The MLB Breakdown offers data-driven analysis using the FantasyLabs Tools and predictive metrics to highlight notable players within our MLB Player Models.
MLB DFS Pitching Picks
MLB DFS Stud Pick
Tarik Skubal ($10,500) Detroit Tigers (-156) at Milwaukee Brewers
The reigning AL Cy Young winner had a slightly rough start to the season (by his standards) but rebounded in a big way last time out against the Yankees. The lefty allowed just four hits across six scoreless innings in New York, striking out six along the way.
I mention that game specifically because the Yankees are a very difficult matchup for lefties, while the Brewers are not. Milwaukee ranks 20th in wRC+ against southpaws in the young season, making this an extremely winnable matchup for Skubal.
The Vegas Data is on his side as well, with the Brewers 3.5-run total the second lowest on the slate. At worst, Skubal is an extremely safe bet to finish in the upper teens in DraftKings scoring.
Of course, that’s not quite good enough with his slate-high salary. His upside comes down to whether he can strike out enough batters to post a big score. That’s a tougher ask against Milwaukee, since their lineup is mostly filled with contact hitters. We have Skubal’s K prediction at 6.5, but you’d probably need a bit more for GPPs.
For that reason, he’s a rock-solid cash game pick but might fall just short in the upside department for GPPs. While he leads the slate in median and ceiling projection, there are better options from a price-considered standpoint.
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MLB DFS Value Pick
Shane Baz ($8,400) Tampa Bay Rays (-130) vs. Boston Red Sox
One of those options is Baz, who is tied for the lead in Pts/Sal projection. Baz’s K prediction of 6.36 is also nearly as strong as Skubal’s — but he comes with more than a $2,000 savings in salary.
He’s a riskier play, thanks to the strong Red Sox lineup he’s taking on tonight. However, Boston has some free swingers in the lineup, with five of their nine projected hitters striking out more than 25% of the time since the start of last year. On the flip side of that, they also have plenty of power bats, giving Baz a wide range of outcomes.
He’s been excellent so far this season, though, topping 50 DraftKings points across his two starts. One of those came against the Pirates and thus carries a bit of an asterisk, but he also performed well against the Angels in his follow-up game.
Despite his placement in the “Value Picks” section, I’m not incredibly interested in Baz for cash games, but he’s a high-ceiling option for GPPs that also frees up some salary.
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MLB DFS GPP Pick
Dustin May ($9,300) Los Angeles Dodgers (-345) vs. Colorado Rockies
Since it’s hard to fit both May and Skubal today, the choice essentially boils down to ability vs. matchup. Skubal is obviously the better overall pitcher, though May has been solid in a limited sample size this season after missing the entire 2024 season.
However, May has the best possible matchup in all of baseball. Through 15 games, the Rockies have both the lowest wRC+ against right-handed pitchers and the highest strikeout rate, with a pretty big gap in both categories.
May isn’t typically a high-strikeout pitcher, but when facing a team that strikes out more than 30% of the time, he should be able to pick up a few tonight. He could easily fall short of Skubal in that category but still be the better play when factoring in salary.
He trails only Skubal in median and ceiling projection but is cheaper and with lower projected ownership. He’s an excellent GPP pivot, and finding a way to fit them together would produce an even more unique lineup.
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MLB DFS Hitters and Stacks
Notable Stack
With the Lineup Builder, it’s easy to incorporate stacks into DFS rosters.
Also, don’t forget that for large-field tournaments, you can utilize our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups.
The top DraftKings stack in the FantasyLabs MLB Player Model when generated by rating using an aggregate projection set belongs to the Los Angeles Dodgers:
Of course, finding the salary for either of the top pitchers — much less both — is extremely difficult if you also want the slate’s top stack.
The Dodgers have a slate-high 5.7-run total, nearly a full run higher than any other team today. Their first five hitters also cost nearly $5,500 each on average, making it tough to find the salary to get to them.
The one upside of that is the price point should suppress ownership, so if you can find some cheap arms that put up a reasonable score, you’ll be in a good spot heading into the last game of the night. I’ll have a few lineups built around that idea.
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Other MLB DFS Hitter Picks
One of the great features of being a FantasyLabs Pro member is the option to purchase additional items in the FantasyLabs Marketplace.
In addition to our in-house MLB projections, THE BAT X from Derek Carty of RotoGrinders is available in our marketplace. With this purchase, you can use his projections alone or create aggregate projections within our Player Models.
For this example, we created a 50/50 blend with THE BAT X and the FantasyLabs projections to pinpoint some hitters that stand out.
Spencer Torkleson 1B ($3,700) Detroit Tigers at Milwaukee Brewers (Tyler Alexander)
The Tigers as a whole struggle somewhat against left-handed pitching. However, there are some bright spots in their lineup. Those are evident in PlateIQ:
The stats above date back to the start of the 2024 season, which was a rough year for the former #1 overall pick, Torkleson. He’s off to a much better start this year (to put it mildly), with five home runs through 15 games and top-five marks in the league in a number of offensive categories.
Should he continue anywhere near that pace, we won’t see him under $4,000 for long. Get him at that price while you can — especially against lefties.
Alejandro Kirk C ($2,900) Toronto Blue Jays vs. Atlanta Braves (Grant Holmes)
Alejandro Kirk is a nice salary relief play on this tight slate, thanks to his middle-of-the-order lineup spot for the Blue Jays. Toronto has a solid 4.5-run projection tonight against the Braves, so getting their number five hitter for less than $3,000 is a pretty obvious value.
Kirk hasn’t been anything special at the plate this season, but his .655 OPS is acceptable considering the favorable matchup. At the very least, he should get some RBI opportunities thanks to the strong hitters in front of him.
Ozzie Albies 2B ($4,400) Atlanta Braves vs. Toronto Blue Jays (Easton Lucas)
While Blue Jays starter Easton Lewis is yet to allow a run through 10.1 innings in 2025, that seems pretty unsustainable. In 18 Major League innings prior to this season, he had an ERA over 7.00. That makes the visiting Braves an interesting team to stack tonight.
Which starts at the top, with their likely leadoff hitter Albies. He’s on the strong side of his platoon split against the lefty Lucas and has plenty of upside both via power and speed. I’m more interested in pivoting to the Braves in general, though, as they’re much cheaper than the Dodgers and have a strong team total.
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Pictured: Tarik Skubal
Photo Credit: Getty Images
