MLB DFS Expert Survey: Wednesday, September 27

Our panel of experts is here to give you their MLB DFS picks for today’s main slate contests by answering a handful of questions to help you make crucial lineup-building decisions. Want to know CheeseIsGood’s favorite sneaky stack? Or STLCards’ top overall pitcher? Find out below!

MLB DFS Picks: DraftKings & FanDuel Expert Survey for Wednesday, September 27

Who is your favorite hitter to spend up for in cash games?

stevietpfl: Max Muncy
headChopper: Freddie Freeman
squirrelpatrol: Max Muncy
fathalpert: Max Muncy
AlexSonty: Mookie Betts

Who is your favorite hitter to spend up for in large-field tournaments?

stevietpfl: Yordan Alvarez
headChopper: Paul Goldschmidt
squirrelpatrol: Yordan Alvarez
fathalpert: Nolan Jones (FD) / William Contreras (DK)
AlexSonty: Yordan Alvarez

Who is your favorite pitcher for cash games?

stevietpfl: Pablo Lopez
headChopper: Pablo Lopez
squirrelpatrol: Pablo Lopez
fathalpert: Pablo Lopez
AlexSonty: Pablo Lopez

Who is your favorite pitcher for large-field tournaments?

stevietpfl: Jose Berrios
headChopper: Jose Berrios
squirrelpatrol: Dane Dunning
fathalpert: Gerrit Cole
AlexSonty: Framber Valdez

Who is your favorite salary saver for cash games?

stevietpfl: Jose Azocar
headChopper: Kyle Farmer
squirrelpatrol: LaMonte Wade
fathalpert: Matt Wallner
AlexSonty: Willy Adames (FD) / Mike Yastrzemski (DK)

Who is your favorite salary saver for large-field tournaments?

stevietpfl: Matt Wallner
headChopper: Joc Pederson
squirrelpatrol: Joc Pederson
fathalpert: Mark Canha
AlexSonty: Joc Pederson (FD) / Sean Manaea (DK)

Which player are you most afraid of being underweight on compared to the field?

stevietpfl: Josh Donaldson
headChopper: Mookie Betts
squirrelpatrol: Freddie Freeman
fathalpert: Mookie Betts
AlexSonty: Gerrit Cole

What’s your under-the-radar home run call of the day?

stevietpfl: Joc Pederson
headChopper: Jared Walsh
squirrelpatrol: Teoscar Hernandez
fathalpert: Matt Wallner
AlexSonty: Tyler Fitzgerald

Who is your favorite overall stack?

stevietpfl: LAD
headChopper: LAD
squirrelpatrol: SF
fathalpert: MIN
AlexSonty: ATL

Which chalky stack will you be underweight on compared to the field?

stevietpfl: MIL
headChopper: MIL
squirrelpatrol: COL
fathalpert: LAD
AlexSonty: MIL

How do you plan to beat the field of opponents? What tactic or strategy will set you apart?

stevietpfl: Pitching is a mess on this slate. I’m going to pay up as much as possible. With the Brewers clinching last night, I’m hoping we get a watered-down lineup, and it opens another pitching option. I’ll be overweight on the Dodgers, Twins, and Astros. I like the Twins for value, and I think the Astros are going to be under-owned in a tough matchup against Bryce Miller.

headChopper: I like mixing up my starting pitching tonight. Lopez is good, and I’ll have some (under the field, though), but the next guys are my preferred choice to get different. Over the field on Framber, Cole, and Bryce Miller should make me unique at pitching. That might be enough to get me different in my Dodger stacks.

squirrelpatrol: The last week of the regular season adds even more variance to a sport that sees enough of it already. I won’t aim to be dramatically under the field on the Dodgers in Coors Field, but I’ll prioritize some of the teams in good spots in the middle of the implied run totals, like the Giants, Astros, and Mariners.

fathalpert: Prioritize high-end pitching. Gerrit Cole, Pablo Lopez, Framber Valdez, and Jose Berrios are going to be priorities for me, as I don’t love the lower-end pitching options. I expect Griffin Canning, Dane Dunning, and Matt Waldron will gain traction as cheaper options, but they come with a wider range of outcomes, in my opinion. As a result of paying up for pitching, Minnesota stands out to me as my favorite stack due to their prices, and I will be over the field on them.

AlexSonty: Not being sure yet of what I’ll do with Coors Field, I am pretty set on using way under-owned Braves in two of three lineups while Coors is the primary distraction for the field. They’re expensive, which is why I’m considering Sean Manaea, Zack Thompson, and even Emmet Sheehan on DK.

Who is your top overall pitcher (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?

stevietpfl: Jose Berrios – Toronto is in a great spot to make the playoffs, but they have the Rays coming in this weekend. They need to win these next two games against the Yankees. Berrios has a 23% strikeout rate with a 6% walk rate on the season. He’s done a great job limiting the damage and has upside against a high strikeout lineup. The Yankees should have six to eight right-handed hitters in the lineup tonight. This benefits Berrios even more. While I like Cole on the other side, I think Berrios will have less ownership, and like I said, this is a big game for the Blue Jays.

headChopper: Gerrit Cole – I am going to take advantage of the projected ownership gap between the top 2 pitchers on the slate. Early indications are that Lopez is going to be significantly higher owned than Cole, despite being in the same price vicinity on both sites. Cole is fighting for that Cy Young award and has more raw arm talent than anyone on this slate.

squirrelpatrol: Dane Dunning – The Angles have averaged about 3.5 runs per game total over the past two weeks, and lead the majors with a 32.7% K% over the past 14 days. Dunning has a low 18.9% K% on the season but has actually put up three games of double-digit strikeouts this season, and could add to that total tonight.

fathalpert: Gerrit Cole – Cole is currently the odds-on favorite to win the AL Cy Young award, and this is his final start of the 2023 season to nail it down. He just faced this Blue Jays team and finished with 36.8 DK / 58 FD, so there’s a high ceiling here. Pablo Lopez has a better matchup on paper against an A’s team that has the 4th-highest K% against RHP this season, but the Twins have also locked down their division and have nothing else to play for. Both Cole and Lopez profile as elite options, but I give Cole the nod, knowing that he’s playing for the Cy Young.

AlexSonty: Pablo Lopez – The gap between Lopez’ projection and everyone else is really wide. His 2.98 xERA is the only one under 3.00 on the slate. His 10.82 K/9 is the only one in double-digits on the slate. The A’s have thump, but their projected lineup has struck out 25.4% of the time, and their 2.9 implied total is the only one on the slate under three. The Twins aren’t playing for anything, as they’re locked into the three-seed, but Lopez should still be in line for a healthy workload for us.

Who is your top overall hitter (when considering price, matchup, projected ownership, etc.) on the board and why?

stevietpfl: Max Muncy – Noah Davis has a 20% strikeout rate with a 14% walk rate and a .440 wOBA against left-handed hitters. Add in the fact that this game is in Coors Field and the Rockies/Dodgers played a double-header yesterday, the Dodgers are in a great spot. Muncy has a .296 ISO with a .382 wOBA against right-handed pitching this season. Muncy struggles with strikeouts against right-handed pitching, but should benefit from a matchup against a low strikeout pitcher.

headChopper: Paul Goldschmidt – Your top raw hitters are definitely likely to come from Coors Field tonight. I’ll stay away from the low-hanging fruit for this and go with Goldy. He saves you significant salary (he’d be the 6th highest-priced Dodger tonight if he were in that lineup), and his ownership is minuscule compared to the other top projected hitters on the slate. He’s always been a guy that handles lefties well, and he even has a nice little history of handling Wade Miley well (if you’re into that sort of thing).

squirrelpatrol: Yordan Alvarez – Alvarez leads all of MLB with a .495 wOBA over the past 30 days, but he won’t see large ownership tonight with the expensive Dodgers in Coors Field and a matchup with a decent pitcher in Bryce Miller. I’ll aim to be over the field on Alvarez and the Astros stack as well, with the team getting the guaranteed road ABs in the 9th inning and a team .494 SLG% over the past 30 days that ranks second in baseball.

fathalpert: Max Muncy – There is a huge gap in projections today from Muncy to the other 3rd basemen on this slate. I am trying to spend down at hitting as much as possible in order to pay up at pitching, but Muncy may be one of the exceptions for me at 3rd base. He’s projected to hit cleanup in Coors Field against Noah Davis, who has allowed a 1.010 OPS to left-handed batters this season.

AlexSonty: Yordan Alvarez – I say this a lot, but it bears repeating: Alvarez is 3rd in MLB in xwOBA (.440), xISO (.328), and barrel rate (18.3%) among hitters with at least 400 PAs. His barrel rate is up to 20.0% against RHPs, while Bryce Miller has allowed a 12.1% barrel rate to LHPs. This is one of the greatest hitters in the game with some of the biggest power in the game facing a pitcher who struggles with lefty power.

Who is your favorite sneaky stack on the board and why?

stevietpfl: Giants – Waldron has been above average against right-handed hitters but continues to struggle with left-handed hitters. He has a 15.5% strikeout rate with a .206 ISO and a 58.5% hard-hit rate against lefties. The Giants lefties have some upside in this spot. Yastrzemski, Pederson, Conforto, and Wade would be my favorite targets in this matchup. I’ll use them as cheap one-offs or a mini stack.

headChopper: Cubs – We are going to get a good lineup and a focused team. Vines won’t go long in this game, even if he is pitching well. With the playoffs looming, we could get the poor part of the Braves bullpen in long relief tonight.

squirrelpatrol: Giants – Matt Waldron put up a 7.31 ERA with a 1.75 HR/9 in AAA this season, and has allowed 8 HR in 35.1 IP in the majors so far (2.04 HR/9). The Giants have the power bats like Joc Pederson and Mike Yastrzemski to get Waldron in trouble, but the teams generally sees low ownership with pinch-hit fears and (usually) a late-arriving lineup.

fathalpert: Padres – San Diego is implied for only 4.4 runs at the time of this writing, so their offense doesn’t stand out, but a lot of their batters profile well against left-handed starter Sean Manaea. This season, the Padres rank 5th in ISO and 2nd in wRC+ against southpaws, and more importantly, they still have a slim chance at the playoffs, so they should be motivated. If you look at PlateIQ, there’s a sea of green for their entire lineup. The easiest way to get different is to target some of the bats lower in the order. Ha-Seong Kim has mashed LHP this season, with a .909 OPS, while Garrett Cooper has a .330 batting average against LHP, and even Luis Campusano has a 1.113 OPS in a limited sample.

AlexSonty: Braves – Jameson Taillon is still really, really good against RHBs, but he’s become awful against LHBs. His .374 wOBA, .251 ISO, and 15.2% barrel rate on a 34.6% FB rate allowed to LHBs is gas can level. There are a good amount of pitchers who aren’t this bad in Coors. We have the best offense in baseball (by far) facing this guy. Load up the Matt Olson, Michael Harris, Eddie Rosario, and Ozzie Albies. The Dodgers are four games back of the Braves for the NL one-seed with five games remaining, so we should expect a normal lineup.

What is your hot take of the day?

stevietpfl: Giants hit 4+ home runs.

headChopper: Framber and Miller go scoreless into the 8th inning.

squirrelpatrol: Dane Dunning notches his 4th double-digit strikeout game of the season.

fathalpert: Matt Waldron is a top-five scoring pitcher.

AlexSonty: Pablo Lopez pitches a CGSO.

Image Credit: Getty Images