MLB DFS Top Stacks: Saturday, June 24
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 got 10 games on the board on this fine Saturday afternoon, and the lack of options on the pitching side should mean plenty of scoring. Many of the aces are in subpar spots, while we should see some weaker pitchers garner some ownership thanks to more favorable matchups. That gives us several different routes to take from a stacking standpoint, which makes for a fun slate. How should we stack the bats today? Let’s find out.
Chalk Stacks – Braves vs. Graham Aschraft, Reds vs. Jared Shuster
We don’t have Coors on the afternoon slate, so we’ll have to settle for Great American Ballpark. We saw an 11-10 shootout between the Reds and Braves on Friday night, so we’ll see what they have in store for an encore today. We’ve got a couple of middling pitchers on the mound in Graham Ashcraft and Jared Shuster, so ownership should coalesce around both of these offenses today.
The Braves are expensive on aggregate, but they should be. Ashcraft is returning to the field today after being out since June 9th with a calf injury. On the year, the right-hander is sporting an ugly 6.78 ERA alongside a 5.02 SIERA through 13 starts. The strikeouts (16.8%) haven’t been there, but the walks (10.1%) sure have.
The one thing Ashcraft does pretty well is keep the ball on the ground. His 51.9% career groundball rate is solid enough, but it’s slipped a bit to 47.6% in a smaller sample so far this season. The Braves are a brutal matchup for anyone, but they’re particularly daunting for a low-strikeout type. Ronald Acuna Jr. is the clear headliner in any Braves stack, and he’s certainly a good enough play to one-off outside of your ATL stacks.
Matt Olson, Travis d’Arnaud, Eddie Rosario, and Ozzie Albies hit the ball in the air enough to offset Ashcraft’s groundball ability. It’s a less than perfect spot for heavier groundball hitters like Marcell Ozuna, Michael Harris, and Orlando Arcia, but literally everyone is viable in a Braves stack. They have the highest implied run total on the board (6.02), and they’re getting a massive park bump here.
The Braves lead the slate in both stack ownership and opto% on both DraftKings and FanDuel. Despite the fact that they’ll be chalky, they’re still projecting as a positive leverage stack on both sites. Their 15.9% opto% on DK really stands out compared to their 12.8% pOWN.
The red-hot Reds have a 5.48 implied run total of their own, so we’ll see where their ownership comes in. We currently have them projected to be significantly more contrarian than the Braves, but it’s not like we need to be avoiding them here against Shuster.
The rookie lefty has a 4.57 ERA on the year, but his SIERA (6.24) suggests some regression is due awfully soon. Shuster’s walk rate (12.6%) is nearly as high as his K-rate (13.1%), and his flyball rate is pushing 50%. Flyball pitchers tend to have issues in this ballpark. Shuster has only allowed 2 homers through 8 starts, but the Reds should do damage in this spot.
On the season, all of Kevin Newman, Nick Senzel, Spencer Steer, and Matt McLain boast ISOs of over .200 against left-handed pitching. Elly De La Cruz hasn’t done much of anything through his first 15 right-handed plate appearances in the majors, but we certainly can’t be drawing conclusions from a 15-PA sample. He’s gotten pricey in a hurry, but his power/speed combo makes him one of the best plays on the slate at any position.
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