Top Plays for Thursday, June 27th

Traditional MLB DFS formats aren’t the only way to profit from daily fantasy baseball. MLB PrizePicks is a great fantasy pick’em site where we can take today’s projections versus theirs and combine two or more baseball predictions for sizeable payouts.

In this space, we’ll explore a few PrizePicks plays for the upcoming MLB slate. This article isn’t the be-all, end-all of great plays or a recommendation for a full ticket; it’s simply a starting place for you to explore thinking about the game within the game. Maybe you want to scatter these plays across entries. Maybe there are only two or three you think are worth playing. Daily fantasy pick’em gives us the flexibility to make only the plays in which we think there is value rather than being forced to create a full lineup while competing against the best DFS players in the industry.

PrizePicks is daily fantasy baseball made simple, and our MLB PrizePicks picks tool makes the process even simpler.

If you haven’t signed up for a PrizePicks account, make sure to use the PrizePicks promo code ROTOBONUS and get a $100 deposit match. Also, check out more apps like PrizePicks.

All stats cited are since the start of the 2024 season unless otherwise noted.

MLB PrizePicks Predictions for Thursday, June 27th

Chris Sale MORE Than 18.5 Outs (DEMON)

Chris Sale is an ace against the White Sox. He’s gone 7+ IP in 5 of his last 7 starts — 8 of his last 12. He’s thrown 95+ pitches in 9 of his last 10; 100+ in 5 of his last 9. The Sox have just a .310 wOBA and 6.2% BB rate against lefties since the start of the 2023 season. Sale’s 26.6% K-BB rate is elite. Overall, 18.5 would be too low for a standard outs projection, let alone a DEMON projection. We have Sale very conservatively projected for 18.0 outs. I’m not scared to say that his floor is probably 16-17 with a ceiling of 21+.

Jack Flaherty MORE Than 7.0 Strikeouts

I don’t want too much exposure to this play because 7.0 is a big number without DEMON juice, but we have Jack Flaherty projected for 7.3 Ks against the Angels because he’s been elite and the Angels are bad — especially against righties. He’s 3rd in baseball in K/9 (11.66), 4th in BB/9 (1.40), and 2nd in K-BB rate (29.3%), while the Angels’ projected lineup has a 24.9% K rate against righties. You might wonder why our projection is so conservative. My guess is that it’s because Flaherty’s pitch count has been all over the place. This is a ceiling spot for him to throw 100 pitches in 6+ IP, so getting to 8 Ks is very much in the cards, as he’s hit 8-9 Ks in 4 of his last 6 starts.

Andrew Abbott MORE Than 15.5 Outs and 24.5 Fantasy Points

Andrew Abbott has been legitimately good this season. His 3.21 xERA is 13th in MLB, which is better than Cole Ragans, Luis Gil, Pablo Lopez, Hunter Brown, Max Fried, George Kirby, Tanner Houck, and Dylan Cease — to name a few guys. Take this fly-ball pitcher away from Cincinnati and plunk him in Busch Stadium against the lowly Cardinals, and we will have something that resembles an ace. The CArds have just a .296 wOBA and .131 ISO against lefties since the start of the 2023 season. Abbott has gone 46.2 IP in 8 starts on the road this season for 15, 18, 21, 15, 16, 18, 21, and 16 outs in each of those starts. It’s safe to say that 15 outs more resemble his floor than a reasonable projection, so we have Abbott projected for 16.5 outs and 25.9 fantasy points.

Davis Schneider MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)

We’re only talking about 123 PAs against lefties for Davis Schneider, but the production has been ridiculous in this small sample. Schneider has a .392 wOBA and a whopping .327 ISO against lefties since the start of the 2023 season. And this isn’t luck, as he’s hitting the ball extremely well against them for a 26.5% barrel rate on a 44.1% fly-ball rate. Carlos Rodon is a good pitcher, but his K rate is only 21.6% against righties, and his barrel rate allowed is an insane 11.2%. Lefties get Schneider by making him miss. This is a high-power and high-contact spot for him. I think 1.5 is too low for a DEMON projection in this situation. We have Schneider conservatively projected for 1.9 total bases. I’d consider playing him with a DEMON boost if this PrizePicks projection were 2.5, let alone 1.5.

Davis Daniel MORE Than 4.0 Strikeouts

The Tigers have just a .300 wOBA and .149 ISO against righties, and the Angels bullpen is really bad. They need to get good volume out of Davis Daniel tonight, and this is a good spot for him to get it. Daniel has shown some strikeout stuff in the minors (9.71 K/9 through 76 IP in 14 starts in Triple-A), so we can get him to 5 IP, and that might be enough for 5 Ks — provided the Tigers don’t blow him up. He shouldn’t get blown up, though, as his 0.59 HR/9 and 1.28 ground-ball to fly-ball ratio this season in Triple-A suggest. We have Daniel projected for 4.4 Ks, but there’s a legit ceiling of 6 strikeouts in 6 IP.

All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.

This is a sneaky-good night of projections on the pick’em streets, considering there aren’t many games. I won’t play my normal volume because there just aren’t many games, but where I’d normally just play about 25% of my volume, I could play half of my normal volume tonight because there are so many nice plays to mix around. I don’t think I’m maxing out the plays in my contests, but 3-4 legs are very doable with a decent amount of plays to spread around. Our pick’em tool is showing about triple the edges that it showed yesterday when everyone played (to put this day into context).

Image Credit: Getty Images

ncG1vNJzZmiqn6m8qL7Ip5ueqqNjsLC5jpqpraGTobK0e8ylmWaoop7HprzInKKsZaSkvW68y5qwrGWkncKzv9KdmLJlmqq7pnmRcGRtaGRsgHp8