Saturday’s massive 12-game MLB DFS main slate starts in the early afternoon and features several interesting spots for power upside. Leading the way once again are the beastly Atlanta Braves, who are facing a pitcher with a track record of yielding the longball. The Angels and White Sox look like strong plays from the top of the board as well, particularly the first six hitters in each lineup.
Main Slate
The Braves were a featured team in this space on Opening Day and they will likely be fairly regularly mentioned, given the immense power available up and down the Atlanta lineup. Today’s numbers are spiked by a matchup against Washington starter Josiah Gray, who has allowed far too many home runs through his short career to this point. Gray yielded a 5.86% home run rate on a 10.7% barrel rate and 36.8% hard-hit percentage in 2022. The season before he was worse, allowing a 6.19% home run rate and a 12.2% barrel rate with similar hard-hit numbers. That amounts to 57 home runs allowed in just 219.1 career innings, Gray is an extraordinarily targetable pitcher, so stacking Braves is an excellent play irrespective of popularity. Matt Olson leads the entire day with his monster home run rating, but many Braves are over the “magic number” of 10 in our home run model today. These include superstar Ronald Acuna Jr., as well as Austin Riley, Marcell Ozuna, Michael Harris II, and Sean Murphy.
Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani, and several of their teammates look like strong possibilities for the long ball today as well. The Angels are facing rookie Shintaro Fujinami, who has a long track record of success in the NPB. Fujinami makes his MLB debut at age 28 after coming over from Japan, where he was a well-regarded starter who did not yield a tremendous number of home runs. The uptick in talent is something that should not be ignored, however, and similarly profiled pitchers coming from the NPB have had issues with Major League power in the past. Fujinami will need to prove himself against stiff competition, including the Angels super-duper-star from his native Japan. In addition to the obvious stars, Hunter Renfroe and Brandon Drury are strong possibilities for power from later in the lineup who should be included in Angels stacks. Anthony Rendon is an interesting option if he is on the field after his fan-related incident.
