Welcome to the MLB Macro Minute! This is a short article focused on macro environments and trending teams. The goal here is to identify easy spots to focus or remove from slates and make DFS a bit easier.
If you have any questions or comments reach out to me in the discord or over on X for some more discussion
Macro Pitcher Stats
- Blake Snell leads the slate in True AVG by a wide margin. His True AVG plus his median projection justifies his ownership and he looks like good chalk in SE/small field contests. In large field GPPs he’s absolutely worth leveraging against as we’ve seen him have some abysmal starts in the past. Also, this is a chalk SP in Coors so there’s that.
- Outside of Snell, McLean and Mlodzinski are the only other notable True AVG arms. Ignore Gamboa as he’s slated to be an opener. With these slim pickings it’s no wonder Snell’s ownership is inflated.
- Sugano, Barnett, and Ober are the bottom 3 True AVG pitchers tonight but Wacha and Perez are worth calling out as well. Sugano is awful and is pitching in Coors meaning the Dodgers will be monstrous chalk. Both sides of the ATL/MIN game and the ATH/KCR game are in play and will come in with lower ownership.
Macro Team Stats
- PIT is the top stack in 8+ by a lot and they have the highest Top Score% as well. Ownership is a non-issue as everyone other than the Dodgers will be have depressed ownership.
- The WhiteSox, A’s, and Cubs are the next group of teams to consider for full stacks with the WhiteSox being the priority of that group. It’s worth noting the Dodgers are not here as they have been awful and at this point you’re leaning on name value and Coors while paying a premium in salary and ownership.
- DET, NYM, MIN are the bottom 3 teams in the Scoring Percentages. MIN can be considered in large field due to the matchup and some value pieces, but NYM/DET can be avoided with limited entries.
Trending Teams
PIT is the top trending team and gets the top trending matchup as well. The WhiteSox are the next best trending team and have an equally good trending matchup. The Cubs, Rockies, and Dbacks are the remaining teams worth mentioning. The Dodgers (lol) are the worst trending team on the slate, followed by the Royals and Braves. That said, all 3 of these teams are facing awful starting pitchers.
If you want to research these teams yourself, go over to the master tables and look into their trending performances!
Portfolio Analysis Exposures
When you run 1,000 lineups into the portfolio manager and do some filtering, you end up with the above results. Some notes:
- Start with Snell and move on. That is all. Large field lotto if you want to stack against perfectly understandable as it’s the single biggest leverage point on the slate.
- McLean is the only SP2 option that shows up in at least 20% of optimals in the Portfolio Manager. You shouldn’t spend to much mental energy on your SP2 decision tonight. Play who fits as the slate is likely won by the right bats.
- ATL shows up as a priority stack and is a direct pivot price-wise to LAD. Outside of them you have a couple Royals and Pirates bats. Overall the models agree with the chalk build of Snell and a high end stack, just Braves over Dodgers as the high end stack.
- There are 2 decisions you need to make tonight and that’s whether you play Snell at SP, and whether you play LAD as your main stack. The models are very, very clear that if forced to choose you should side with chalk pitching.
Thanks for reading, go grab some trophies.
