MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Monday, July 8th
Traditional MLB DFS formats aren’t the only way to profit from daily fantasy baseball. MLB PrizePicks is a great fantasy pick’em site where we can take today’s projections versus theirs and combine two or more baseball predictions for sizeable payouts.
In this space, we’ll explore a few PrizePicks plays for the upcoming MLB slate. This article isn’t the be-all, end-all of great plays or a recommendation for a full ticket; it’s simply a starting place for you to explore thinking about the game within the game. Maybe you want to scatter these plays across entries. Maybe there are only two or three you think are worth playing. Daily fantasy pick’em gives us the flexibility to make only the plays in which we think there is value rather than being forced to create a full lineup while competing against the best DFS players in the industry.
PrizePicks is daily fantasy baseball made simple, and our MLB PrizePicks picks tool makes the process even simpler.
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All stats cited are since the start of the 2024 season unless otherwise noted.
MLB PrizePicks Predictions for Monday, July 8th
- Chris Sale MORE Than 18.5 Outs (DEMON)
- Mitch Keller LESS Than 5.5 Strikeouts and LESS Than 31.5 Fantasy Points
- Mitchell Parker LESS Than 17.5 Outs
- Jon Gray MORE Than 15.5 Outs
- Gavin Williams MORE Than 15.5 Outs (DEMON)
Chris Sale MORE Than 18.5 Outs (DEMON)
It’s Chris Sale. He’s an ace. It’s not a great DFS spot for Sale because the D-Backs don’t strike out much, but we’re talking about Sale projected for 101 pitches against a very high-contact team. The risk is that Sale gets BABIP’d around, but the more likely scenario is that Sale compiles tons of quick outs, therefore preserving his pitch count (which is already very high). Sale has 19+ outs in 3 of his last 5 starts — 8 of his last 10. We have Sale somewhat conservatively projected for 18.3 outs. It’s an excellent spot to try to make some extra DEMON money.
Mitch Keller LESS Than 5.5 Strikeouts and LESS Than 31.5 Fantasy Points
We don’t write up a lot of early plays, but the best plays on the board, according to our pick’em tool, come from the early game in Mitch Keller to underperform against the Mets. He’s an average pitcher facing an above-average offense. In a pitcher-friendly park, sure, but Keller’s issue isn’t home runs; it’s line drives. Keller has given up a 29.4% line-drive rate, and he faces a Mets projected lineup with six line-drive rates over 23%. He also isn’t much of a strikeout pitcher, just having a 21.6% K rate. We have Keller projected for 5.0 Ks and 27.5 fantasy points. If you’re an early bird catching the worm, our projections like him to walk 1.9 batters — 26.7% above his 1.5 PrizePicks projection.
Mitchell Parker LESS Than 17.5 Outs
The Cardinals projected lineup has just a .298 wOBA and .136 ISO against lefties since the start of the 2023 season, and Mitchell Parker is a fine pitcher. What we’re attacking here isn’t Parker’s vulnerability to hard-hit rate (47.9%) on a high contact rate (80.2%) so much as the fact that 17.5 is a really big number for an average young pitcher — even against the Cardinals. We have this 24-year-old rookie projected for 16.5 outs, and this play is the best play on the board, according to our pick’em tool, after the early-morning NYM/PIT game. So, if you’re getting to this after the Keller plays are removed, this is your best play.
Jon Gray MORE Than 15.5 Outs
The Angels just gave up a CGSO to Joey Estes last week and were shut out by Hayden Wesneski and the bad Cubs bullpen on Sunday. Their projected lineup has a .290 wOBA and .130 ISO with just a 7.1% barrel rate against righties. The issue here is the pitch count of Jon Gray. We only have him projected for 82 pitches — one start removed from the IL — so this is a risky play. But it’s one of the best, according to our pick’em tool, because the Angels are putrid against righties. We have Gray projected for 15.3 outs, so this is tight, but he has a high floor. As long as this terrible lineup doesn’t give him trouble in the 5th inning, he should get into the 6th. But, yeah, this is a tight squeeze.
Gavin Williams MORE Than 15.5 Outs (DEMON)
I don’t know how stretched out Gavin Williams is. He only pitched 17 innings in 6 MiLB starts before getting shellacked in 4 IP in his season debut against the White Sox. But this is a decent pitcher who averaged over 5 IP per start in 2023. He has some command issues that bite him in the ass from time to time, but he’s only given up 0.84 HR/9 on a 5.4% barrel rate through 345 batters faced in his young career. Facing a Tigers team that posts a Quad-A lineup after Riley Greene and a couple of legitimate — but still developing — prospects, we should like his projected 86 pitches to take him through 5 IP. We have Williams projected for 14.9 outs, so the DEMON boost makes this tight squeeze a profitable long-term play. If you wanna find a better median to attack, his standard PrizePicks fantasy points projection is 24.5, whereas we have him projected for 25.6.
All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.
I think these are the only plays I like on the entire board and I couldn’t figure out which one to cut, so I wrote them all up. We can flirt with Davis Daniel for MORE than 16.5 outs, if we’re playing a lot of contests, but this is definitely a low-volume fun day where we invest a little to win a lot. If I’m playing around 50% of my normal volume, I’m probably only playing 3-4 plays per contest. When the hitter DEMONs are released, look for total bases projections on Twins, White Sox, and maybe Guardians to attack.
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