Welcome to the DFS Army MLB Game Break!! You have to start your research somewhere, and often times going game by game thinking about matchups and key players is the first step in our process. I’m your buddy @Choppodong and you can find me on both Twitter and YouTube with supplemental commentary and teaching. But, you’ll really find me in our VIP coaching forums inside coaching and detailing plays and strategic concepts from contest selection to lineup construction across all our main sports. If you are looking for it, we cover it! Follow me, watch me, interact with me, I welcome it all.
MLB DFS 101 – Everything Starts with a Consistent Process
A consistent process that works will help you complete your research in a timely fashion. Consistent processes also give you confidence to ride through the rough times a volatile sport like MLB will throw your direction. I have a simple process where I start with good pitchers, bad pitchers, and stackable offenses using the strong bats within. I explain in three quick steps…
Identifying Quality MLB Pitching
I will use a combination of Vegas odds, KScore (definition inside DFS Army), and DFSA Grade (also inside DFS Army) to find the best combination of all three at the cheapest price. I will find a great pitcher showing strength in all areas, and I will try to find a cheaper pitcher that doesn’t sacrifice too much in any of these categories. Some days I can find cheaper pitching. Other days, I’m paying all the way up. Every slate is a fingerprint, and we live with what the slate offers rather than force plays in just because we like them.
In this example, Kenta Maeda is stupidly low priced on Fanduel and would find himself in upwards of 70 of 100 lineups should I build that many. Darvish and Rodriguez are about the same guy on both sites, and Godley is another I’d mix on FD or use as my SP2 on Draftkings. All other pitchers on this slate, while someone will assuredly have a good game, just have too many holes in their games for me to want to choose over these guys.
Attacking Bad Pitching with Team Offenses
When sorted properly, our DFSA Research Station is a gold mine of statistics and indicators. Look at all that green circled! These pitchers carry poor DFSA Grades, poor SIERAs, WHIPs, and even WScores (another VIP only metric created to indicate a pitcher in trouble). To access those specialty stats, you just have to become a member and ask our coaches inside our teaching rooms.
Today, we want to target the bats of CHC, TEX (gpp only), BOS and maybe MIL and STL both for depth. The opposing pitchers have bad peripherals and off us the best shots at upside and lots of fantasy point production.
How To Find MLB Hitters – WScore
There are lots of factors used in targeting hitters. I will periodically change this up, but for awhile, we will use WScore from the DFS Army Research Station. WScore uses the pitcher’s woba and iso against per handedness of the batter versus the woba and iso for the hitter. This baseline stat gives us an indicator of who reaches base with some power (woba) and adds in some extra juice in the power category (iso) to target hitters more inclined to do damage facing pitchers more inclined to allow damage. Sort of “strength on weakness,” if you will. Higher is better, and over 600 is going to be elite. Here is a quick image of the top plays on the slate. Below, we start talking games and specific players…
St. Louis Cardinals @ Milwaukee Brewers
Odds: MIL -125, 8.5 o/u
Well, last night Paul Goldschmidt showed us why you can always play hitters in gpps even in paper-poor matchups…….three times. Peralta had good splits vs right-handed bats. Baseball is a funny game full of being wrong. Get used to it. Tonight, the Cardinals draw Brandon Woodruff who primarily throws sinking heaters with sliders to change things up. A few Cardinals demolish this prototype and we might see another nice game from names like Goldschmidt, Carpenter, and the young power hero, Tyler O’Neill.
The Brewers draw a young pitcher, as well, in Dakota Hudson. Hudson is more of a speed changer intsead of an angle changer with fastballs and change ups. And, we have a couple of MIL bats that profile well here, too. Yelich, Grandal, and even Eric Thames, who makes his first start of the season after ripping records in April just two short years ago by dropping more bombs than Berlin saw in 1942.
STL 5 Star Plays – Carpenter, Goldschmidt, O’Neill
4 Star Plays – DeJong, Ozuna
Cash viable – Carpenter, Goldschmidt
GPP note –
MIL 5 Star Plays – Yelich, Grandal, Thames
4 Star Plays – Moustakas
Cash viable – Yelich
GPP note – Thames and Moustakas give double homer upside, while Yelich has a couple to start the season as well and a high floor to go with it.
Chicago Cubs @ Texas Rangers
Odds: CHC -155, 9 o/u
Chicago checks in with the highest IRT on the slate, approaching 5.0, and draws Edison Volquez. Volquez throws a balance of pitches between straight and sinking heat with an almost knuckle curve to go along with a change up to keep hitters off balance. The core stack of Rizzo, Bryant, Baez is sexy but expensive. David Bote offers a little relief in stacks. Texas gets Yu Darvish (Mr. Regular Season) and we still don’t really know what to expect of Yu. I do know I’m not likely to target a lot of Rangers tonight in lieu of better offenses. One exception might be Joey Gallo. Gallo matches up well against fastball/slider combos, typically, and might be heavily involved if Yu has an off night.
CHC 5 Star Plays – Rizzo, Bryant, Baez
4 Star Plays – Schwarber, Bote
Cash viable – none
GPP note – Price-wise, people might opt for Boston stacks tonight giving this one a little lower ownership.
TEX 5 Star Plays – none
4 Star Plays – Gallo
Cash viable – none
GPP note – Gallo as a one-off possibly.
SF Giants @ SD Padres
Odds: SDP -130, 7.5 o/u
I’m a little surprised at the game total here being we don’t have stellar pitching on the mound. This is my indicator to largely fade this game outside of a play here or there. We just don’t know much about Margevicious tonight, and I don’t think we are going to learn much with facing the Giants, one of the league’s weakest offenses. And, the Padres get Derek Rodriguez, another fastball/changeup guy that isn’t all that intimidating. Machado and Wil Myers might be best suited here, but I’ll largely fade the game.
SFG 5 Star Plays – none
4 Star Plays – none
Cash viable – none
GPP note – nothing
SDP 5 Star Plays – none
4 Star Plays – Machado, Myers, Hosmer
Cash viable – none
GPP note – Risky stack, but you have it all to yourself tonight.
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LA Angels @ Oakland Athletics
Odds: OAK -110, 8.5 o/u
Another toss up pitching matchup with a lower total on the game. What looked to have shootout potential last night might be a game I largely avoid tonight. Funny how things change in DFS…….reminding us all the D stands for DAILY. The Angels draw contact-pitcher Brett Anderson. Anderson doesn’t strike a ton of batters out (14.6% over 2 yrs), and he relies more on ground balls and defense behind him. Mike Trout crushes everything, but Justin Bour profiles well tonight, too. I might fade the rest. The A’s grab hold of Felix Pena who’s weak areas are xFIP (4.38) and Hard Contact% (37.7%). A large number of A’s sit on fastballs. The heart of this order is in play for sure.
LAA 5 Star Plays – Trout
4 Star Plays – Bour
Cash viable – Trout
GPP note – Not enough in this offense to really load up tonight, but Bour might sneak by people favoring others.
OAK 5 Star Plays – Davis, Piscotty
4 Star Plays – Morales, Chapman, Laureano
Cash viable – Laureano if needing a punt.
GPP note – Sneaky stack potential with all these pure fastball hitters tonight after largely letting people down last night.
Boston Red Sox @ Seattle Mariners
Odds: BOS -175, 8 o/u
That’s a bad game total at just 8. Being lopsided in favor of Boston, we can look to their bats, though. Mike Leake just isn’t very good with his assortment of attempted trickery. When you can’t hit 90 on the gun, you rely on movement and deception. On good days, fine, it works. On bad days, balls leave yards or blow your hat off as they rocket past your ear. JD Martinez hits every pitch Leake throws really well and Bogaerts and Devers have positive history against him. I will be looking to a lot of Red Sox tonight. Seattle gets one of the better pitchers the slate has to offer in Evan Rodriguez. ERod carries a fairly high K% and we have upwards of 6 “high strikeout” guys in the Mariners lineup. I’ll be fading SEA hitters largely.
BOS 5 Star Plays – Martinez, Devers
4 Star Plays – Bogaerts, Moreland, Betts, Benintendi
Cash viable – Bogaerts, Martinez
GPP note – You can gamble with the fade here, but I’m gambling more with my secondary stacks and just eating some chalk.
SEA 5 Star Plays – none
4 Star Plays – Encarnacion
Cash viable – none
GPP note – GPP stack worthy for the boom/bust nature of a fastball pitcher still being a little predictable.
Arizona Diamondbacks @ LA Dodgers
Odds: LAD -180, 7.5 o/u
Hammer game time, and the Diamondbacks get a strong pitcher for almost any slate in Kenta Maeda. I’ll be using a lot of Kenta, so I won’t be using any Arizona. I will look a little at Jake Lamb, though. He is 9/27 against Maeda with 5 xbh and 2 HR for a 1.024 OPS and profiles well against Maeda’s pitch assortments. On the flip side, Zack Godley is also a respectable pitcher. I won’t carry much interest in Dodgers, either, in this low total game. However, in larger gpps, you can always justify taking shots on Dodger stacks. The way they went off opening day with 8 homeruns shows you how they can explode.
ARI 5 Star Plays – none
4 Star Plays – none
Cash viable – none
GPP note – Jake Lamb and BVP makes an interesting gpp play.
LAD 5 Star Plays – none
4 Star Plays – Turner, Seager
Cash viable – none
GPP note – A stack of Turner, Seager, Muncy intrigues me.
Starting Lineups for every game! And, complete with xWOBA and DFSA Grades. You can build your lineup strictly from our lineups tool and find quick success but watching the greens and reds line up. Many more tools are being released through the day, and again, we have coaches at the ready to answer questions and guide you through the building process today….
Favorite MLB DFS Stacks for Tonight…
Those specific combos are inside our coaching channels for VIPs. However, I will drop a sneaky gpp stack on you. Our coaching picks page will be locked and loaded with many other great stacks for both gpps and safer contests to vault your scores over the competition. There has never been a better time to #RaiseYourEdge and join our army hat logos on the tops of the leaderboards!
GPP Sleeper stack = LAD Seager/Turner/Muncy – You just read the profile against Godley, but you did witness the explosive ability of this offense. I’d take shots at getting them in perceived tougher spots where ownerships are down, and I would just take my chances periodically through the year. This type of play doesn’t need to happen often to bring in deep cashes or even runaway tourney wins on the right days.
Hopefully, those pointers get you started in your research. I will be bouncing in and out of our MLB coaching rooms all day, with the rest of our coaches, to guide anyone with questions. I plan to drop a slate video showing our research process a few times a week, and with a little more time, VIP strategy videos to help them shore up fundamentals, too. All free videos can be found on my YouTube channel, but all VIP videos need the key to unlock the vault.
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I hope to see you inside soon. Have a blessed and profitable day.
