The baseball gods have blessed us with a massive 12-game MLB slate that locks at 7:07 p.m. ET on DraftKings. Using Stokastic’s MLB DFS Top Stack and Top Pitchers tools, let’s dive into the player pool to discuss the best MLB DFS contrarian picks and stacks for today’s action.
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MLB DFS Contrarian Picks Today: Tuesday, April 30
MLB DFS Contrarian Pitcher
Phillies-Angels: Spencer Turnbull
Stokastic’s Top 2 Pitcher Rate
DraftKings: 9.5%
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $9,100
Newly minted Phillies right-hander Spencer Turnbull has been one of the biggest early season surprises for any team in baseball. While he always had decent stuff when he pitched for Detroit, Turnbull missed all of the 2022 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery before tossing just 57 total innings between the majors and minors in 2023 while missing time with a neck injury. Though he was pounded to the tune of a 7.26 ERA and 1.68 WHIP in seven starts for the Tigers last season, Turnbull has much more respectable numbers (4.55 ERA, 1.36 WHIP, 12.3 K-BB%) over his 302.1 innings in the majors. When the Phillies took a flier on him this offseason in hopes of giving the team some quality innings in the absence of Taijuan Walker, it’s highly unlikely that they had any inclination he would be this good.
Simply put, Turnbull has dazzled thus far with a 1.33 ERA, 0.85 WHIP, 30 strikeouts and 10 walks through five starts. While the Phillies are rightfully monitoring his innings considering his injury history, Turnbull is putting together an extremely impressive start to his season. His 3.16 xERA would suggest regression is coming; however, it’s unlikely to come tonight in a pristine matchup against the Angels.
As of this writing, Turnbull has a 9.5% top-2 pitcher percentage and only 2.3% of lineups are expected to roster him, making him one of the best contrarian options on the slate.
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MLB DFS High-Priced Contrarian Stack
Dodgers-Diamondbacks: Diamondbacks
Stokastic’s Top Stack Projection
DraftKings: 5.9%
Top Value Projection
DraftKings: 1.7%
Coming off a National League title last season, the Diamondbacks have been a bit slow out of the gate to start the 2024 campaign. Their offense is hardly the problem, however, and the Diamondbacks find themselves in another sneakily high-upside spot against Dodgers rookie Landon Knack. With other offenses like the Twins, Dodgers and Guardians all in good matchups and projected for much higher combined ownership than Arizona, the Snakes are slithering through the cracks in a major way on DraftKings.
Though Knack has been solid through hist first two career starts, both of those outings came against a mediocre Nationals lineup. The Diamondbacks are undoubtedly a much tougher test, and Knack’s underlying numbers suggest negative regression is coming. Through 11.0 innings, Knack sports a 3.27 ERA and .277 WOBA allowed to opposing hitters. Given his 4.23 xERA and .328 xWOBA, however, the Diamondbacks suddenly look much better than Knack’s actual numbers would imply.
Arizona is currently projected to be the top stack 5.9% of the time this slate plays out but is only drawing 2.9% ownership.
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Other MLB DFS Notes for April 30
With the field seemingly spread out across the board tonight, ownership isn’t really a concern anywhere. Freddy Peralta and Luis Castillo will pick up a lot of the starting pitcher ownership, but it’s easy to get away from the field elsewhere if you don’t want to get away from either of them. Similarly with bats, only one team is projected to be over 10% owned: The Twins at just 10.1%. While I don’t love the idea of playing a chalky Minnesota offense, almost 90% of the field isn’t playing them, so do with that what you will.
Though no cheap stacks stand out the way Arizona does on high end, Oakland is a leverage play against a relatively popular Mitch Keller. Keller won’t be highly owned enough where I want to sell my soul on the A’s, but they are definitely in play as one-offs or mini-stacks.
