Saturday has a compressed featured slate, with seven of the nine matchups getting underway within 20 minutes of the 7:05 p.m. ET lock on DraftKings, FanDuel and Yahoo. Before we get to our MLB DFS picks, as always, we will use Stokastic’s tools to help identify today’s MLB DFS stacks, key pitchers and daily fantasy baseball lineups. Look to Framber Valdez and George Kirby doing battle in Seattle, while Brady Singer takes on an epically bad Chicago offense. The Coors Field Extravaganza will, of course, dominate projections, but the Royals and Dodgers are interesting pivot stacks.
MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers and Top Stacks | July 20
MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers
Main Slate Primary Pitching Target: LHP Framber Valdez (HOU at SEA)
Astros at Mariners – 3.7 implied runs
First Pitch: 9:40 p.m. ET
$7,900 at DraftKings
$9,500 at FanDuel
$43 at Yahoo
While Seattle is the most strikeout-happy team in the league, the projected lineup has a 22.5% strikeout rate against southpaws over the last two seasons. This is down from the overall active roster striking out at a 24.3% clip against lefties.
J.P. Crawford, Jorge Planco and Ty France have all missed time this season, and each has a sub-21% strikeout rate against lefties. Offseason acquisitions Mitch Garver and Victor Robles have been even better with 17.6% and 13.9% strikeout rates, respctively. So does this mean we should avoid LHP Framber Valdez? Heck no! Valdez has slipped to 7.51 strikeouts per nine innings, which is a career low and well under his 9.1 ratio from last year. However, he also has improved his groundball rate from last season’s nadir, up to 60.5%, which is down from his 70.3% zenith in 2021, but not far off the 62.6% rate for his entire body of work.
The Mariners are quite familiar with the groundball extraordinaire, with a collective .294/.355/.417 triple-slash line in 180 at-bats against him. Those are decent results, but the key is while none of the M’s hitters have been horrible against Valdez, none have been overly successful, either. The most “terrifying” hitter for Seattle is Julio Rodriguez, but his season-long slump has had him hitting as low as sixth on several occasions.
In his two starts this year against the Mariners, Valdez has allowed eight runs in 11.1 innings with only seven strikeouts. Switch-hitting catcher Cal Raleigh had a home run against Valdez in early May, but he is just 3-for-12 against him for his career. The other longball was courtesy of career journeyman Luis Urias, who is back in the minors. If Valdez can keep Seattle from stringing together hits, he should be in line for a strong outing. The Mariners have scored the fourth-fewest runs this season and are in danger of being passed by Tampa, which will be a travesty.
Main Slate Secondary Pitching Target: RHP George Kirby (SEA vs. HOU)
Mariners vs. Astros – 3.5 implied runs
First Pitch: 9:40 p.m. ET
$9,000 at DraftKings
$9,800 at FanDuel
$45 at Yahoo
Tonight, RHP George Kirby has a higher median fantasy projection than Valdez, but when salary is factored in, the southpaw holds sway on DraftKings and FanDuel. The key for Kirby will be to earn a quality start since the win probability is a literal coinflip and likely to end up with one of the bullpen arms.
For the second consecutive season, Kirby is leading the league with a minuscule 1.0 walks per nine innings and 8.92 strikeouts per walk. While those numbers are a little worse than last year, the 26-year-old continues to be an impressive mound presence. Kirby is tied for 10th with teammate Luis Castillo, with each boasting 13 quality starts. In a fun twist, it is Logan Gilbert (16) who leads the league, showing how Seattle’s pitching can keep the team in the playoff race despite an anemic offense.
Kirby has been a tough riddle for the Astros, who have a collective .189/.206/.200 triple-slash line with one lonely double as the only extra-base hit in 95 at-bats. The team has 20 strikeouts against just one walk, which is ridiculous. Kyle Tucker remains out, which creates a major void in the middle of the Houston order. The 26-year-old hurler is priced for near perfection, but more often than not he has delivered this season.
Main Slate Wild Card Pitching Target: RHP Brady Singer (KC vs. CHW)
Royals vs. White Sox – 3.8 implied runs
First Pitch: 7:10 p.m. ET
$8,100 at DraftKings
$9,000 at FanDuel
$40 at Yahoo
The Miami Marlins have scored the second-fewest runs in the league and are averaging 3.52 per game, but Chicago is dead last with 28 fewer runs, leading to a putrid 3.17 runs per game. In 2023, Oakland was the most anemic team in the league, with 3.61 runs per game, with Detroit the worst squad in 2022 (3.44). The White Sox are truly having a historically awful season.
Last Sunday, RHP Brady Singer had his shortest outing of the season, lasting only 2.2 innings in Boston. He also had a dreadful start to June with a 3.2-inning appearance. On the other side of the ledger from those blemishes are 10 starts with just one earned run and a seven-inning shutout.
Singer ranks 21st in the league with a 3.20 ERA, while limiting power and collecting just enough strikeouts to be interesting. The Royals are -200 moneyline favorites to garner the victory tonight and while trying to project wins for a pitcher is folly, there is a good chance Singer ends up with one in this matchup.
For additional tips on using the Post-Contest Simulator to enhance your lineup analysis, check out Steve Buzzard’s breakdown on how to use simulations to enhance your lineup study process!
MLB DFS Picks: Top Stacks
Main Slate Primary Target: Kansas City Royals
Royals vs. White Sox – 5.3 implied runs
First Pitch: 7:10 p.m. ET
Opposing Starter: RHP Jonathan Cannon
DK Top Stack %: 8.2%
FD Top Stack %: 9.4%
The Stokastic Top Stacks Tool agrees that the Giants look great in Coors Field against LHP Kyle Freeland, but it’s worth pointing out that the southpaw has a 1.71 ERA, 3.13 FIP and 3.66 xFIP in his first four starts after missing two months with a sprained elbow. These include two home games and a third that was in hitting friendly Great American Ballpark. San Francisco has a team total pushing 6.0, but it may not be a cakewalk to get there.
Kansas City will be getting a second crack at RHP Jonathan Cannon, who held the Royals to just one run in five innings during his MLB debut in April. The 23-year-old was a third-round selection in the 2022 MLB Draft and he is the 10th-ranked ChiSox prospect, who was not expected to be a regular in The Show until next season. It will be interesting to see if it is Cannon or fellow rookie RHP Drew Thorpe who sticks in the rotation when RHP Mike Clevinger returns to action. That of course is not a concern for today.
Cannon is a legitimate back-of-the-rotation starter, but he lacks any strikeout upside with most projection systems (ZiPS, Steamer, The Bat) having him in the 5.8-to-6.5 per nine innings range. His control is good, which limits walks, so his path to success will be leaning into his ability to limit fly balls and survive hit sequencing. The Royals are not strong when it comes to home runs, but they do just fine for overall extra-base hits, sitting just outside the top 10 for total bases. The team also is willing to run, with the seventh most steals thus far, led by 22 thefts from both Bobby Witt Jr. and Maikel Garcia, with situational speedster Dairon Blanco at 17 steals.
There are few easy outs in the projected lineup, which has a 20.4% strikeout rate against right-handed pitching over the last season and change, with a healthy .166 ISO. Witt is spendy, but the rest of the roster is reasonably priced, particularly on Yahoo, with FanDuel of course being “buy-one, get-one” bargains. Hunter Renfroe and Vinnie Pasquantino profile particularly well against Cannon, with veteran Salvador Perez rounding out full-stacks.
Main Slate Secondary Target: Los Angeles Dodgers
Dodgers vs. Red Sox – 4.9 implied runs
First Pitch: 7:15 p.m. ET
Opposing Starter: RHP Brayan Bello
DK Top Stack %: 7.6%
FD Top Stack %: 8.4%
Mookie Betts, Max Muncy and Jason Heyward are all on the injured list — along with the entire starting rotation. Still, the Dodgers are chugging along and are likely to bring in reinforcements at the trade deadline because the rich just get richer, especially in today’s MLB landscape. Let’s trust them in a good spot this evening.
The good starts have been few and far between for RHP Brayan Bello this season, with only two “great” starts. His strikeouts have been all over the place, though still close to one per inning for the season, but walks have been an issue and so have extra-base hits, with the 25-year-old failing to close out the fifth inning in three of his last seven starts.
Los Angeles is a very top-heavy lineup at this point with all the injuries, leading to the core four of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernandez and Will Smith. Of course, having two MVPs, the recent Home Run Derby champion and an otherworldly catcher in the fearsome foursome can paper over a lot of other shortcomings.
Someone is going to need to step up among Andy Pages, James Outman, Chris Taylor, Gavin Lux and Miguel Rojas, and, preferably, multiple players — otherwise the back half of the lineup could lead to a couple of three-up, three-down innings and crush the overall hopes for this stack. Keep in mind this is a late-afternoon game in Chavez Ravine, with temperatures around 90 degrees at first pitch, which bodes well for offense.
Our Lineup Generator is maybe the best bang for your buck here at Stokastic! Find out how to use it in conjunction with our other MLB DFS tools in our guide Lineup Generator Guide!
Featured MLB Bet of the Day | MLB DFS Picks Today
Tonight, RHP Justin Wrobleski will be squaring off against the Boston Red Sox in Los Angeles, as the rookie makes his third career start.
Currently, the under on his 5.5 strikeouts stands out on BetMGM, where it is available at -140 odds.
New users at BetMGM can get up to $1,500 in bonus bets paid back if the first bet does not win. Click here for details.
OddsShopper shows this wager has -151 “true odds” for Wrobleski to fall under six strikeouts, which brings a decent 3.2% expected ROI.
We can also see how important it is to shop the odds, as evidenced by Pinnacle all the way down at a -173 line, which equates to a NEGATIVE 5% expected ROI. PointsBet and FanDuel have elected to put positive money towards the under on 4.5 strikeouts, which is also a losing proposition from an expected ROI perspective.
Wrobleski was an 11th-round selection in the 2022 MLB Draft, and this year, he saw his first action at Double-A, getting a two-game look at Triple-A and then being promoted to the parent club. This is not because he is good: it is because the Dodgers are desperate to fill out the rotation. Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Walker Buehler, Tony Gonsolin and Dustin May are all on the injured list, and Bobby Miller has been demoted to the minors.
The 24-year-old has made two nearly identical starts, with five innings, five hits, four runs, two walks, two home runs and four strikeouts in each. The projected lineup for the Red Sox does strike out a fair amount against lefties, but the team also has plenty of power hitters and they could easily push Wrobleski to burn through his 85 or so pitches, prior to him recording half a dozen strikeouts.
Other wagers are continually popping up and disappearing every few minutes as lineups are being announced, which is why it is key to get an OddsShopper Premium subscription to take advantage of all opportunities.
Final MLB DFS Picks & Thoughts for Saturday, July 20
Atlanta saw a postponement yesterday and there is again rain in the forecast for both ends of Saturday’s doubleheader, so be wary depending on the game format. For the early-evening slate, there is elevated humidity in Washington, which could take the shape of late-afternoon showers. Finally, Kansas City also has a 30% chance of rain in the game window on the featured slate, but it is still too far out to accurately predict the coverage area. Check out your top MLB Weather Report page as the first pitch approaches for updates before making any MLB DFS picks.
Before finalizing MLB DFS picks for the day’s slate, tune into the Stokastic MLB Live Before Lock Show at 6:00 p.m. ET brought to you by DraftKings Pick6 – new users, use this link to receive $50 with your first $5 play!
