Early MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks April 30

Early MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks April 30

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!

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.

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:

The Previous Day column reflects the Thursday evening slate only as the early day slate results were materially lower and skewed by the postponement of the Rockies game at Coors so I have excluded that from our tracking as that score is a clear outlier. The Thursday night slate winning pitcher was Rubby De La Rosa who put up a dominant 63 points at only $6,400 for almost 10x value. De La Rosa was under 5% owned and racked up 30 points alone from his 10 strikeout performance.

The trends continue to reflect that the “20/80” rule in salary cap management has been the most profitable strategy for GPP’s.

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 – EARLY Slate

The early slate begins at 2:10PM EST with 6 total games and due to the short slate, sifting through value options is certainly limited so paying up for your starter may be the best strategy but which one should you chose?

Chris Archer ($10,200) – The most expensive option on the early slate is Archer who gets a matchup at home against the Toronto Blue Jays. Any time you face Toronto’s lethal lineup there is a risk for a blowup and I expect gamer’s to hesitate before paying this price due to the reputation of the Blue Jays lineup. However look closer at the matchup and you can see there is a lot to like about paying up for Archer. First, Archer gets to take the mound at home where he has pitched to a 2.12 ERA in 3 starts this season and struck out 28 batters over 17 innings including 10 Orioles in his last start. Secondly, against the current Blue Jay hitters, over 171 at bats Archer has limited them to a stellar .193 average. Archer is always capable of a double digit strikeout game and on this short slate he may make for a dangerous fade.

Jordan Zimmermann ($9,400) – Dropping slightly down in price, Zimmermann gets one of the best matchups as he gets a start against the Twins who are top 5 in strikeouts on the season. The Tigers right hander is off to a stellar start, pitching to a 4-0 record and a 0.35 ERA. One of the differentiating factors for me on this slate is that Zimmermann has consistently gone over 6 innings in each of his starts, which allows him the opportunity to go deeper into the game, increasing his stats and probability to pick up a win. Priced similarly is Jacob deGrom ($9,900) who will likely dilute the ownership of Zimmerman, however with deGrom still working his way back to full health and not yet able to exceed 6 IP this season, I will go with the “safety” of Zimmermann who has the best pure matchup of any of the top starting pitchers on the early slate.

Next: Top Hitters/Stacks

Hitters/Stack – Early Slate

Cubs Hitter against Julio Teheran – Over his career Teheran has struggled against left handed hitters to the tune of a .275 average, and a date at Wrigley may spell big trouble for him on Saturday afternoon. Keep in mind there is steady rain in the early forecast so keep an eye on the weather however the lefty heavy lineup of the Cubs make for a great stack against a very vulnerable pitcher. Anthony Rizzo ($4,700) is the top target but a stack including Ben Zobrist ($3,200), Jason Heyward ($3,400) & Dexter Fowler ($4,100) provide great upside in a perfect lefty/righty matchup against a pitcher who is striking out less than 20% of the batters he faces on the year.

Mets stack against Matt Cain – Cain is a shell of his former self, giving up over a .300 batting average to hitters on both sides of the plate so far this season. The Mets offense is clicking on all cylinders and are loaded with dangerous left handed hitters to take advantage of the platoon split. The Mets are projected to score over 4 runs in this game and for a team that has been one of the best at hitting home runs, I want as much exposure to the Amazin’s as I can get in this game. Neil Walker ($3,800)  and Michael Conforto ($3,900) are hitting the cover off the ball in the early season and combining them with Lucas Duda ($3,300) gives you a high upside home run hitting stack to pivot off the Cubs top hitters.

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