Get ready for a full afternoon of action on the diamond with our comprehensive guide to the May 6th MLB DFS early slate! As the first pitch approaches, our experts provide the essential MLB DFS picks, high-upside MLB DFS stacks, and top value plays to help you climb the leaderboards on DraftKings and FanDuel. Stay ahead of the competition by checking out our real-time MLB lineups and industry-leading MLB DFS projections. Whether you’re hunting for dominant pitching or looking to identify elite power hitters, our MLB DFS playbook and MLB DFS lineup generator have everything you need to build a winning roster for today’s early games.

⚡ THE SLATE DASHBOARD

💎 PITCHING COACH

Top Tier

Tyler Glasnow, Los Angeles Dodgers

He's getting almost 60% of the ownership here today as we have a short slate where the Dodgers are huge favorites against the Astros. This has been peak form Glasnow so far this season due to him actually being healthy. He has elite swing and miss stuff and while we've talked about the Astros not striking out a ton this season we saw both Yamamoto and Ohtani get eight strikeouts in their outings agaisnt Houston in this series.

Noah Schultz, Chicago White Sox

Yes, the Angels lineup can absolutely be scary, especially against left-handed pitching where they have some big right-handed power in their lineup. The Angels also strike out a ton and Schultz is a menacing presence on the mound, standing 6-foot-10 with an upper 90s fastball getting on top of hitters quickly.

Shane McLanahan, Tampa Bay Rays

The limitations are going to be a pain in the ass all season for us it seems like. After throwing 83, 90 and 86 pitches it seemed like maybe the kid gloves were off but in his last start McLanahan had six shutout innings going against the Giants and was lifted at 73 pitches. What this tells me is that there may be both a hard pitch and hard innings cap for the Rays lefty this season where he doesn't go any deeper than six innings regardless of pitch count and potentially no more than 90 pitches. That is going to always cap his upside and in a matchup against a Blue Jays team that has the lowest strikeout rate in baseball against lefties that carries some risk. All that said, this slate really doesn't have a ton of comfortable pitching options and we know a healthy McLanahan can be one of the best southpaws in baseball.

Value Plays

Martin Perez, Atlanta Braves

Truthfully, getting Perez in the lineup today after we initially thought it was Grant Holmes is going to feel like a win because there wasn't much of any value that we were going to feel comfortable playing. However, Perez is actually a bit intriguing. He's a veteran starter that has had success at the major league level despite the lack of elite stuff. He keeps hitters off balance and rarely gets hard contact against him. He now draws a matchup against a Mariners team that has a 24.6% strikeout rate vs LHP while ranking 27th in average, 28th in wOBA and 23rd in wRC+ against southpaws. 

💎 HITTING COACH

Elite Bats

Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers

In what shouldn't be a total surprise, Ohtani is projected to be the highest owned hitter on the main slate today. The top tier options are limited on a smaller slate so his potential ceiling just puts him at the top of the food chain this afternoon in what is shaping up to also be an elite matchup against Lance McCullers. The Astros right-handed pitcher is allowing a .231 ISO and .359 wOBA to left-handed hitters this season. Those numbers do not bode well for Mr. McCullers here today given the extremely lefty-heavy lineup the Dodgers are able to put on the field here today led by the reigning MVP Shohei Ohtani.

Jackson Merrill, San Diego Padres

Don't look now but Merrill is heating up, collecting eight hits over his last four games and now he draws a matchup agaisnt Adrian Houser who is allowing a .342 ISO and .505 wOBA to left-handed hitters. No, that wasn't a typo, he's allowing a .342 ISO and .505 wOBA. Yes, the Padres lineup has been disappointing this season and sadly this isn't a lefty heavy lineup they can put on the field but as a one-off play I'm all in on Merrill today.

Matt Olson, Atlanta Braves

Bryan Woo might be in a little bit of trouble here today as the Mariners righty is allowing a .205 ISO to left-handed hitters. The expected numbers are actually worse with the xISO sitting at .237 and the xWOBA sitting at .352. Olson homered again on Tuesday and has now gone deep in six of the last 10 games including both games in this series against the Mariners. 

Value Bats (Salary Savers)

Michael Harris, Atlanta Braves

I don't really understand the pricing on Harris so we will just keep taking the discount and plugging him into our lineups when the matchups are favorable and that's what I think we have here today. Yes, Harris has cooled off a bit, but the Braves outfielder is still hitting .306 with seven homers and an OPS of .871 on the season and I already told you about Woo's struggles against lefties this season. The Harris price makes him a perfect fit for the Braves lefty stack today where Olson and Baldwin are expensive.

Max Muncy, Los Angeles Dodgers

Sure, he's not the cheapest player at the position but his mid-tier price point in a spot against Lance McCullers who also really struggles against left-handed power puts Muncy as my favorite third base play of the day.

Ryan Vilade, Tampa Bay Rays

This is a pure anti-Corbin play. If you are stacking Rays today their lineup isn't all that exciting but we do have Vilade hitting second at a price point that is essentially free and one that allows you to comfortably get Junior Caminero and Yandy Diaz in your lineup here today for a 1-2-3 stack. All the underlying numbers for Corbin suggest he is due for an implosion so why not go there today on a short slate where everyone on the Rays is under 10% ownership.

🏗️ THE STACKING BLUEPRINT

Primary Stack: Los Angeles Dodgers 

Targets: Shohei Ohtani, Kyle Tucker, Freddie Freeman, Will Smith, Dalton Rushing, Max Muncy, Andy Pages, Teoscar Hernandez, Hyeseong Kim 

Opponent: Houston Astros | LAD 5.6 implied

The lefties against McCullers is really the play here today but you can obviously just mix in the entire stacked Dodgers lineup as six of the top eight highest ownership plays today come from LA.

Primary Stack: Chicago White Sox

Targets: Munetaka Murakami, Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas, Chase Meidroth, Edgar Quero

Opponent: Los Angeles Angels | CWS 4.8 implied 

The White Sox draw Walbert Urena here today. This stack is obviously all about the home run upside of this Chicago lineup on a short slate. If you stack them today and you get homers from Murakami, Montgomery and Vargas in your stack you are more than likely walking out of today with some extra cash in your bankroll.

Contrarian Stack: Tampa Bay Rays

Targets: Yandy Diaz, Junior Caminero, Ryan Vilade, Ben Williamson, Jonny DeLuca, Jonathan Aranda

Opponent: Toronto Blue Jays | TB 4.2 implied 

Again, the underlying numbers for Patrick Corbin are suggesting some big time regression is coming with an xERA of 5.71 and an xISO agaisnt RHH of .220. So, while these are absolutely not household names, they can still be good enough to win you a tournament.

Contrarian Stack: Atlanta Braves

Targets: Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin, Michael Harris, Ozzie Albies, Dominic Smith, Mike Yastrzemski

Opponent: Seattle Mariners | ATL 4.3 Implied

I wrote up the lefty splits against Bryan Woo already with the Olson and Harris analysis so it can't be too shocking to see the Braves lefty stack be applied her as a contrarian play. Woo is over 30% rostered today meaning you can get some real leverage on the field if the Braves offense puts up some runs against the struggling Mariners righty today.

📈 THE LEVERAGE REPORT (GAME THEORY)

🎯 HEART OF THE ORDER

The core pieces for every lineup you build today. Ownership drives the cash versus GPP label.

Player Pool

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Stacks

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