Major League Baseball puts a cap on Players Weekend with a great matchup at the Little League Classic on Sunday Night Baseball this week. The Atlanta Braves and Milwaukee Brewers are each atop the division and looking to make a run in October as they roll into Williamsport to meet on this neutral site. The Brewers took the first two games of the series in Milwaukee, and they’ll look to finish out an impressive sweep with a win on Sunday night, when the game gets going at 7:10 p.m. ET. DraftKings is ready for the showcase matchup, featuring the Braves and Brewers in some large MLB DFS showdown contests.
The pitching matchup features veteran righty Tyler Mahle ($11,200) for the Braves against rookie lefty Shane Drohan ($11,000) for the Brewers. In a companion post, I highlighted my top player prop bets in Sunday Night Baseball’s matchup, including one prop bet from Javier. In this post, let’s break down this Astros at Padres matchup from a DFS fantasy baseball perspective.
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB Showdown $100K Sunday Night Slugfest [$25K to 1st] (ATL at MIL)
Braves at Brewers DFS Showdown Strategy
Captain Picks
Jake Bauers ($12,000 CP) – Bauers is a strong Captain’s Pick to build around with plenty of power potential against Mahle. Bauers usually hits in the heart of the Brew Crew’s batting order against righties like Mahle. The 30-year-old lefty has set a new career best with 23 homers this season and has an impressive .384 wOBA on the season while averaging 8.7 FPTS per game.
Over his last 20 games, Bauers has been even better, producing 10.6 FPTS per game with a .314 batting average, five homers, a .441 wOBA and a 17.3% barrel rate. Bauers’ sweet swing has held lots of potential for a while, but this season he has been able to stay healthy and serves as the anchor of the batting order for Milwaukee. It’s a great night to look for some Bauers power as the Brewers look to finish off the sweep.
William Contreras ($9,300 CP) – I highlighted a juicy Conteras prop in my top player props for this matchup, and he also makes sense as a key player to build around in today’s MLB DFS picks. Even though he’ll be in a righty-righty matchup, Contreras will actually be on the strong side of Mahle’s reverse splits. Righties have a .293 batting average with a .363 wOBA and .455 SLG against the veteran righty this season.
While his longer-term numbers aren’t as impressive as Bauers’ numbers are, Contreras has caught fire over his last six games, going 11-for-24 (.458) with two doubles, a home run, and a 60.9% hard-hit rate. He has averaged 12.3 FPTS over those six games and had 14 and 12 FPTS in the first two games of this series against the Braves.
UTIL Plays
Shane Drohan ($11,000) – Don’t mess with Shane Drohan! The only reason that Drohan isn’t a Captain’s Pick play is that he may not get as many innings because the Brewers are monitoring his workload in his first season in the MLB. He worked out of the bullpen in his most recent appearance, going two scoreless innings against the Mariners last Tuesday, but before that, he made 13 starts. He had 10+ FPTS in 12 of those 13 outings, including two games with over 24 FPTS. The former Red Sox prospect racked up 70 strikeouts in 71 innings in those 13 starts and has held opponents to a .229 average and .281 wOBA in his innings away from American Family Field.
Ozzie Albies ($7,000) – Albies is a strong play whenever the Braves face a lefty like Drohan. He makes better contact against southpaws and has a .286 batting average, a .331 wOBA, and eight of his 20 homers against lefties, even though 60% of his at-bats have been against lefties. Albies picked up a pair of hits on Saturday and has six hits in his last six games. He’s shown enough signs of life to make him a value sleeper this Sunday night.
Joey Ortiz ($3,800) – I highlighted Ortiz and Albies in my top value picks for King of the Bases, and they make lots of sense for building Braves Brewers DFS lineups around as well. Ortiz has averaged 10 FPTS over his last 10 games, going 11-for-35 (.314) with two doubles, two homers and a stolen base. Ortiz is a bargain under $4,000 and brings lots of upside, getting the same righty-righty splits that Contreras will try to attack.
Fades
Tyler Mahle ($11,200) – Mahle has been much better since joining the Braves, posting 28.5, 27.1 and 12.8 FPTS in his three starts with Atlanta. However, the deeper metrics show he’s still giving up just as much hard contact as during his time with the Giants. In fact, he has a 44.7% hard-hit rate and 10.6% barrel rate against him, which is higher than his season average in both categories. His xERA is 4.80 over those three games, indicating that he’s been very fortunate to have a 1.45 ERA.
With the advanced metrics not backing up the turnaround, it seems like he could be due or some regression, especially against he surging Brewers.
The Outcome
The Brewers have a huge starting pitching advantage and come in with plenty of momentum as well. Drohan may not go deep into the game, but he should do well enough to allow the Brewers to get the lead and use their high-leverage relievers to secure a third straight win over the Braves, who have lost five of their six games on their current road trip.
Final Score: Milwaukee 6, Atlanta 2
