MLB DFS Top Stacks: Tuesday, August 8
Alex Sonty 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.
This is a full slate of pitching that struggles with power prevention, so there are a lot of stacks to examine. Today, we’re gonna look at a lot of teams. Four high-owned teams and why I’[m not thrilled to play them, four pivots to whom we can use as alternatives to the higher-owned teams, and a couple of true leverage stacks that we don’t necessarily need — but can’t have in our pools.
Highest-Owned Stacks – Brewers vs. Kyle Freeland, Cubs at Carlos Carrasco, Rangers at JP Sears, Red Sox vs. Brady Singer
Kyle Freeland has given up 1.59 HR/9 on a 9.1% barrel rate, pitching home games in Coors Field. This isn’t great on his part, but this slate features eight pitchers with worse HR/9 and nine with worse barrel rates allowed. I’m not gonna waste many words on the Brewers. I’ll just say that there are four teams jumbled at the top of pOWN% and I’m not sure that I wanna stack a pitcher who’s relatively middle-of-the-road with what could end up being the top-owned stack on the slate — or close to it.
The stack that I’m personally expecting to run away from this four pack more than the others is the Cubs. Facing Carlos Carrasco and his 1.77 HR/9 and 11.2% barrel rate, the Cubs are perceived as hot right now and they make for solid value. Citi Field is a pitcher’s park, but it actually grades out closer to neutral for homers, so the ballpark isn’t gonna stop me from playing the Cubs.
If anything stops me, it’s that this is a full slate and there might be no reason to play the chalkiest team on a slate with so many pitchers struggling with power prevention in the pool.
Speaking of ballparks, let’s talk about why I won’t be playing the Rangers. Sure, we can play any team against any pitcher who struggles with power prevention who’ll be followed by a poor bullpen in any ballpark. But do we wanna play a top-owned stack on a full slate in a terrible ballpark for power? I don’t.
I totally understand why we can play the Rangers. JP Sears stinks and the Rangers are packed with power. But it’s gonna take a pOWN% dip for me to do it.
Brady Singer has given up a ton of runs and his 4.94 xERA is awful and he isn’t striking anyone out, but he’s only up given up 0.89 HR/9 on only a 21.6% flyball rate. I’m not playing his 49.5% groundball rate against the Red Sox in Fenway, but I’m not enthused to play the Red Sox, either.
In single-entry, I might fade all four of these stacks. In MME, I wouldn’t fade any, but I wouldn’t go overweight. There’s a lot of goodness throughout the slate on which we can feast.
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