Wednesday's early slate on DraftKings features a smaller five-gamer, allowing for a more targeted approach. Instead of picking just three hitters to target or avoid, we're going full on stacking given the limited number of players to choose from. Let's jump right into it.
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MLB DFS picks for Wednesday, May 7
Favorite stack for cash games: Seattle Mariners
The Seattle Mariners are taking the brunt of the projected ownership, so if you're playing cash games, it's a plug-and-play approach. A's rookie Gunnar Hoglund will get his second start after shining against a subpar Miami Marlins team, but now he'll take on Seattle, which has a bit more thump in their lineup. Hoglund's debut saw a heavy dose of fastballs and sinkers to right-handed hitters (north of 80% combined) and a fastball/changeup combo against lefties, accounting for 74% of his arsenal.
A good approach today for cash is to bet on Seattle's highest-owned bats and play the big hitters on the New York Mets, who also draw a favorable matchup against the struggling Merrill Kelly. If the Mariners are highly owned, then they're your team, even if you like what you saw from Hoglund recently. Hoglund is a fine, under-owned play in large-field GPPs, where St. Louis Cardinals righty Sonny Gray (against the Pittsburgh Pirates) and Mariners righty Brian Woo (against the A's) are getting the ownership.
Remember, we aren't trying to outperform the field and gain leverage in cash games; we are aiming for the top 50% in 50-50s, or just high enough to slide into the cash line in double-ups. In a 229-person cash tourney, 100th place pays the same as first place, so let's discuss those Mariners bats and build the optimal cash lineup together.
Core Mariners plays:
Cal Raleigh, C ($5,300)
Jorge Polanco, 3B/SS ($4,900)
Julio Rodriguez OF ($4,800)
Rowdy Tellez, 1B ($2,500)
Miles Mastrobuoni, 2B ($2,300)
Yeah, I'm not a fan of jamming Mastrobuoni in my lineups when Arizona Diamondbacks star Ketel Marte is on the slate. The problem is, going against Mets ace Kodai Senga, Marte for $5k doesn't make a ton of sense — and on most days, you need to round out your stacks so you can fit in as much ownership elsewhere. Brendan Donovan is currently your highest-owned second baseman, but Mastrobuoni is a salary saver that rounds out our Mariners stack, so we have to cut our losses to be able to afford the rest.
Highest owned Mets at remaining positions:
Juan Soto, OF, $5,100)
Mark Vientos, 3B ($3,600)
Starling Marte, OF ($3,300)
I like the Mets stack here going against Kelly, who has continued his gradual decline recently. The biggest question we need to double-check before locking in is whether to play Lindor to round out a four-player stack from the Mets or to swap to a five-player Mariners stack and plug in Jorge Polanco. Currently, Lindor has a bit more ownership, and since you can't afford both, the play is Vientos/Lindor over Vientos/Polanco.
Pitchers:
Bryan Woo and Sonny Gray. Set it and forget it for cash. They're currently at 51% and 48% for ownership, respectively. Framber Valdez is next at 35%, but he has scuffled lately. Three-max maybe, but no thanks for cash.
Optimal cash lineup
P: Sonny Gray
P: Bryan Woo
C: Cal Raleigh
1B: Rowdy Tellez
2B: Miles Mastrobuoni
3B: Mark Vientos
SS: Francisco Lindor
OF: Juan Soto
OF: Julio Rodriguez
OF: Starling Marte
For now, this is what I'm going with. We still have a couple of hours to double-check ownership and make any necessary adjustments. If you're playing 3-max, you can mix and match variations of this lineup with guys like Polanco and J.P. Crawford at short instead of Lindor.
Brendan Donovan and the Cardinals in general (Donovan, Willson Contreras, Lars Nootbaar, Masyn Winn) are a favorable third stack to play in 3-max, but aren't quite garnering the same ownership as those stacks above just yet. Donovan himself is unaffordable in cash, alongside Lindor, Soto and Rodriguez. Marte's projected ownership of 23.67%, which is less than 2.5% of Donovan's, reflects this. Let's cash today!