MLB DFS Top Stacks: Tuesday, September 26
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.
We have two different slates here. On both slates, we have an expensive chalk ace. On DK, we have the Dodgers in Coors Field. On FD, salary just doesn’t matter without Coors on the slate. Today, we’re gonna look at about half of the dozen stacks in play, why they’re great plays, and how they can be played without paying the rake.
Chalk Stacks – Dodgers at Ryan Feltner (DK) and Diamondbacks at Jose Urena
It’s the Dodgers in Coors Field. We’ll overthink it a bit here, but what matters is the pOWN% and how we play it.
We can fade the Dodgers and their slate-crushing 7.2 implied total because Ryan Feltner has only surrendered a .168 ISO and 7.4% barrel rate with a 42.5% groundball rate since the start of 2022. This is gonna be the chalkiest stack, so there’s your out to get away.
We can lock the Dodgers because Kevin Gausman getting north of 35% ownership cancels a third of the field’s ability to play the expensive Dodgers. We should also get a cheap bat or three because this is the second game of a doubleheader. The Dodgers have the first round bye locked up and are far enough from the Braves to “have nothing to play for.”
We can most likely go somewhere in between with all of these factors in mind.
Playing three lineups, I will likely look to play one Dodgers stack without playing them on my single-entry team because the ownership will inflate in those contests to a level that isn’t palatable.
The primary pivot of the field will be the Diamondbacks against Jose Urena. This is a huge park upgrade from one of the worst home run ballparks in MLB to one of the best against a guy who struggles with power prevention.
They’re gonna be owned in the ~15% range on both sites, so if we play them with the Dodgers, we need leverage at pitching. If we play with them without the Dodgers, the rest of the teams on the slate are gonna be so low-owned that we can play them with who we want.
As for the stack construction itself, the Diamondbacks don’t really have big power. Christian Walker has a 9.8% barrel rate against righties, Corbin Carroll is at 9.2%, but after them, everyone is under 8.0%. Urena has massive reverse splits, having given up a 10.1% barrel rate to righties but only a 6.5% rate against lefties since the start of 2022, so we can leave Carroll off of mini-stacks in favor of Tommy Pham and/or Lourdes Gurriel. Gabriel Moreno could be a punt catcher for us where we full-stack on DK.
I’m not playing the Diamondbacks because they don’t have the power to compete on this slate, relative to who we’re gonna talk about for lower ownership. The D-Backs should put up runs, Walker is a great home run call, and Walker-Pham-Gurriel make for a nice mini-stack, but I’m not looking to mini-stack chalk, let alone one-off Walker at 1B for the opportunity cost.
But I get it. Jose Urena is awful. And he’s given up 12 homers in 34.2 IP.
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