MLB DFS Top Stacks: Monday, May 8
Keith Eyster walks you through the top stacks for the upcoming MLB main slate. Should we eat the chalk? Which team is a good pivot? Where can we find leverage? Find out below!
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 space, we will be looking 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 available in LineupHQ. Still, we’ll be more focused on collective ownership, optimal scores, and matchups of full stacks within the context of game selection and leverage.
This is a wide-open slate. We have 10 teams with an implied run total between 4.0 runs and 5.2 runs. These are the slates where you should feel free to think for yourself and play the teams you have the most conviction on. Baseball is as high-variance as it gets when playing DFS. I will walk you through some reasons I am on certain stacks today, but there are many more that are in play today, in any format.
Chalk Stack – Yankees
The Yankees offense has struggled to begin the season as they have posted a below average .301 wOBA and 90 wRC+. Injuries are partly to blame, with Aaron Judge hitting the Injured List 10 days ago. Giancarlo Stanton and Josh Donaldson have been out for considerably longer. They have fared slightly better against left-handed pitching with a .312 wOBA and 97 wRC+, but this is not currently an elite offense when factoring in the injuries.
They do get a solid matchup today against Oakland lefty JP Sears, who has struggled to a 5.06 ERA this season. Sears has posted an above-average 25.8% strikeout rate and an excellent 6.1% walk rate, but that is about where the positive stuff ends. He has also allowed a woeful 57.5% fly balls that have yielded 1.97 HR/9. He has made half of his starts in one of the best parks in MLB for limiting HRs. Today, he goes into Yankee Stadium, which is one of the worst parks for fly ball pitchers.
Additionally, the Oakland bullpen backing up Sears today has been horrendous, with a 5.59 SIERA that ranks dead last in MLB. Their 16.7% strikeout rate is the lowest in the league, while their 14.4% walk rate is the highest. The conversation for the worst bullpen in baseball is not particularly an argument, in my opinion. The answer is Oakland.
The Yankees are currently second in OWN% behind the White Sox in our Stacks Tool, but their OPTO% is lagging behind that quite a bit. This means the Yankees are certainly fadable in any format, but I have them as my top stack today. Everything is pretty bunched up today from a projections standpoint and there is no obvious top offense.
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