MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks April 27

MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks April 27

Welcome to the Wednesday 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!

FanSided and FantasyCPR have you covered – For additional FanDuel MLB analysis, take a look at my fellow staff writer Matt Rogers FanDuel Economics column or Mike Marteny who provides Draft Kings MLB Picks analysis giving you the most in depth DFS coverage for tonight’s baseball slate.

Wednesday’s slate kicks off at 3:45PM EST with the Giants and Padres as the lone early game, however FanDuel is offering an all day slate to include this game. The Main Slate kicks off at 7:05PM EST with an additional 14 games allowing you to play the “night” slate only.

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. I HIGHLY recommend each of you do this each morning to look back on the previous night and understand how the winning lineups are constructed in the games you participate in.

The view below tracks GPP entries over various time periods, breaking out key metrics to understand the trends and compositions of GPP winning rosters:

On Monday we saw the winning GPP score snap back slightly from the previous 5 day average but still outpaced the season average. Jordan Zimmermann was the winning pitcher across many of the lineups on a night where the narrative continued of fading the highest priced starting pitchers.

Keep in mind, Wednesday will be the first day with the new FanDuel scoring including increased points for RBI’s and Runs and the elimination of negative points. I recommend everyone tracks their scores on Wednesday and takes inventory of how the new increased scores alter our target values.

I highly recommend gamers track their game performance across the various types of games they play – GPP’s, Cash, Multipliers etc – as this simple exercise will help teach you more about profitable roster construction than you can imagine.

Now on to the picks…

Next: Top Starting Pitchers

Top Starting Pitchers

Justin Verlander ($8,000) – Don’t look now, but are we seeing a renaissance for Justin Verlander? Verlander takes the mound at home Wednesday night against Oakland after putting up two straight 45 points outings which is good for 5.6x value at his current price point. Most impressive has been that Verlander has struck out 8 and 10 batters in those two starts against the Astros and Indians. With a matchup against Sonny Gray and the fact the A’s are one of the hardest teams to strikeout in the league may lead Verlander’s ownership to be lower than expected but at this price point and with the strikeout upside he has flashed recently, I love the GPP potential the Tigers righty provides.

Matt Harvey ($9,300) – When looking at the pitching options on this slate, the low end has some very dangerous options and I expect Jake Arrieta to be highly owned with a favorable matchup against the Brewers so the 8-9k range seems like a great spot to target your arms on this slate. At first glance, Gio Gonzalez($9,600) gets a home matchup against the Phillies and Josh Tomlin ($8,700) comes off two 40+ point performances against the Twins. Sandwiched in between these two is Harvey who has struggled to start the season, not lasting more than 6 innings in any start with no more than 5k’s over his first 4 starts. However this may be a great time to buy low on Harvey as the Reds lineup without Jay Bruce and possibly Brandon Phillips is much easier to navigate and the Mets are rolling lately winning 8 of their last 10 games. With Arrieta on the hill and similarly priced pitchers with more obvious matchups, I love the idea of targeting Harvey as eventually he is going to have the breakout/double digit strikeout game and if we can target that when hes low owned, it gives us massive upside in large field tournaments.

Next: Top Hitters/Stacks

Top Hitters/Stacks

Nationals Stack versus Jeremy Hellickson – Without stating the obvious game in Coors, one potential pivot stack is to attack Jeremy Hellickson with the Nationals big lefty bats on Wednesday. Hellickson pitched 2 weeks ago against the Nats, lasting only 3 innings and giving up 5 ER. Bryce Harper ($5,700) will be overlooked with the fireworks in Colorado, and pairing him with Daniel Murphy ($3,500) and Michael Taylor ($2,300) makes for a great lefty/righty platoon stack. Keep Anthony Rendon ($2,700)  on your radar as well, as even though he does not have the platoon advantage, Hellickson has actually allowed a higher average and more home runs to right handed hitters on the season allowing us to target the top end of the Nats lineup.

Red Sox against Bud Norris – The Red Sox at Fenway have one of the highest team totals outside of Coors and get one of the best matchups against Norris who has been hit hard over his last 3 starts, giving up an average of 5 ER and 2 HR per game. David Ortiz ($3,500) and Brock Holt ($2,800) get the platoon advantage and if you were not paying attention Tuesday night, Travis Shaw ($2,800) put up 41.9 fantasy points with a monster 5 RBI performance and we get the ability to target him at the same price tonight.

Best of luck tonight gamers! Make sure to review the lineups as they are announced before locking in your lineups!