MLB’s Monday night slate has a modest six games, with potential weather concerns in Minnesota. Using Stokastic’s MLB DFS Top Stacks Tool and Top Pitchers Tool, we’ll dive into the player pool to uncover the most effective contrarian picks and stacks for today’s MLB games.
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MLB DFS Contrarian Picks Today: Monday, August 26
MLB DFS Contrarian Pitcher
Marlins-Rockies: Edward Cabrera
Stokastic’s Top 2 Pitcher Rate
DraftKings: 18.8%
DFS Salary
DraftKings: $6,200
With only six games in play and not a ton of expensive bats to spend up on, ownership at pitcher is projected to be concentrated. As of this writing, Ryan Pepiot, Bryce Miller, Bailey Ober and Max Fried are projected to be a combined 136.5% owned on DraftKings. While Miller and Pepiot will probably end up the highest-owned of the bunch, expect to see a lot of lineups with some combination of these four pitchers. It makes sense that all of those pitchers are picking up ownership; however, we’re left with quite a few arms who are coming in under-owned.
Edward Cabrera is averaging 11.4 DraftKings points per game and has a 5.65 ERA, 1.47 WHIP, 73 strikeouts, and 38 walks over 65.1 innings this season. Cabrera’s 5.07 xERA is a bit more palatable, but it’s still not great. All that being said, Cabrera is in a dream spot matched up with the Rockies, and if this game were in Miami, he’d be one of the highest owned pitchers on the slate. The fact that the game is in Colorado definitely lowers Cabrera’s floor, but his upside is high in a matchup with a Rockies offense that just saw Patrick Corbin put up 27.9 DraftKings points against them. Cabrera actually faced Colorado earlier this season in Miami, and he was the highest-owned pitcher on the slate. Despite only finishing with 14.8 fantasy points, Cabrera showed his upside with nine strikeouts in only 4.0 innings of work.
Stokastic’s Top Pitchers Tool projects Cabrera to be a top-2 pitcher 18.8% of the time this slate plays out on DraftKings. With only 12.2% of lineups projected to roster him, Cabrera stands out as one of the top differentiators on the board.
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MLB DFS Contrarian Stack
Padres-Cardinals: Padres
Stokastic’s Top Stack Projection
DraftKings: 10.7%
Ownership Projection
DraftKings: 8.7%
Unlike ownership at pitcher where four players are running away with ownership, stack exposure is expected to be spread out on DraftKings. As of this writing, the Marlins are projected to be the highest-owned stack on DraftKings at 15.3% facing Ryan Feltner in Coors. Aside from the Marlins and Tigers, no team is projected to be double-digit owned, and most other teams will be somewhat contrarian.
Matched up with grizzled veteran Kyle Gibson, the Padres are in a sneaky good spot. Gibson has been mediocre this season, averaging 14.4 DraftKings points per game while sporting a 4.23 ERA over 136.1 innings. Gibson’s 5.04 xERA suggests he’s due for some negative regression, and there’s a lot to like about this Padres lineup that gets a huge ballpark upgrade going from San Diego to St. Louis. While they might not project quite as well from a value perspective as teams like the Marlins and Tigers, the Padres’ ceiling in this spot is arguably the highest of any team on the slate.
The Padres are projected to be the top stack 10.7% of the time this slate plays out on DraftKings, but only 8.7% of lineups are stacking them.
Other Contrarian Stacks to Consider
Rockies, Rays, Mariners
