MLB DFS Top Stacks: Tuesday, May 16
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.
On a giant Coors slate, it’s a simple process to just x-out Coors and go heavy on the top projected lineups from there. I’m gonna keep it real though; Coors is poppin’ with a 12.5 total, in which the Reds have a 5.92 implied total and the Rockies are at 6.58. That said, there are a lot of teams around 5.00 and above to stack. Let’s start off at Coors, examine some top pivots away from Coors, and zero in on a contrarian stack.
Coors Chalk Stacks – Rockies and Reds
This is a weird game. The bad-when-healthy Rockies are without one of their few power bats in C.J. Cron. While the Reds’ top active barrel rate since 2022 is Jake Fraley at only 7.6%. These are two Quad-A lineups.
Luckily for them, though, these lineups are facing Quad-A pitching tonight.
Brandon Williamson will be making his debut for the Reds in one of the worst parks in MLB history in which to make a debut. And he’s kinda’ no good. He’s incredibly wild and not effectively so. He was a big strikeout pitcher in A- and Double-A ball, but Triple-A’s been smacking him around for only 7.7 K/9 to a whopping 5.7 BB/9 in 89.1 IP since 2022. THE BAT, ATC, and Steamer all project him to give up a flippin’ mess of homers, rest of season.
The Rockies aren’t any damn good, but Williamson is a lefty, so whistles are goin’ off around Randal Grichuk and his .302 ISO against LHP’s since 2022 along with Kris Bryant and his .274. Everyone else is just horrid and there to fill in full stacks (and we should be full-stacking in Coors when we play Coors), but Ezequiel Tovar has a .196 ISO in a limited 48-PA sample. They will come in low-owned as a full stack and carry a super-low opto%, but the implied total with the full stack will inject leverage into an otherwise chalky situation.
On the other side of this game, the Reds face Chase Anderson. But this is not the extreme fly-baller we got to know in Milwaukee. At 35-years-old, his old-man game has created a lot of groundballs since 2022, and we should believe in it because he’s abandoned the fastball for more junk. Will that junk work in Coors? Who knows? It could just be floating slow stuff that gets rocked.
Again, the Reds barrel rates are weak, but Fraley has a .216 ISO against RHP’s since 2022, Spencer Steer has a 40.4% FB rate, and Curt Casali (39.5% FB rate) can get it in the air, too. The plot twist in all of this is Matt McLain, who comes heavy with a Bobby Witt style of power-speed for free.
I don’t know what I’m doing with Coors, but this is my thought process on the field-level situation. The Rockies-Reds ownership, relative to the other teams on my list, will guide my actions. In MME, a fade is pretty bad and I’m usually fading Coors. My gut says ownership will not get out of control on a huge slate with two bad teams playing there. The Reds just under 20% and the Rockies around 10% will be about right.
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