In the midst of a seven-game afternoon slate, the baseball gods bless us with another eight-game MLB main slate with no major weather concerns anywhere. Using Stokastic’s MLB DFS Top Stack Tool and Top Pitchers Tool, let’s get into the player pool to find the best contrarian picks and stacks for today’s MLB action.
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MLB DFS Contrarian Picks Today: Wednesday, July 24 (Main Slate)
MLB DFS Contrarian Pitcher
Padres-Nationals: Matt Waldron
Stokastic’s Top 2 Pitcher Rate
DraftKings: 8.5%
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $8,100
With only eight games in play it’s no surprise that ownership at pitcher is expected to be extremely condensed. As of this writing, Tanner Bibee, Nathan Eovaldi, Tyler Glasnow and Gerrit Cole project to be a combined 132.3% owned on DraftKings. While Bibee will likely end up being the highest owned, expect some sort of combination of those four pitchers to be in a lot of lineups. As such, that leaves us with a bunch of arms that are falling through the cracks on DraftKings. Amongst that group lies Padres knuckleballer Matt Waldon, and he’s the top contrarian arm to target in GPP’s.
Waldron comes into tonight’s action averaging 15.0 DraftKings points per game while sporting a 3.60 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and a 99:31 K:BB over 112.2 innings. After a middling start to the season, Waldron has worked at least six innings in nine of his last 10 starts, posting a 2.59 ERA, 0.94 WHIP and 47:12 K:BB through 62.2 innings over that stretch. While he’s still much more solid than spectacular, those are pretty good numbers for a pitcher projected to be rostered in basically no lineups on DraftKings.
As of this writing, Stokastic’s tools have Assad being a top-2 pitcher 9.6% of the time this slate plays out on DraftKings. With only 1.0% of lineups expected to roster him, Waldron is a solid differentiator in GPPs.
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MLB DFS Contrarian Stack
Mets-Yankees: Mets
Stokastic’s Top Stack Projection
DraftKings: 6.1%
Ownership Projection
DraftKings: 1.8%
Unlike at pitcher where ownership is pretty condensed, stack exposure is expected to be pretty spread out. With no Coors Field tonight, there is no consensus “top stack” as the Rangers, Orioles, Rays, Yankees and Diamondbacks are all projected for a good amount of ownership. With ownership expected to be so spread out, there aren’t as many stacks coming in with real leverage. That said, there are a couple spots that look to be worth targeting, with the Mets emerging as the top contrarian stack on the board.
Matched up with longtime ace Gerrit Cole, it’s not particularly surprising that the Mets aren’t projected to get a ton of love on this slate. What is a bit surprising, however, is that the Mets currently have a 6.1% chance to be the top stack on tonight’s slate. That number is right in line with teams like the Dodgers and Rays, both of whom are garnering much more interest from the field. While picking on Cole is more often than not a fool’s errand, he hasn’t been particularly sharp this season, and the Mets offense has a ton of upside in DFS given their propensity to hit home runs. Though the Mets aren’t as likely to succeed as some of the other offenses in better spots, they offer real leverage against a popular Cole, and when they do get to him it’s a pretty clear path to the top of GPP’s.
The Mets are projected to be the top stack 6.4% of the time this slate plays out on DraftKings, but only 1.8% of lineups are expected to stack them.
Other Contrarian Stacks to Consider
Padres, Giants, White Sox, Guardians
