MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers and Top Stacks | Sept. 27
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MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers
Pittsburgh is now incentivized to be sure to play all the youngsters, since the team released Rowdy Tellez, four at bats shy of a $200,000 incentive bonus, along with Michael A. Taylor. Of course the optics also would not have been great had Tellez been stuck on the bench for the last week, but now this has gone through the media spin for a couple of days.
Outside of Isiah Kiner-Falefa, no other Pirate hitter in the projected lineup, with at least 70 plate appearances against lefties, has a strikeout rate below 23.4%. Billy Cook and Liover Peguero only have eight combined plate appearances against southpaws, so they do not count and even IKF is not daunting, with a .270 wOBA and .066 ISO against lefties this season.
It is always an adventure with Rodon, though his 26.5% strikeout rate does help erase mistakes, from a fantasy perspective. He is going to be popular, but is the clear priority pitcher tonight.
Seattle is also playing out the string and the team has yet to announce a starter for any of the next three games. Best guess is RHPs Bryce Miller goes Saturday and oft-injured RHP Bryan Woo on Sunday. There is a chance of a bullpen game tonight or having a “September callup” pitch multiple innings. Sadly, even if RHP Luis Castillo is activated from the IL for this start, it is hard to see him go more than a couple of innings with the season effectively over. The dust of course should settle well before lock, but it would have been fun to have the M’s still in “must win” mode against the Oakland offense this weekend.
RHP Pablo Lopez and the Twins are still alive, but they need to win out and hope that Detroit or Kansas City drops the next three, with Minnesota holding the tiebreaker over both. Lopez will be at home, with Baltimore in town and the Orioles have all but clinched to the top wild card slot in the American League, so we could see some regulars get rest as the team cannot catch New York. We need to see the O’s lineup, before making a decision on Lopez.
LHP Max Fried looks interesting against Kansas City, having a little extra rest with the back-to-back rainouts. Of course the Royals want to win, so will be putting out their best lineup all weekend.
That brings us to RHP Nick Pivetta as tonight’s SP2 on DraftKings and Yahoo. The veteran will be facing Tampa Bay, who have a sub-4.00 implied team total. Both teams are out of it and while there really are no milestones for Pivetta to target, he in a decent position for a quality start and half a dozen strikeouts.
Across his last five outings, Pivetta has 10.08 strikeouts per nine innings, with a 2.60 ERA, 3.67 FIP and 3.66 xFIP. In this stretch, his worst game was in Tampa Bay, where the Rays got to him for a trio of taters and four “Ernies” though the former ace allowed only one other round-tripper in this collection of 27.2 frames. Pivetta will be an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season, so he does have incentive for a strong final performance.
MLB DFS Picks: Top Stacks
Main Slate Primary Target: Arizona Diamondbacks
Veteran RHP Yu Darvish celebrated his 38th birthday last month and he missed over half the season recovering from an injury, while also dealing with some personal matters.
In his 20 innings, since returning to the mound, Darvish has been solid with 21 strikeouts, along with five home runs, which have been his kryptonite over the last few years.
Arizona is quite familiar with Darvish and key hitters such as Ketel Marte, Corbin Carroll, Eugenio Suarez, Pavin Smith, Christian Walker and Josh Bell all have excellent personal success.
Bell and Smith have returned to reserve roles, now that Lourdes Gurriel and Walker are healthy. But if they get a spot start, do not shy away from either of that duo. The preferred order of preference, accounting for price, popularity and positional eligibility will be Marte, Carroll, Joc Pederson, Walker, Suarez (who has been on an absolute tear this month), McCarthy and Gurriel.
Consider anyone else who lands in the lineup, but not mentioned above, as a differentiator on the late-slate.
Main Slate Wild Card Target: Seattle Mariners
The M’s have been eliminated from the postseason and the Athletics said goodbye to Oakland yesterday. That could lead to some lackadaisical performances on both sides, but at least the Mariners will be held accountable by the fans attending the final series of the season.
LHP JP Sears has suffered four or more earned runs in four of his last six starts, including 10 combined runs, with four dingers, over his last two appearances. This works out to a 5.61 ERA, 5.39 FIP, 5.26 xFIP and a paltry 6.15 strikeouts per nine innings. Opposing batsmen have been murdering the ball with a 1.87 home runs per nine ratio in this stretch, five steals and 13 total extra-base hits.
Though he has struggled for large portions of the season, Julio Rodriguez joined Bobby Witt Jr. as the two players in MLB history, to start their careers with three-consecutive 20-20 seasons. Rodriguez has been locked in against lefties over the last month, so he is good to go tonight. Randy Arozarena is always in play against southpaws, with this duo pairing nicely with fellow outfielder Victor Robles or veteran Justin Turner for added synergy, resulting from their close proximity to each other in the lineup.
Catchers Cal Raliegh and Mitch Garver stand out as fine stack partners or solo plays at the catcher position, on both DraftKings and Yahoo, with home run upside.
Featured MLB Bet of the Day | MLB DFS Picks Today
Tonight we have a home run opportunity with Jonathan Aranda against RHP Nick Pivetta.
The Portfolio EV model has the youngster for around an 11% probability of knocking one into the cheap seats tonight.
Currently, this opportunity stands out on Fanatics where it is available at +750 odds.
Portfolio EV shows this wager has +708 “true odds,” and that works out to a 5.2% expected ROI.
We can see that BetRivers has a punitive +510 line, which works out to NEGATIVE 25% ROI. Be a savvy shopper!
In his last eight starts, Pivetta has allowed 14 home runs, with five games of two home runs and one with a trio of taters. Aranada is likely to be in the cleanup spot and he has a .227 ISO in 107 plate appearances against opposite-handed hurlers this season. Pivetta has been better against lefties this year with a .177 ISO, compared to his dreadful .284 ISO last year, with the reality closer to a .200 ISO.
With new wagers frequently appearing and disappearing as lineups are announced, having a Portfolio EV subscription is essential to seize every opportunity.
