MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks April 16

MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks April 16

Welcome to the Saturday edition of Picks & Pivots, a daily fantasy column focused on providing analysis for the upcoming MLB FanDuel slate. The purpose of this column is to first identify key building blocks that can be used for any roster construction and then identify pivot points to help differentiate your lineup in hopes of a big pay day

Follow me on Twitter @2lockSports and feel free to pose questions each day as you work to construct your DFS roster on FanDuel!

FanSided and FantasyCPR have you covered – if you are not already, follow @MattyMcMatt17 for his daily FanDuel Economics article driving key value plays and for those of you playing DraftKings, check out @MikeMarteny for his thorough daily DraftKings top plays!

The Saturday Slate will be broken in two with 8 games starting at 1:05PM EST and another 7 starting at 7:05PM EST which gives us the ability to attack two entirely different slates on one day. From my perspective, I will treat today as a 2 for 1 special and analyze each slate independent of each other and break my picks up accordingly.

As a follow up to my Friday article, I will continue to track winning GPP lineups and compare trends over 5 day periods to help us understand what it takes to remain profitable.

This is a CRITICAL analysis I recommend every player does to track their performance relative to the winners in the games they play. This is a great way to identify unique ways for you to improve and putting this practice into play I can tell you that my profits have increased over 30% this past week as a result. The view below compares the 5 day period April 9-13 and the winning GPP scores from the multiple slate entries on April 14:

• Average Top GPP Finish Points Scored: 225 Points(5 day) – April 14 (221)
• Average SP Salary: $7,900 (5 Day) – April 14 ($7,750)
• Hitter/Pitcher Percentage of Salary Spent: 23/77 (5 Day) – April 14: 22/78
• $ Value Per Point: $6.4 (5 Day) – April 14: 6.3

Very interesting to see the consistency in Thursday’s results across three different GPP’s as compared to the previous 5 days results and how the composition at least in the early going tends to favor rosters with mid-tier starting pitchers. With all the aces going tonight, let’s see if that trend stops!

Now on to the picks…

Next: Top Early Slate Pitchers

Starting Pitcher – Early Slate

• Marco Estrada ($8,700) – EARLY – The pitching options in the early slate are pricey with Jake Arrieta, Felix Hernandez, David Price and Matt Harvey all in action. Sonny Gray will also have his start moved up from Sunday which means we will have 5 starting pitchers over $10k on this 7 game early slate. The issue I have with paying up for these guys is that the matchups are mediocre so moving down and saving some salary may be a way to differentiate you from the pack. Estrada was absolutely electric in the first start of the season against the same Boston team he will face Saturday, putting up 57 points which is good for 6.5x value. The matchup here may scare some away but Estrada was equally as dominant in the second half of last year going 7-2 with a 2.94 ERA so his opening performance should not be a surprise. There is risk here so Estrada is best suited for GPP plays but he has the ability to match each of the top options on the board.

• Brandon Finnegan ($6,300) – EARLY – The value and upside is evident in Estrada and in Saturday’s “FanDuel Economics” column @MattyMcMatt17 focuses on the Toronto right hander as well – so how do we pivot? Dropping even further down in price, The Red left hander goes on the road to face the Cardinals. In two starts this year, Finnegan has averaged 34 PPG good for 5.5x value. There is upside in this price point as in both previous starts, Finnegan left without a win, so if you apply the logic that Finnegan can match his average output and add the 12 point win, you are looking at a 46 point game which would hit for over 7x value. There is risk here, but as I stated in the opening, dropping down to mid-tier price points has proven successful in the early season so I will look to pivot to some cheaper plays in multi entry tournaments to try and capture the upside need to take down a GPP.

Next: Top Early Game Hitters/Stacks

Hitters – Early Slate

• Michael Conforto ($2,500) – News broke mid-day Friday that Kid Conforto was being moved into the 3 hole in the Mets lineup and I immediately tweeted out that a Conforto/Cespedes stack would fly under the radar and was a great play. Both players responded with a home run, but Conforto right now for me is going to be an absolute lock in my lineups until his price is adjusted. Conforto is primed to break out and scouts have raved that his pedigree would slot him in perfectly one day to hit in the third spot but that move has come a bit earlier than even Mets fans expected. At this bargain basement price, Conforto has the ability to crush value again(9x value on Friday) and with the Mets offense hitting its stride on Friday night, a mini stack against Josh Tomlin is in order as FanDuel has not yet adjusted its prices.
• LAA Stack against Ricky Nolasco – One of my first stops each day is looking over Batter versus Pitcher stats and well, the Angels hitters have some eye opening stats against Nolasco setting us up for a potential high scoring stack:
  • Albert Pujols ($3,000) – 13 for 25 with 3 home runs
  • Yunel Escobar ($3,000) – 11 for 31 with 4 XBH

  Anytime you can start the foundation of your stack with reasonably priced options, it allows you to complete the stack with the elite hitters and by dropping down in our starting pitching, we can easily afford Mike Trout at $4,900.

  Next: Late Slate Top Pitcher

  

  Starting Pitcher – Late Slate

  • Shelby Miller ($7,400) – Listen, Max Sherzer going up against Philly is a tasty matchup but at $11,500, in order to hit target value he would have to put up a 70 point game and considering he has only put up 36 points a game in two starts against a similarly weak offense in Atlanta, I am going to pivot away and drop down in price to Miller. Miller has struggled so far this year but here come the Padres. As I noted in my Friday column, the Padres have been the best offense to target over the last week giving up over 50 points a game to opposing pitchers. With Miller’s struggles, I expect his ownership to be down and gamers to flock towards Mad Max – so if Miller can recapture the form he displayed last year against a sputtering offense, we could have huge GPP winning upside with this pick.

  Next: Late Game Hitters/Stacks

  

  Hitters – Late Slate

  • Orioles Stack against Colby Lewis – The Orioles bats continue to pound opposing pitchers and there players continue to return top value on a nightly basis. Saturday night against Colby Lewis, the Orioles bats are squarely on my radar again starting with JJ Hardy ($2,900) and Mark Trumbo( $3,700) who have exceeded our target values over the last 3 days. Hardy also has the BvP splits on his side as in his career he is 6 for 18 with 2 home runs against Lewis.

   

  Trumbo specifically is the exact kind of player we want to target due to his multi home run upside and the price point combined with the salary savings at pitching allow us to easily stack the Orioles including Chris Davis and Manny Machado.

   

   

  Next: Late DraftKings MLB picks for April 16

  Make sure to review the lineups as they are announced before locking in your lineups! Have a great day gamers!