MLB DFS Picks: HRs, Stacks, Ownership DraftKings + FanDuel

I’m pretty sure we were all expecting a 12-12 game in the 10th inning in Pittsburgh tonight. Part of the fun ride of MLB DFS when we get the wild outlier games. Between that and the Reds putting up eight so far to back up Trevor Bauer‘s gem of a start that appears in a lot of lineups there are some very specific requirements for accessing the current top of GPP leaderboards. With a fair amount of baseball left to pay, we’ll have to see how things finish out on the night.

Tomorrow has a split slate with both sites featuring four afternoon games and seven game main slates. Early on it looks like a pretty bumpy slate for pitching so bats are probably going to be crucial for any sort of GPP relevance. Fortunately, when we have terrible pitching we usually have quality opportunities for bats. There are several teams pulling strong numbers in my home run model and a few spots I’m liking the look of so far. Make sure to cross the Cubs at Cardinals series off your list and take it out of your team filter on FantasyCruncher, that entire series was scrapped due to the Cardinals continued issues with the pandemic.

MLB DFS Quick Hits: Top HR Options, Stacks and Pitchers

Home Run Ratings

Home runs are our holy grail when making MLB DFS picks. Finding the right combination of sluggers who will knock one, or better two, out of the park to drive in the teammates you stack with them is critical to winning GPPs. Identifying the likely home run hitters is trickier than just looking at the big names. Using a model of my own design, based on a blend of several predictive statistics for the batter-pitcher matchup, I’m going to give one of the top choices from each team.

Scale: 5-10 Average; 10-20 Good; 20-25 Very Good; 25+ Great

Arizona Diamondbacks: Christian Walker – 9.99

Atlanta Braves: Ronald Acuna Jr. – 11.91

Baltimore Orioles: Anthony Santander – 6.03

Boston Red Sox: J.D. Martinez – 11.86

Chicago Cubs: n/a

Chicago White Sox: n/a

Cincinnati Reds: Eugenio Suarez – 8.03

Cleveland Indians: n/a

Colorado Rockies: Trevor Story – 13.77

Detroit Tigers: Jonathan Schoop – 13.64

Houston Astros: Alex Bregman – 5.33

Kansas City Royals: Jorge Soler – 6.77

Los Angeles Angels: Anthony Rendon – 8.33

Los Angeles Dodgers: Cody Bellinger – 14.07

Miami Marlins: Jesus Aguilar – 9.52

Milwaukee Brewers: Logan Morrison – 8.60

Minnesota Twins: Miguel Sano – 11.06

New York Mets: Peter Alonso – 15.91

New York Yankees: n/a

Oakland Athletics: Matt Chapman – 7.40

Philadelphia Phillies: Bryce Harper – 13.97

Pittsburgh Pirates: Colin Moran – 5.08

San Diego Padres: Manny Machado – 11.13

San Francisco Giants: Evan Longoria – 6.93

Seattle Mariners: Kyle Seager – 9.28

St. Louis Cardinals:n/a

Tampa Bay Rays: n/a

Texas Rangers: Todd Frazier – 7.27

Toronto Blue Jays: Rowdy Tellez – 7.39

Washington Nationals: Juan Soto – 19.64

MLB DFS Picks: Stacks & Ownership Plays

(Quick note: if it says 1-5 it means hitters 1-2-3-4-5, otherwise I’ll specify spots)

We’re picking a few standout spots and teams to look at for potential plays here. Make sure to check out the ownership projections for critical updates and monitor the top stacks tool throughout the day for changes.

Miami Marlins @ New York Mets – 2-3-4-6-7 – Jeff McNeil – Peter Alonso – Michael Conforto – Dominic Smith – Wilson Ramos

The Mets are drawing quality power marks and strong projections from one through six in the projected batting order in this spot against Josh A. Smith, I think. Smith has a 5.07 career xFIP across 160.1 major league innings to go along with his 1.63 HR/9 and just an 18% strikeout rate. This is a pitcher we can target with some of the Mets quality bats.

The pricing on FanDuel hasn’t caught up to the quality of Jeff McNeil’s hit tool out of the two-hole for these Mets and I don’t see the popularity that he deserves most nights either. The kid isn’t a big power source but he can absolutely rake and is a contender for a batting title. Hitting in front of Peter Alonso and Michael Conforto is a great place for him, he should be on base if either of the Mets two big bats do anything here. I liked the looks of Dominic Smith as a low-owned option late in the lineup on Friday and he put up a home run, I think he can deliver similar quality again tomorrow if he’s back in this lineup. Wilson Ramos is one of the best hitting catchers in the league and should probably be higher in the actual Mets batting order but he makes a fine option even hitting seventh. In limited deployments we can get to Amed Rosario at the bottom of this lineup as a wraparound play. Brandon Nimmo isn’t my favorite hitter in this lineup but he provides the ability to get on base from atop the order with his career .389 OBP. Nimmo’s 254 plate appearances in 2019 don’t qualify him for the overall leaderboard, but over that sample his 18.1% walk rate was second only to the 18.3% posted by Mike Trout. I would be sure to include Nimmo frequently when making multiple Mets lineups, despite his absence from this version of the stack.

Los Angeles Angels @ Texas Rangers – Angels – 1-2-3-4-6 – David Fletcher – Mike Trout – Anthony Rendon – Justin Upton – Albert Pujols

The Angels get Kolby Allard here, the young pitcher has made 11 big league starts and the results haven’t been spectacular so far. In his 57.1 innings, Allard has a 5.45 xFIP and has only struck out 14.3% of hitters. He’s shown a sustained ability to keep the ball in the yard in the minors but we’ll have to see if that translates to the Show, most of his stuff seems to indicate he’ll yield a fair amount of fly balls.

With hitters like Mike Trout in this lineup fly balls are destined to leave the playing field heading for the stands 430 feet away. Trout has been on fire since returning the to Angels lineup, which is simple coincidence and has nothing to do with his son being born, we’re simply looking at a very good week from the best player of his generation, apropos of nothing else. Trout has been drawing extremely high ownership but I don’t see building Angels stacks without him here. With Anthony Rendon and Justin Upton providing significant power behind Trout here, there’s a quality mini-stack just rolling that three-man out. I’m ok with playing Shohei Ohtani but the lefty has shown limited quality in same-handed matchups over his major league career to this point. His slash line of just .243/.313/.386 with just five home runs in 234 career plate appearances against lefties, with a concerning .143 ISO and a WRC+ 9% below league average.

Instead of Ohtani – who is still in play for multiple Angles stacks here, make no mistake – I would look to the aging Albert Pujols for another right-handed bat. Albert hasn’t been the hitter some of us remember for several years now. While his last two seasons were superior to his disastrous 2017, the all-time great was still 10% below average at creating runs in 2018 and seven percent below average in 2019. Pujols did manage 23 home runs last season and has three already in 2020. He’s currently sitting on 659 for his career, which as you may know is just one short of tying Willie Mays for fifth all-time. Against a pitcher like this – who also may not be getting a full workload after only being stretched to 75 pitches so far – I like Pujols’ chances of tying the Say Hey Kid tomorrow and further cementing his first-ballot Hall of Fame case.

HR Call: Justin Smoak (Brewers)

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Author

Terry McBride

Terry used to do other things, now he writes words on the internet. He hopes his more than 20 years’ experience in season-long and daily fantasy sports and his custom models for MLB, NBA, and NFL don't steer you too wrong when he writes columns and makes picks on Awesemo.com. A lifetime of experience keeping odd hours make Terry ideal to cover KBO baseball overnight until the world returns to normal. Most of those late night hours have been spent on the couch watching sports, T.V., and movies; just try to shut him up about any of the above. You can find his pop-culture ramblings and more on Sideaction.