MLB DFS Top Stacks: Saturday, June 10

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.

DraftKings and FanDuel each decided to throw curveballs today. With DK’s main slate starting earlier at 1:10 ET, we’ll focus our efforts over there this afternoon. This is a massive 11-gamer with Coors on it, so it’s pretty easy to see the chalk even with 22 offenses from which to choose. We also don’t really have any legitimate weather concerns, so the only real complicating factor is that some of the games will start 3 hours apart. You may have to stick around do some swapping as lineups trickle in, so hopefully you honed your late swap skills during NBA season.

Without further ado, let’s find some stacks.

Chalk Stack – Padres vs. Kyle Freeland

Another day, another matchup for the Padres in the best hitter’s park of them all against a mediocre lefty. Kyle Freeland isn’t as gas canny as Austin Gomber, but there’s a reason San Diego has a 6.55 implied run total today. We saw them make the most of their park upgrade last night, so I’d expect that to give people the confidence to go right back to the well this afternoon.

Freeland has a perfectly acceptable 4.06 ERA on the year, but his 4.94 SIERA says he’s been a little fortunate. The groundball stuff he flashed earlier in his career has all but evaporated (41%), and he’s yielded 12 homers through his first 13 starts. Freeland’s 8.7% barrel rate isn’t outrageous, but he’s allowed a .329 wOBA and 11 of those home runs to righties.

You know what the Padres have? Righties, and a lot of them. Fernando Tatis, Manny Machado, and Xander Bogaerts have made careers of mashing left-handed pitching, while we’ve seen a Gary Sanchez resurgence since he joined the party a couple of weeks ago. Tatis is the top hitter on the slate by a mile when you factor in the stolen base potential. It’ll be interesting to see the ownership on Juan Soto lefty-lefty, especially considering how tough it is to afford this team. Tatis, Machado, and Bogaerts will presumably be the priority spends, and I’d expect some to sacrifice the $6,100 Soto. His .319 wOBA against lefties since the beginning of last season is adequate, though the power (.143 ISO) is a bit lacking.

Sanchez ($4,000) should be the chalk at catcher, and rightfully so. There’s very little power at the position to begin with, so why not take the cheaper guy at Coors? Brandon Dixon ($3,000) is a decent value with a little pop, while Austin Nola ($2,700) is in play if you need to drop down from Gary.

San Diego is leading the way in stack ownership (16.1%) with a 14% chance of being optimal. That’s obviously a negative differential, but that opto% is still the highest on the slate by a healthy margin. The cheap pitching isn’t all that alluring today, so you’re going to have to hold your nose and make some risky decisions if you want to jam the Padres’ All-Stars into your lineup.

Top Opto% – pOWN% Stack – Reds vs. Miles Mikolas

Miles Mikolas ($8,100) is very much in play as a cheapish pitching option today. However, I don’t really expect him to fly under the radar. Those that prioritize paying up for Coors will presumably look his way this afternoon. Interestingly enough, though, the PlateIQ projections say the Reds are actually a stellar stack against him.

The Reds’ 5.5% opto% won’t jump off the page, but it’s considerably higher than their minuscule 1.7% stack ownership. Mikolas is a fine enough real-life pitcher capable of eating innings, but we will see the occasional disaster start from him. The control is still there, but his 38.5% groundball rate is the worst mark of his career. Nobody’s scared of that 18.5% K-rate, either.

Cincinnati’s lineup is also much improved this season. It’s obviously early, but Elly De La Cruz and Matt McLain look like cornerstones for their rebuild. They’re both hovering in the $4,000 range on DK, with De La Cruz standing out with the platoon advantage. Since the beginning of last season, all of Jake Fraley (.375 wOBA), Jonathan India (.331), Spencer Steer (.330), and Tyler Stephenson (.325) have hit right-handed pitching pretty well.

Fraley’s been dealing with a wrist injury all week, but he’s a standout option from the left side if he’s in there today. He’s leading the Reds in projected ownership at a paltry 2.95%, followed by De La Cruz (2.69%), and India (2.4%). This team is fully capable of doing serious damage, as we saw in the series against the Dodgers earlier this week. I’ll gladly fire up some Reds stacks if Mikolas is going to be a reasonably popular cheapie on the pitching side.

Value Stack – A’s vs. Julio Teheran

I’ve written about the A’s way too often this season, but here we go again. Oakland gets a serious park upgrade going into AmFam Field, where they’ll face veteran journeyman Julio Teheran. Can they fail? Of course. They’re the A’s. They have like 8 wins this year. Regardless, it’s hard to ignore these guys at their dirt-cheap salaries in an exploitable on-paper matchup.

Teheran has a 1.56 ERA through his first few starts in Milwaukee, but his 4.80 SIERA tells a vastly different story. The strikeouts (15.4%) are still non-existent. He’s getting lucky with BABIP (.235), and he’s managed to strand more than 90% of those that have reached base against him. He’s also allowing more flyballs (49%) than groundballs (38%). The only positive thing I see here is the control (3.1% walks), but I’m even skeptical of that considering he’s posted a double-digit walk rate in every season since 2018.

Did Teheran change his pitch mix and get better? Possibly. He’s now throwing a cutter, which wasn’t a part of his arsenal in the past. He’s also completely scrapped his curveball. Even if Teheran isn’t an utter gas can anymore, Oakland’s value bats still stand out here. Lefties have always enjoyed more success at his expense, while Seth Brown ($2,800), JJ Bleday ($2,300), and Ryan Noda ($2,700) all have real power from the left side. Jace Peterson (revenge) is also squarely in play for stacks at just $2,200 with the platoon advantage.

It’s not like the other A’s are expensive. Esteury Ruiz leads the way at just $3,400, and he’s already stolen 30 bases on the season. Ramon Laureano ($2,600) has a decent track record by Oakland standards, while Shea Langeliers ($2,500) is one of their better prospects. There’s more talent in this lineup than their win/loss record would lead you to believe, and I’m not at all a believer in Teheran’s small-sample success.

The A’s only have a 2.8% chance at being optimal, but they’re also projecting for just 2.5% ownership. Given the cheap price tags, we don’t need them to pop off for 15 runs. That would be nice, though. If they wanted to do that, I wouldn’t be upset or anything.

Good luck!

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