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 Jr., 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.
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