Happy Sunday friends. Why is it happy you ask? Why the eff not I answer. Nah I couldn’t think of anything else to say to start off the article. Anyway, welcome to our DFS MLB tout article, the Sunday version. Today is an interesting day in the world of Major League Baseball. There are 2 of the top 5 fantasy pitchers going today, plus a few good mid-tier guys accompanied by a litany of solid lower-level options. If you are new here I will tell you that I don’t tout the big-time pitchers. Everyone knows they are good and especially today where strikeout records are being broken left and right. Whether or not to roster these studs is more about roster construction. I did talk a little about this a few weeks ago if you want to go back and check. Seems like we got the pleasantries and ancillary stuff out of the way, so let’s do this.
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Tyler Mahle: $8,800, SP – Regulars to the article will also know that I am a fan of Tyler Mahle. Not in a fandom sense just that I think he is a cash cow for DFS. He doesn’t get the salary respect I think he deserves and he is frequently less owned than I project him to be. I did tell people to roster him one Sunday and he had one of his worst starts ever, so there is that. Today I do not see that happening.
Now don’t get me wrong the Braves are world-beaters. They have the 7th best OPS in the majors against right-handed pitchers. Yet they also strike out the 5th most vs righties. Since Mahle is better than the average pitcher you can assume that OPS goes down but the strikeout rate goes up. Not technically how it works but the idea behind it is true. If the Braves offense scares you fine, but I’m willing to bet that Mahle strikes out enough Braves to make is $8,800 salary well worth it. Not to mention you save $3-4000 for rostering him over Max or Cole.
Johan Oviedo: $6,500, SP – Oviedo has not been great so far this year. He does have good stuff though. His fastball has been effective this year with 2.2 runs above average and when he gets his curveball over or can throw it ahead in the count good things happen. Now, this is a GPP play, I like to roll the dice on a guy like this. He is facing the hapless Pirates as well.
Oviedo does not have a big K% but the odd thing is that he did in the minors. He was a consistent 25% K rate guy. SInce the Pirates are basically a AAA team I can see Johan having a pretty big day, at least for today which is all we need.
Batter Up
Stacks to focus on
I love the Minnesota Twins today. While they have struggled this year they have been quietly raking against left-handed pitching, especially subpar left-handed pitching. The Twins have the 6th best OPS in baseball vs lefties and have hit 38 home runs so far which is the best in baseball. The Twinkies aren’t sneaky but I think many casuals will skip them for the plethora of other offenses on the slate today. Since we are going with lower-priced pitchers we can afford to fill out the lineup with studs.
Nelson Cruz: $4,400 – Miguel Sano: $3,300 – Josh Donaldson: $3,200 are the 3 Twins I would target first. Look to fill in with whoever they replace Kepler with or maybe Polanco since the twins bench is heavy with left-handed hitter.
To close out I love the Blue Jays chances to put up some crooked numbers. Going up against Jorge Lopez who at first glance hasn’t been bad. On further inspection, you see that he has had tons of baserunners on and has managed to pitch out of jams. That is not going to work today vs this juggernaut of an offense.
I mention this generally because Lopez has been generous to both sides of the plate for the most part. I would say every Blue Jay is live. If you can roster Mahle, the Twins stack we talked about then fill in the rest with Blue Jays you have a real shot to do well in a GPP in my humble opinion.
I’m Only Happy When It Rains
The Tigers Astros game doesn’t look good. I would keep a close eye on it throughout the day.
Doing Lines In Vegas
I like long odds so it might be worth taking a shot at Zac Gallen having a good game and Yu having a stinker, which does happen. The money line is +240. Parlay that with Baltimore and hope they get into a shootout with the Jays on the back of Stripling. That is at +205.
Give me a long shot 2 team parlay, Dbacks, and Orioles.
