Hello! It is already June 10. Time sure does fly. Time does not fly quite as far as baseballs struck in Las Vegas, however. We’ll get Round 3 of the Brewers-A’s series in Vegas tonight, while the Cubs and Rockies will square off in Coors Field again. 3 of those teams have implied run totals of at least 7, which is absolutely gargantuan by MLB standards.
So, we know where the chalk will be offensively. The key is to find an edge somewhere, so let’s try that, shall we? Also, try the Builder.
Top MLB DFS Pitcher Picks (6/10)
- Chris Sale ($11,000, at CWS)
- Davis Martin ($9,500, vs. ATL)
- Jesus Luzardo ($8,500, at TOR)
- Shota Imanaga ($8,000, at COL)
- Reid Detmers ($7,500, vs. HOU)
- Andre Pallante ($6,800, at NYM)
The pitching pool features A Lot of Butt tonight, so we’re gonna see some heavy ownership congregating on a few of these guys. Chris Sale is pretty fantastic, and he gets a #RevengeGame against the White Sox in Chicago. But he’s also $11,000 on a slate with some awesome hitting spots. This game also has some weather risk, though the noted DFS weatherman says a late start and play is his best guess at what happens.
There is nothing red flaggy about Sale in any regard. He checks all the boxes, both surface-level and underlying. I suppose it’s worth noting the Sox have hit for a lot of power against left-handers (.216 ISO, .343 wOBA), while they’re also about average for Ks (20.6%). Sale has steamrolled worse matchups than this, so I’m not too worried about it. The issue is how much we can prioritize an $11,000 pitcher on this slate, which is a valid question.
Davis Martin gets the nod on the other side of this matchup for $1,500 less. Martin finally got roughed up in his last start after a long string of stellar outings, and he will have the benefit of facing a Braves team missing Ronald Acuna Jr. Martin has been very good overall (25.3% Ks, 5.9% walks, 3.34 SIERA). His swinging strike rate is about twice as high as his career rate, while his Stuff+ numbers this year are actually worse than his career average, and it’s not like he was great before this year to begin with. Weird! His velocity is up, so maybe that explains some of it, but I’m skeptical of what we’re seeing here. For $9,500 against the Braves, I’m mostly out.
I’d rather take the extra $1,000 and play Jesus Luzardo against the Blue Jays, even though we know Toronto is a tough strikeout matchup for a lefty (19%). The Jays also have decent power against lefties (.171 ISO). Luzardo has a 4.56 ERA, but he’s been the victim of a .343 BABIP and a strand rate of around 69%, both of which should improve. His 3.34 SIERA is identical to Martin’s with a similar swinging strike rate and much better Stuff+. Luzardo is good – and he’s underpriced – even in a subpar matchup.
Shota Imanaga takes the mound in Colorado, so that’ll be great. Imanaga’s numbers across the board look similar to those he posted as a rookie (complimentary), but Coors is The Great Equalizer. Imanaga is also a flyball lefty allowing an 11.3% barrel rate and .235 ISO on the year. Quite a bit of power risk, but Colorado (28.1%) is also one of baseball’s highest-K lineups against lefties. They’ve also hit for absolutely zero power (.104 ISO), which is kinda shocking? Imanaga is $8,000 and it’s a shitty pitching slate, so I’ll play him a good amount.
Reid Detmers will be chalk at $7,500 at home against Houston. He mowed down the Dodgers in his last start, and his 28.5% K-rate is one of the highest on the slate. Detmers has also reined in the walks this year (7.8%), and he’s solid in all other areas. The Astros profile similarly to the White Sox against lefties, with plenty of power (.191 ISO) and average strikeouts (20.6%). The Detmers chalk is probably the most exploitable on the slate – so I’ll be playing the Astros – but I will also have significant Detmers exposure, for better or worse. Probably worse.
Andre Pallante gets to face the Mets, so at least he has that going for him. Pallante won’t allow much power and he’ll typically keep the ball grounded, while the Mets are a high-groundball lineup without any power. Fine play if you wanna load up on bats.
SP Rankings
- Sale
- Luzardo
- Detmers
- Pallante
- Imanaga
- Martin
Best MLB DFS Stacks for Wednesday
- Cubs (at Michael Lorenzen)
- Rockies (vs. Shota Imanaga)
- A’s (vs. Brandon Sproat)
- Brewers (at Jack Perkins)
- Phillies (at Max Scherzer)
- Rangers (at Seth Lugo)
- Royals (vs. MacKenzie Gore)
Here we go with the Las Vegas bullshit again. They didn’t combine for 11 homers like they did on Monday, but they did still hit 6 over the fence last night. Same conditions there again tonight, so these teams + the Cubs will be The Chalk.
Michael Lorenzen is the worst pitcher on this slate, so I’d still start with the Cubs even though they poopooed their pantaloons yesterday against a similarly weak pitcher. Lorenzen has just been blasted by left-handed hitters (.320 ISO, .500 wOBA, 15% barrels), so Chicago’s lefties again stand out a ton – PCA, Michael Busch, Moises Ballesteros, Ian Happ, Pedro Ramirez. Lorenzen has a track record of actually being worse against RHBs, which keeps Bregman, Hoerner, Suzuki, and Swanson in play.
Jack Perkins has spent most of the year in the bullpen, but the A’s are now trying him as a starter. He has good numbers, but it’s reasonable to expect them to come back down to earth a bit. Left-handed hitters profile better, so back to the well with Christian Yelich, Brice Turang, Jake Bauers, Garrett Mitchell, and the other LHBs here.
Brandon Sproat has allowed a .371 wOBA and .216 overall this year. While he’s improved as the season has progressed and is a talented pitcher overall, nobody has been a match for these elements so far. The A’s are always a good source to hunt power, with the usuals – Nick Kurtz, Shea Langeliers, Brent Rooker, Tyler Soderstrom, Carlos Cortes – being the best bets again here. Zack Gelof (.200 ISO) has also done some slugging against same-handed pitching.
OK! Stacking just about anyone else on this slate will probably be different. The Rockies are facing the best pitcher of the arms going in these hitter-friendly games, but Imanaga is a power-prone, flyball lefty. Colorado’s hitters have been Jarringly Bad against LHP, but Hunter Goodman is still raking. Nobody else is particularly appealing, but Ezequiel Tovar, Willi Castro, Cole Carrigg, and Kyle Karros are right-handed. There’s that!
Max Scherzer comes off the IL to start for the Blue Jays. He’s old and has allowed a ton of power to lefties over the past few years, so Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper are up there with the Vegas/Colorado hitters as the best individual plays on this slate. Brandon Marsh has also hit enough to seem like the real deal at this point, while Bryson Stott will also hold the platoon edge. Scherzer wasn’t exactly lighting the world ablaze against RHBs before getting hurt earlier this year, so Trea Turner and Alec Bohm are viable in your stax.
This Texas/KC game has good hitting weather again, assuming they can play through some rain in the area. MacKenzie Gore has always had a bit of a reverse left-handed split, so Vinnie Pasquantino is an interesting play in stacks along with the usual RHBs – Witt, Perez, Garcia, and Thomas. Seth Lugo appears to be washed. The Rangers are dreadful, but I’m probably playing these losers yet again. RHBs (Burger, Jung, Duran) have really clubbed Lugo this year, but Joc, Seager, and Nimmo are still the overall headliners as LHBs.
Other Things
- Astros at Detmers – Yordan, Altuve, Pena, Paredes, Smith
- Angels vs. Lambert – Trout, Neto, Adell
- Jays RHBs vs. Luzardo – Vlad, Springer, Okamoto
- Juan Soto vs. Pallante
Noah Simpson is a New England-based DFS writer who has spent the better part of a decade obsessing over MLB DFS. He got his start playing DFS recreationally before realizing he was spending more time building spreadsheets than actually watching games, and decided to make it official. At DFSBuild, Noah covers MLB DFS strategy with a focus on finding edges that casual players overlook. When he’s not staring at Statcast data, he’s somewhere on a hiking trail in Maine with his two dogs, Sandboy and Johnner, who are undefeated at ignoring his lineup advice, because they are dogs. They don’t have the cognitive or motor skills required to operate a computer, let alone process complex theories and information.
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