MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Monday, June 17th
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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MLB PrizePicks Predictions for Monday, June 17th
- Paul Skenes MORE Than 8.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
- Sonny Gray MORE Than 7.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
- Max Fried MORE Than 18.5 Outs (DEMON)
- Daulton Varsho MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
Paul Skenes MORE Than 8.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
As long as the standard 8.0 projection is live, we want to be heavily MORE than on that line, as we have Paul Skenes projected for 8.3 strikeouts. But this DEMON projection is pretty juicy to sprinkle around. The Reds’ projected lineup has a 25.5% K rate this season against righties, while Skenes is punching out a ridiculous 35.1% of batters through 131 faced. Eight-and-a-half is a big number, so the fact that he hasn’t gone 7 IP is a concern, but he’s gone at least 6 IP in 5 of his last 6 starts and this is a ceiling spot, as the Reds take a huge park downgrade from The Great American Ball Park to PNC Park. Skenes has 8, 8, and 9 Ks in each of his last 3 starts.
Sonny Gray MORE Than 7.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
Sonny Gray has a DEMON projection that’s not as tight as Skenes. Projected by us for 7.0 Ks today, the jump to 7.5 is a hair greater than Skenes’, but Gray can go 7 IP against this terrible Marlins bunch, raising his ceiling to one similar to Skenes. The Marlins’ projected lineup has just a 22.4% K rate this season against righties, but Gray comes in with a 33% K rate baked into his skillset. Gray has 8+ Ks in 3 of his last 4 starts and 4 of his last 6.
Max Fried MORE Than 18.5 Outs (DEMON)
The Tigers are pretty bad. Since the start of the 2023 season, the Tigers have a .322 wOBA with a 24.6% K rate against lefties. Max Fried is about as efficient as it gets, with a 58% ground-ball rate and a microscopic 4.4% barrel rate over that stretch. Fried doesn’t get smashed, he can miss bats when the opportunity arises, the Tigers can get mowed down by just about anyone, and Fried has one of the longest leashes in baseball. Fried has 7+ IP in five of his last 7 starts to go with 2 complete games on the season. We have him conservatively projected for 18.0 outs tonight.
Daulton Varsho MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
Picking on Nick Pivetta with a power-speed lefty in decent park for hitting is a pretty easy bet. Nick Pivetta is a very good strikeout pitcher, but he has surrendered an 11.1% barrel rate on a 34.8% fly-ball rate to lefties since the start of the 2023 season, where Daulton Varsho has had .209 ISO, with an above-average 8.8% barrel rate on a 33.3% fly-ball rate against righties. The cool thing about Varsho is that he’s a really aggressive baserunner, too, so stretching a single into a double is in the cards for us to beat this projection in a single AB. We have Varsho projected for 1.8 total bases, so the DEMON boost is gravy.
All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.
This is a great high-volume day for PrizePicks. Go to our pick’em tool for a ton of great standard projections to attack, and use these DEMONs for boosts to maximize the return on your contests.
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