-hand pitchers since the start of 2020. He has been locked in at the plate all season, continuing to lead baseball with 15.4% barrels/PA.

Christian Walker- Walker is just coming back from injury, and has yet to reach $4,000 in salary on DraftKings. People are hesitant to roster batters in right on right match-ups, and that continues to be an edge to exploit in DFS. Since the start of 2019, Walker’s .207 ISO vs righties is actually the second-highest mark in this lineup.

2B

Jose Altuve- I always love Altuve vs left-handed pitching, but this is an especially tantalizing match-up. We have 296 PA of Jose Suarez vs right-handed batters since the start of 2019, and the results are far from good. Over that span, he has allowed a .446 wOBA and a .291 ISO vs right-handed batters.

Nick Solak- Nobody will be rostering batters vs Alex Wood today, but I have interest in a few of these Rangers guys in tournaments. Solak has been seeing the ball well this season, his 7.8% barrels/PA is top-40 in baseball, tied with the likes of Vlad Jr and Yordan Alvarez. He also boasts an average exit velocity above 90 vs left-handed pitching this season. A sure bet to be sub-5% owned on Monday night.

3B

Alex Bregman- Given those numbers I posted from Suarez above, the Astros righties will be no secret tonight. Over that same span, Bregman sports a massive .314 ISO with just 13% strikeouts vs southpaws.

Rafael Devers- Bregman vs Devers is a tough decision on Monday, and one that could make or break your night. Devers has also been on fire in 2021, trailing only Ohtani in barrels/PA% among qualifiers (13.2%). He’s also top-20 in average exit velocity, and has double-digit DK points in three of his last four games.

SS

Carlos Correa- Correa has never flashed massive power vs left-handed pitching, but this is yet another righty that hits the ball hard in this lineup. Since the start of 2020, his 48% hard-hit rate is second-highest in the Astros lineup.

Eugenio Suarez- Carlos Correa is going to dominate OWN% at a weak SS position today, so rostering anyone but him or Xander Bogaerts is going to lower your overall ownership on Monday. Users tend to lock in Suarez vs left-handed pitching, but he does own an ISO well above .200 over the last two seasons in the split. Keller is all fastball/slider to righties, two pitches Suarez has hit well in his career.

OF

Yordan Alvarez- While everyone is flocking to the righties in this lineup (rightfully so) we can’t forget about Air Yordan. He’s always smashed left-handed pitching and has the highest ISO on the team against them since he joined the big league club (.246). He’s a must for me in a Houston stack tonight.

Jesse Winker- Winker has been one of the best hitters in baseball since the start of last season, and nobody talks about it. He is following up his 13% barrel rate season with a 14.7% rate in 2021. He has power, and seems to hit every ball hard. Keller throws over 40% fastballs to left-handed batters — a pitch that Winker owns a .246 ISO against since joining the big league club.

Adolis Garcia- This is one of the top leverage plays on the slate in my opinion. Garcia has a huge 18.8% barrel rate, and an average exit velocity of over 92. He’s been smoking balls nightly it seems, and also sports a 40.5% hard-hit rate against lefties this season. He’s way too cheap for his power upside.

Stacks

“Team Batting Score” – A metric that quickly highlights overall team batting based on Runs Created (RC+) by team and comparing it to the average and standard deviation of all other MLB Teams

“Opp. Pitcher SP Score” – A weighted metric that evaluates today’s starting pitchers based on xFIP and Games Started (currently using partial end of 2020 data blended with the 2021 season)

“Opp. BP Score” – Similar to SP Score but weights the xFIP for the team’s bullpen

Team Batting vs. Opp. Pitch

Team	Team Batting Score	Opp.	Opp. Pitcher	Opp. SP Score	Opp. BP Score	PLAYER ID
BOS			Joe Boyle			671,212
HOU
NYY
OAK			Brayan Bello			678,394
CLE			Emerson Hancock			676,106
DET			Sean Manaea			640,455
STL			Matt Waldron			663,362
SEA			Triston McKenzie			663,474
LAD			Blake Snell			605,483
SD			Kyle Gibson			502,043
NYM			Jack Flaherty			656,427
LAD			Blake Snell			605,483
SF			Yariel Rodriguez









Team	Team Batting Score	Opp.	Opp. Pitcher	Opp. SP Score	Opp. BP Score	PLAYER ID

DK MLB Stacks

Team	T2 DK $	T2 Pts	T2 OWN%	T3 DK $	T3 Pts	T3 OWN%	T4 DK $	T4 Pts	T4 OWN%	T5 DK $	T5 Pts	T5 OWN%
Team	T2 DK $	T2 Pts	T2 OWN%	T3 DK $	T3 Pts	T3 OWN%	T4 DK $	T4 Pts	T4 OWN%	T5 DK $	T5 Pts	T5 OWN%

“T2” (and T3/T4/T5) represents the Top 2 projected hitters for the team on the left (not necessarily the top 2 hitters in the batting order)

Stacking is an extremely important element to MLB DFS. In MLB, all of your players are correlated to each other. Outside of solo homeruns, they need each other to succeed. If you look at the top of all of the big GPPs every night you will see stacks dominating the leaderboard.

When using our stacks chart, we want to identify teams that are projecting well but the ownership does not reflect their chance of success.

With Coors Field getting cancelled, we will get massive ownership on the high team totals in Houston and Boston. Two stacks that I find interesting in tournaments are the Miami Marlins and Cincinnati Reds. Luke Weaver just hasn’t been great this season, allowing tons of hard hits to both sides of the plate. Early OWN% has him projected for around 40% ownership, the third-highest mark on the slate. These are the types of leverage spots we like to take advantage of in MLB GPPs.

DraftKings 5-Man Stack Ideas

Altuve-Yordan-Bregman-Correa-Gurriel

Marwin-Verdugo-JD-Xander-Devers

Winker-Castellanos-Moustakas-Suarez-Naquin

Miami 1-5

DraftKings 3-Man Stack Ideas

Altuve-Bregman-Alvarez

Verdugo-JD-Devers

Gallo-Solak-Garcia

Aguilar-Dickerson-Duvall

Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)

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