FREE PREMIUM: MLB DFS Picks - FanDuel & DraftKings Expert Survey: Thursday, May 5th
Curious to know the top tournament target? Want to know our analysts’ favorite stacks? Below we answer lineup-building questions to help you prepare for the upcoming slate. NOTE: Expert Surveys are only posted for main slates.
MLB Expert Survey: Thursday, May 5
Who is your favorite hitter for optimal lineups?
CheeseIsGood: Byron Buxton
TJ Zwarych: Byron Buxton
eys819: Byron Buxton
gneiffer07: Byron Buxton
MrTuttle: Byron Buxton
Who is your favorite hitter for large-field contests?
CheeseIsGood: Manny Machado
TJ Zwarych: Francisco Lindor
eys819: Jazz Chisholm
gneiffer07: Yordan Alvarez
MrTuttle: Kyle Schwarber
Who is your favorite pitcher for optimal lineups?
CheeseIsGood: Shane McClanahan (FD) / Aaron Nola (DK)
TJ Zwarych: Shane McClanahan (FD) / Aaron Nola (DK)
eys819: Aaron Nola
gneiffer07: Aaron Nola
MrTuttle: Shane McClanahan
Who is your favorite pitcher for large-field contests?
CheeseIsGood: Jose Urquidy (FD) / Shane McClanahan (DK)
TJ Zwarych: Logan Webb
eys819: Shane McClanahan
gneiffer07: Jesus Luzardo
MrTuttle: Jose Urquidy
Who is your favorite salary saver for optimal lineups?
CheeseIsGood: Trey Mancini
TJ Zwarych: Jose Altuve
eys819: Jose Miranda
gneiffer07: Trey Mancini
MrTuttle: Jose Altuve (FD – will want to confirm he doesn’t get the day off after being pulled yesterday) / Jose Miranda (DK)
Who is your favorite salary saver for large-field contests?
CheeseIsGood: Gary Sanchez (FD) / Trayce Thompson (DK)
TJ Zwarych: Trey Mancini
eys819: Jesus Aguilar (FD) / Trevor Larnach (DK)
gneiffer07: Jorge Soler
MrTuttle: Jorge Soler
Which player are you most afraid of being underweight on compared to the field?
CheeseIsGood: Robbie Ray
TJ Zwarych: Robbie Ray
eys819: Robbie Ray
gneiffer07: Robbie Ray
MrTuttle: Manny Machado
What’s your under-the-radar home run call of the day?
CheeseIsGood: Brandon Crawford
TJ Zwarych: Randy Arozarena
eys819: Jesus Sanchez
gneiffer07: Chas McCormick
MrTuttle: Jorge Soler
What is the top stack on the board for leverage in low-dollar GPPs?
CheeseIsGood: MIA
TJ Zwarych: NYM
eys819: MIA
gneiffer07: SEA
MrTuttle: MIA
Who are your five favorite stacks for large-field contests, ranked in order?
CheeseIsGood: 1) MIN 2) PHI 3) HOU 4) SDP 5) MIA
TJ Zwarych: 1) MIN 2) PHI 3) HOU 4) NYM 5) DET
eys819: 1) MIN 2) HOU 3) PHI 4) MIA 5) SDP
gneiffer07: 1) MIN 2) HOU 3) BAL 4) MIA 5) PHI
MrTuttle: 1) MIN 2) HOU 3) PHI 4) SFG 5) MIA
Expert Survey Tournament Stack Rankings based on analyst responses above
1.MIN
2.HOU
3.PHI
4.MIA
5.SDP
How do you plan to beat the field of opponents? What tactic or strategy will set you apart?
CheeseIsGood: I’ll prioritize pitching over hitting, with Shane McClanahan and Aaron Nola as the building blocks. There are cheap bats with upside for the Twins, Orioles and Marlins. The Twins should come in as the chalk, so I’ll look to be over the field on the Marlins compared to the Twins-Orioles game.
TJ Zwarych: There aren’t many pitchers I want to get to today, and we are seeing very concentrated ownership going to Aaron Nola and Robbie Ray. I plan on getting underweight on them, and well over-weight to Shane McClanahan.
eys819: I will be well overweight on Shane McClanahan and Jesus Luzardo. MIN and HOU are pretty clearly the top stacks. Bregman and Altuve will come with high ownership, so I will make sure to include the lefties and Gurriel/Pena in HOU stacks. I will likely be even with the field or slightly under on MIN. I will be most overweight on the Marlins.
gneiffer07: With offense down everywhere and really only two good stacks today on the slate that will likely be very chalky, I plan on going pretty heavy on some very low owned stacks with SEA, TB, MIA and DET. While they are in some tough spots, there are very few good spots and it won’t surprise me at all if both HOU and MIN fail.
MrTuttle: Spread out stack exposure. A fairly deep pitching slate means we’ll need to get comfortable stacking some pitchers that we typically might not on a bigger slate – Miles Mikolas being the best example of this. I’m also ok grabbing some exposure to lower-tier offenses in Baltimore vs Chris Archer and Miami vs Nick Martinez.
Who is your top overall pitcher (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?
CheeseIsGood: Shane McClanahan – Until he gives us any reason at all to doubt these skills, I’m in. He has no fewer than seven strikeouts in any of his five starts and a 39.3% K rate that is well above the rest of the field tonight. He also has a more favorable matchup for strikeouts than the other aces on this slate with a 25% K rate for Seattle’s projected lineup.
TJ Zwarych: Shane McClanahan – His strikeout rate is through the roof this year, and we also saw these flashes in the past as well. With one of the better strikeout matchups on the slate, McClanahan is my favorite option for all formats on FD, and my favorite tournament option on DK.
eys819: Aaron Nola – He is not priced like the ace he is on DK, and the FD price should lead to reduced ownership. He gets a tough matchup with the Mets in his hitter-friendly home park, but he has been in better form than Ray and has a longer leash than McClanahan. I will trust his 31.8% strikeout rate as he just struck out 9 of these Mets last week.
gneiffer07: Aaron Nola – While Nola doesn’t draw a great strikeout matchup vs the Mets, I really don’t care. He has been fantastic so far this season sporting a 3.12 xFIP and a 31.8% K rate. While he has been giving a up a decent amount of hard contact, he is still far better than his 8k price tag over on DK.
MrTuttle: Shane McClanahan – It’s difficult to accurately sift through the top three pitchers on tonight’s slate in McClanahan, Aaron Nola, and Robbie Ray. With that in mind, I plan on having plenty of exposure to each. If forced to choose a guy to plant my flag with it would be McClanahan due to his matchup and insane early season strikeout numbers (39.3% strikeout rate).
Who is your top overall hitter (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?
CheeseIsGood: Byron Buxton – Don’t be fooled by the low ERA of Spenser Watkins. This is the worst pitcher on this slate, and probably any slate. He has managed just eight strikeouts in 17 innings, to go along with eight walks. Combining 2021-2022 data, Watkins has a laughably bad .428 wOBA and .316 ISO allowed to right-handed bats on just 10.1% strikeouts. Meanwhile, Buxton is smashing with a .352 ISO, hitting the ball hard and in the air on a consistent basis.
TJ Zwarych: Byron Buxton – The Twins are going to be incredibly highly owned today, but I have a very tough time getting away from Buxton regardless. Watkins’ numbers have been on the fraudulent side this year, and Buxton is one of those players you want to play anytime he is healthy.
eys819: Byron Buxton – His power and speed combination give him the most upside on the slate. He gets a matchup with an extreme low-strikeout pitcher in Watkins who is due for some major regression in the BABIP department. The BAL bullpen is also below average should MIN get to Watkins early.
gneiffer07: Byron Buxton – While the ownership may be thru the roof on Buxton today, its kind of justifiable. Buxton has been fantastic so far this season with a .342 ISO and .411 wOBA vs RHP and draws a matchup vs Watkins who has been awful vs righties with a single digit strikeout rate to go along with a double digit walk rate and high hard contact and fly ball rates. Add in the bad Baltimore bullpen and this is just a great spot here.
MrTuttle: Byron Buxton – Early ownership projections have the Twins as the run away top owned stack of the night against Spenser Watkins and Buxton is the top projected hitter on the slate by a wide margin. Spenser Watkins has somehow skated by with just allowing 2 ER over 17.2 IP to start the season but his underlying numbers are #bad with a walk rate (10.5%) that matches his strikeout rate (10.5%) and a 5.25 SIERA. High projected ownership is the only real reason to fade Buxton or a Twins stack but he’s chalk you should eat in cash games.
What is your hot take of the day?
CheeseIsGood: Miami hits two grand slams.
TJ Zwarych: Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso hit back-to-back jacks, off of Aaron Nola.
eys819: Jesus Sanchez hits two home runs and the Marlins score 10+ runs.
gneiffer07: The Mariners outscore both the Astros and the Twins.
MrTuttle: Four pitchers on the slate top 20 DK points.