MLB DFS Top Stacks: Thursday, April 20
Justin Carlucci 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 collective ownership, optimal scores, and matchups of full stacks within the context of game selection and leverage.
Welcome back! This could be the ugliest slate of the year, so buckle up! We have a five-game slate for Wednesday with a 6:35 p.m. ET start time. Let’s dive in and see what’s going on today.
Chalk Stacks – Pirates vs. Luke Weaver
Luke Weaver. Here’s a name I wasn’t sure I’d see in 2023. He hasn’t pitched a ton, but if you look at his MLB numbers dating back to the beginning of 2022, he sports a 4.35 xFIP, while yielding roughly a 30% line-drive rate and a 41 % hard-hit rate. Since 2020, Weaver combined to throw 152.4 innings (which is pretty much a season for a back-end starter nowadays), yielded 95 earned runs served up 22 home runs during that stretch.
Across his career, he looks to be the same pitcher (generally speaking) against both sides of the plate, so I don’t really have a preference if you attack him with lefties or righties. Jack Suwinski and Bryan Reynolds are probably in the best spots (IMO), but I like the idea of paying up for Ji Hwan Bae in large-field tournaments in this stack, as it’s tough to swallow paying $4,100 for someone with minimal HR upside. However, he’s shown a knack for getting on base, and his ability to swipe bags can help rack up a big score on a small slate (in a chalky stack, nonetheless).
The Pittsburgh chalk makes sense – a below-average starting pitcher who gets hit very hard. I don’t believe the Pirates would be this heavily owned on a normal-ish slate, but it’s only five games, and there’s probably some recency bias since they’ve been obliterating the ball at Coors the last couple of days (which seemed like an eternity). Four of the six highest pOWN% position players on DraftKings are currently all Pirates and it’s pretty much the same deal on FanDuel.
Roth’s WeatherEdge tool gives this game a 22% boost to home runs, so maybe you can look at some one-off power or secondary Reds stacks against Roansy Contreras. I’m not sure Roansy will get lit up tonight, but he does give way to a good chunk of hard contact.