MLB DFS Top Stacks: Friday, March 29th
MLB DFS is complex. Most articles on MLB DFS picks are about the individual players most likely to succeed on any given day, but the MLB DFS picks most likely to succeed aren’t always the MLB DFS picks we should be most likely to play. In this article, we will look at the MLB DFS process over the MLB DFS picks. And we’re looking at teams over individual players, using the features of the RotoGrinders Top Stacks tool. We’ll still look at the player projections that are available in our MLB Lineup Optimizer, LineupHQ. However, we’ll be more focused on collective ownership, optimal scores, and matchups of full stacks within the context of game selection and leverage.
Projected ownership is very jumbled on this Friday evening main slate, so we’re gonna take it by tiers and make some sense of it all. This is a great MME slate to spread ownership around and a fairly simple decision-making process on where to go over the field. It is definitely a more challenging single-entry and 3/4-max slate with so many spots that are very similar in projections and projected ownership.
MLB DFS Picks: Top Stacks for Friday, March 29th
Chalk Stacks – Astros vs. Carlos Rodon and Yankees at Cristian Javier
This NYY/HOU game is risky. There are two talented pitchers on the mound who really struggled in the time they got on the mound in 2023.
Carlos Rodon has all of the skills in the world, but had the highest HR/9 (2.10), barrel rate allowed (12.1%), and BB/9 (3.92) in 2023 of all the pitchers on the slate to go with a 0.50 groundball:flyball ratio. In a decent ballpark for hitters, the Astros talent pool could make them the highest-owned team. Not by much, but the highest. Our Top Stacks tool has them popping in over 10% of optimals on DraftKings and nearly 15% on FanDuel — good for second-most on both sites.
Yordan Alvarez and Kyle Tucker always have capped ownership versus lefties, despite their 15.6% and 10.2% barrel rates against southpaws in 2023. Chas McCormick, Yainer Diaz, Jose Altuve, and Jose Abreu also had double-digit rates when facing lefties. We can easily leave off the fairly expensive, inconsistent power of Alex Bregman and the cheap, inconsistent power of Jake Meyers. Jeremy Pena can be in play, but only in full stacks.
The Yankees’ spot is very similar, as they’re loaded with power and Cristian Javier struggled with power prevention and control in 2023. It’s not as bad as Rodon, but a 9.4% barrel rate allowed on the lowest groundball:flyball ratio on the slate (0.46) with 3.44 BB/9 is more than enough for the Yankees thumpers to exploit. Alex Verdugo is the only Yankee that I would completely leave off of my stacks. Jon Berti isn’t good, but he has speed with scarce multi-positional eligibility. Anthony Volpe is a strong power/speed guy at the scarce shortstop spot. Gleyber Torres isn’t a great power guy, but — again — he plays a scarce position, will be leading off, and isn’t terrible.
That said, we’re focusing on trying to jam in all of the Aaron Judge, Juan Soto, and Giancarlo Stanton into our Yankees stacks. Don’t forget about Austin Wells, either. He only had 75 MLB PAs in 2023 but had a 13.8% barrel rate after slamming 16 dongs in the minors across ~400 PAs.
Pricing puts the Yankees at just under 10% of DK optimals, but they’re slated to crush FD optimals well above their projected ownership at over 18%.
Value Stack
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