MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers and Top Stacks | April 25
MLB DFS Picks: Spotlight Pitchers
Miami has 19 home runs on the season, which is less than half when compared to the Yankees, Dodgers and Cubs. The Marlins are in the middle of the pack for total bases, ranking fourth with a .260 average and eighth with a .326 on-base percentage. This all combines for around four runs per game, which is also around the middle.
Connor Norby and Jesus Sanchez missed the first couple weeks of the season, each dealing with an oblique injury. They are two of the top 4 hitters in the lineup, though they would be candidates for the bottom of the order on playoff teams.
Gilbert made his first All-Star team last year, and across his last 912 batters faced, he was stellar with a 28.6% combined strikeout rate, a 45.7% ground ball rate and a solid 23.6% fly ball rate. The projected Miami lineup has a 19.3% strikeout rate against right-handed hurlers over the last season-plus, though Gilbert can make his own magic with a 15.3% swinging-strike rate.
RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto has been impressive though his five starts this year, building on a strong 18-start foundation. He has 10.82 strikeouts per nine innings over his 119 frames, allowing only 0.68 home runs per nine. Overall he has a 2.50 ERA, 2.47 FIP and 2.60 xFIP, and all of his numbers this season are even better than his “rookie” campaign. Yamamoto spent six seasons in the NPB, and he is one of the top pitchers to hail from Japan.
The back half of the Pittsburgh lineup is shaky, and while Adam Frazier, Tommy Pham and Isiah Kiner-Falefa may not be easy outs, the veterans are well into the sunset of their respective careers. Ke’Bryan Hayes is overmatched by same-handed pitching, with barely any power or actual results, despite putting lots of balls in play. If Yamamoto can navigate the top of the order, he should have no trouble coaxing quick turnover from the bottom of the order.
MLB DFS Picks: Top Stacks
Main Slate Primary Target: Athletics
April has not been kind to Burke, who managed just 15.2 innings in four starts, with nine walks, six home runs and 18 runs allowed. Three were unearned, which would otherwise push his 8.62 ERA into double digits.
The 26-year-old has completed the fifth inning only once in his four starts, issuing a pair of free passes in each outing. Fly balls have been his undoing, leading to four or more earned runs in three of his four appearances.
Brent Rooker received a night off on Thursday, but he is expected to be back in the lineup, separating lefties Lawrence Butler and Tyler Soderstrom.
Soderstrom is tied for the home run lead with nine, eight of which have been against right-handed hurlers.
The A’s are fifth overall for home runs, and their total bases surge up to third place, trailing only the Yankees and Cubs. They do not have enough runners consistently on board when the extra-base knocks occur, which has them with a middling 4.36 runs per game.
Catcher Shea Langeliers and JJ Bleday can be used to round out full stacks, and Luis Urias is a differentiation play on the late slate as part of a wraparound stack.
UPDATE: It sounds like Chicago is going to use LHP Tyler Gilbert as an “opener” tonight. This was a concept/theory developed in the early 2010s, though MLB teams did not try it regularly until the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018. There have always been “bullpen days,” when the starting rotation is tapped out or a shaky starter is on the mound and the manager decides to turn the game over to a couple multi-inning relievers or a spot start by a swing-man who hasn’t pitched regularly.
Back before DFS, “bullpen days” usually were more favorable to the opposing team, since it was the dregs of the relief corp. Now with most relievers actually being good (by comparison to the prior era), it is a way to cost control innings at a cheaper rate than with starters. Since Tampa took this approach, the only other team to really do it regular was San Francisco, which is another organization that likes to look for little edges. Otherwise it had mostly been a desperation move used by teams maybe a dozen times a year to prop up a bad starter. The other case is when a team is down a lot of starters due to injury issues, well they have to get creative if there are no reasonable arms left in the minors.
The original idea was to put in a solid reliever, to take on the top of the order. Gilbert is definitely not even an average reliever. He was at two different colleges for three seasons, prior to being a sixth-round selection in the 2015 MLB Draft by Philadelphia. He has been with the Phillies twice, along with Arizona, Cincinnati, the LA Dodgers and now the White Sox. In a “baseball being baseball” moment, when he finally made his first start for the Diamondbacks in the 2022 season, he no-hit the San Diego Padres.
Fast forward to present day, we have a lefty who has a flyball lean with a 6.47 strikeouts per nine innings rate in 105.2 career frames. This is probably the last hurrah for the 31-year-old and in no way should dissuade anyone from rolling with the A’s.
Main Slate Contrarian Target: Atlanta Braves
In his second start, RHP Zac Gallen struck out 13 Yankees in the Bronx across 6.2 scoreless frames. In his 20.2 other innings, he had 16 strikeouts, 13 walks, five home runs and a 7.41 ERA. Those matchups were a home and away against the Cubs, and in Arizona against the Orioles and Brewers. These are all top-shelf offenses, as are the Braves.
Gallen’s velocity is down two ticks from last year, but he also has been unlucky overall with a 5.60 ERA, despite a 4.48 xERA, 4.81 FIP and 4.42 xFIP. Still, where there is smoke there is usually fire, and we get a bonus with the Chase Field roof scheduled to be open tonight.
Ozzie Albies, Matt Olson, Marcell Ozuna and Austin Riley each have between 13 and 16 at-bats against Gallen, so there is some familiarity from the desired core four. Alex Verdugo has been stellar as the leadoff man, letting Michael Harris II slide down the lineup card to a less stressful slot. The Arizona bullpen has been getting a workout, and it is not exactly a stopper to begin with. That is another plus for the Atlanta side of the ledger.
Today’s Top Sports Betting Picks
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The reigning National League Cy Young Award winner is, of course, a strikeout artist who is never fun to pick on. However, the math is on our side, and he projects for 4.98 strikeouts. Collectively, the Diamondbacks’ projected lineup has a 15.1% strikeout rate against southpaws since the start of last year. The 36-year-old will probably get one or two from Eugenio Suarez, who loves to swing from his heels, but the rest of the lineup is all below league average with their whiff rates.
