MLB DFS Top Stacks: Wednesday, September 20
Taylr 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 a bear of an early slate on DraftKings today with 9 games spanning from 12:20 to 4:10 ET. We almost surely won’t have all of the lineups in before the first game locks, so we may have to do some late swapping. It’ll be good practice with NBA starting in about a month, anyway. FanDuel decided to break up their early slates, which means this Top Stacks piece will be focused on the aforementioned DraftKings docket.
Chalk Stacks – Guardians at Zack Greinke
For the second straight day, we’re looking at the Guardians as something resembling chalk. The current projections don’t have Cleveland coming in with overwhelmingly high stack ownership, but they’re affordable and facing an attackable matchup with old man Zack Greinke.
I never feel too confident in an offense as weak as this one as chalk, but there’s merit to it. The 39-year-old right-hander has a 15.7% strikeout rate on the year, and we know Cleveland is a high-contact lineup to begin with. Greinke’s 4.61 ERA isn’t quite as ugly as his 5.39 ERA, while he’s been barreled up about 8% of the time thus far. These aren’t atrocious numbers, but we have seen Greinke serve up 25 homers on the year, too.
Cleveland’s 4.93 total is among the highest on the board, and Greinke’s numbers this season are particularly awful against lefties (.394 wOBA, 14 HR, 12.7% Ks). Today, he’s projected to face 7 of them, so it’s a rough spot on paper. Gabriel Arias and Ramon Laureano are the only RHBs in the Guardians’ projected lineup. Interestingly enough, Laureano (10.1%) and Arias (9.5%) lead the way in barrel rate vs. RHPs. This offense is clearly headlined by Jose Ramirez (.364 wOBA, .188 ISO) and various Naylors, however. Bo Josh and Bo have ISOs in the .200 range, while Josh’s barrel rate (8.8%) is the highest on the team among lefties.
Andres Gimenez is a solid way to fill that pesky second base spot, while you can save salary with Steven Kwan and Kole Calhoun projected to hit first and fourth, respectively. As of now, the Guardians are pulling about 11% stack pOWN on DK compared to a 10.4% opto%.
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