MLB DFS Top Stacks: Saturday, April 8
Alex Sonty 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 the collective ownership, optimal scores, and matchups of full stacks within the context of game selection and leverage.
It’s a shorter slate, so there’s more leverage in a sub-8% stack than on a normal slate. And pitching isn’t very good, meaning we have a lot of stacking options, so we’ll kick it off by saying that we don’t have to play anyone. Even the chalk stacks have guys we can stick into single-entry lineups to build leverage through correlation.
Also, this is a Coors slate. To fade or not to fade is a general rule for some, but we should really not have those hard rules. Generally, though, I’m drawn toward fading Coors on large slates. This, again, is not a large slate. That said, we can x-out Coors and be totally fine, you’ll see.
Chalk Stacks — Nationals and Rockies
The Rockies and Nationals are in Coors, so they should grab the most ownership. And I’m not enthused to play either.
Austin Gomber isn’t a good pitcher, but he isn’t a bad pitcher. Of course, the Nationals hook is Coors Field and the bad Rockies pen, but we might have to absorb 20% ownership. I can’t talk up this stack in good faith when we have similar projections but lower ownership in other spots.
The same goes for the Rockies against Trevor Williams, but there is a boost in Williams historically having home run problems. I’m not sure why his HR/9 went down in 2021-22, but he did give up two in his five innings in his first start. Usually, I wouldn’t care, but his FB rate jumped up to 42.4% in 2022 and he’s lost a mph on every pitch from 2022 to this first start. This isn’t enough for me to play the Rockies given our pivot options, but I could buy into them more than the Nationals.
The Rockies have similar ownership, but a better matchup, meaning the higher implied total.
Briefly, another team popping in ownership models is the Diamondbacks. Noah Syndergaard has had a long run of struggling with baserunners and has given up a lot of contact in recent years. This bodes well for the D-Backs with their power-speed combo and the roof open in Chase Field with the second-highest elevation in MLB. Personally, I’m off of the D-Backs. I think we can pick on Syndergaard with high-contact high-power teams. The D-Backs are a high-contact bunch, but the power isn’t great enough to justify the ownership. Syndergaard isn’t bad, and there isn’t bad pitching to attack on this slate of lower ownership.
I wouldn’t play any one of these three teams in single-entry. The ownership is going to be too inflated.