Today’s May 13th MLB slate is of modest size at only 6 games. Jameson Taillon leads the DFS Army KScore category as the only pitchers carrying a number over 540. But note, with KScores that low, it’s just not a dominant pitching slate setup even if we do see dominant performance or two. Trevor Rogers, Luis Castillo, Zach Plesac, and even Cristian Javier all still ring the bell at over a 500 KScore.
I tend to proceed with caution, however, when a pitcher has a decent KScore but also comes in as one of the lower priced MLB options. Luis Castillo is that guy tonight, and the numbers tell us we don’t know really which way he could go. Chris Flexen and Chi Chi Gonzalez are the only other pitchers priced under $6500 on Fanduel on tonight’s shorter MLB DFS slate.
The DFS Army crew has you covered today with tools and content all day long. Starting with our Full Count slate breakdown, grabbing an overview of the slate has never been faster.
Our Leverage Stacks and Ownership Report rank the best offenses to stack.
And, the detailed notes in our MLB Cheatsheets show you exactly where to gain leverage over the field in your big money tournaments.
Oct 27, 2019; Washington, DC, USA; Houston Astros left fielder Yordan Alvarez (44) celebrates with shortstop Carlos Correa (1) and first baseman Yuli Gurriel (10) after hitting a two run during the second inning against the Washington Nationals in game five of the 2019 World Series at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports
MLB DFS Tournament Winning Power Picks
Baseball is a streaky, volatile sport. Choosing those hot hitters often comes down to matchups and short sample statistics pointing out batters currently on a tear. Below is a list of players hitting for high wOBAs and ISOs over a 14-day stretch. Look into these hitters tonight when constructing your lineups. Some are obviously chalk, while others will be flying well under public radars…
Arizona Diamondbacks – Asdrubal Cabrera, Josh Rojas
Boston Red Sox – Xander Bogaerts
Cincinnati Reds – Jesse Winker
Colorado Rockies – Trevor Story
Houston Astros – Yordan Alvarez, Kyle Tucker, Alex Bregman (hint- when 3 or 4 teammates are on this list, the stack is ripe for the picking)
Miami Marlins – Miguel Rojas
New York Yankees – Giancarlo Stanton (proceed with caution…his 7day numbers have tanked, suggesting a cool down is happening)
Oakland Athletics – Ramon Laureano
Texas Rangers – Isiah Kiner-Falefa, Adolis Garcia, Khris Davis (Davis has only 10 plate appearances in this sample)
These above names are hitting over .400 wOBAs and over .200 ISOs over the last two weeks. I want more of these players in my lineups, and as a result, I will boost/adore every name above in our Domination Station Optimizer as part of my daily process. If this list is too small for your tastes, expand by loosening the woba criteria from “above .400” to “above .375” or such and watch your list grow.
Team Offenses with MLB Tournament Winning Upside Tonight!
Correlation is king in MLB DFS, especially when it comes to winning a big tournament. Stacking up multiple hot hitters from the same team is by far the most common technique to leverage fantasy points. Which formations work best on tonight’s slate? We back-tested over two years worth of slates and put together a hyper-simple graphic showing the optimal MLB stacking formations.
Houston Astros – 749
Cincinnati Reds – 712
Tampa Bay Rays – 665
Oakland Athletics – 652
Colorado Rockies – 645
Above are the top 5 WScores combining a pitcher’s tendency to give up production and an opposing offense’s ability to create production. These teams are in position to potentially unload tonight.
Top Chalk Offenses to Consider Fading
MLB DFS is the ultimate contrarian sport. The goal to winning a life-changing tournament is NOT to build the optimal lineup like so many sites try to teach you. The goal to win life-changing money is to score the most points! That sounds the same, but it is quite different. In baseball, we often build sub-optimal lineups that have similar chances to scoring the most points in a given night to dodge the popular “chalk.” The chalk fails in MLB DFS more than any other sport, which leaves us tremendous opportunity in taking a road slightly less traveled for the nights we are right and the sinking Titanic drags large chunks of the population to the bottom of the ocean with it as it sinks.
Cincinnati Reds – 215
Houston Astros – 112
Oakland Athletics – 76
Note – There is a massive dropoff from the Reds to the Astros to the A’s. Take these numbers with grains of salt. Make your own judgements regarding the Astros and A’s usage. I wouldn’t outright fade them on a small slate like this where the Reds are eating most of the ownership. And, for cash games, I’d be eating Reds chalk for safety in numbers.
But, don’t forget the huge slates really disperse ownerships. It’s not hard to get “unique” on large slates, and you can even get away with hardly worrying about it at all.
Unlock our complete MLB Leverage Stacks Tool and see which teams will generate the most leverage for your lineups tonight!
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