MLB DFS Top Stacks: Saturday, August 5
Taylor Smith 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 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 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.
We’ve reached the dog days of August, which seems like a weird slam on August considering most people like dogs. I’m all for slandering August though, because it is simply too dang hot and doesn’t offer any holidays of note. A quick Google search tells me today is National Oyster Day, which sounds like an August holiday. Nobody wants to eat that goop.
Anyway, that’s not why we’re here. We’ve got a ton of baseball on the schedule for this fine Saturday, including an 8-game main slate starting at 7:05 ET. As of now, it doesn’t look as though we have any clear-cut chalk, which makes things more enjoyable. The Braves will hit their 8 home runs during the day, so we don’t have to worry about that. There’s still a lot to like from a stacking standpoint, so let’s do a little digging into the top offenses of the night.
“Chalk” Stack – Guardians vs. Michael Kopech
I’m not convinced any one offense will be overwhelmingly popular tonight, but it’s easy to see why some ownership could flock to the Guardians. We’ve got some decent expensive pitching on this slate, which means cheap bats will come in handy. The Guardians are affordable on aggregate, and they face an appealing matchup against the out-of-form Michael Kopech.
We’ve seen the occasional big game from Kopech this season, but his overall numbers are rather underwhelming. His 24.2% strikeout rate is barely above average, and Cleveland happens to be the lowest-strikeout lineup in the league (18.7%) against right-handed pitching. When he isn’t missing bats, he’s either serving up home runs (24 in 20 games) or walking everyone (14%). Given the Guardians’ aforementioned ability to get their bats to the baseball, I’ll gladly side with them in this matchup.
Kopech is also allowing a barrel rate of over 14%, which is among the worst marks in the league for regular starters. One thing the Guardians don’t really have is power, especially now that Josh Naylor is out of the mix with an oblique injury. Jose Ramirez (.225 ISO) is really the last man standing, although Bo Naylor (.206) has done the Naylor family proud in a smaller sample.
Ramirez will cost you, but he’s the only one. Steven Kwan ($3,200 FD, $4,000 DK) and Andres Gimenez ($3,000 FD, $4,300) DK) are the next-most-expensive hitters, while just about everyone else is in the punt range. Brayan Rocchio ($2,000 FD, $2,100 DK) is the standout, though Naylor, Myles Straw, and Will Brennan are all appealing for the dollar.
I’d also be remiss if I didn’t mention Kopech’s struggles to hold runners. He’s allowed 37 steals since 2019, while just 6 potential thieves have been caught in that span. That’s a success rate of 86% against him, which is among the worst marks in the league for any starter. The Guardians have nabbed 89 bases as a team this season, which is the 8th-most in baseball.
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