MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Baseball Picks Early May 7

MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Baseball Picks Early May 7

Welcome to the Saturday early 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 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.

Saturday presents with the usual “multi-slate” as we get 7 games in the afternoon starting off at 1:05PM EST and an additional 8 games to be played starting at 7:05PM EST for the “main slate.” This article will focus on the EARLY 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:

Thursday’s winners had two common themes across across large field GPP’s – did you fade Jacob deGrom and how many Blue Jays and Rockies did you start in your lineups? deGrom had a disappointing performance from a tournament perspective (although was still solid enough for cash games) which allowed Kyle Hendricks to outpace him with 42 points at only $7,200. It was the offenses however that ruled the day, similar to what we have seen over the past 3 days as the Blue Jays and Rockies absolutely went off. Edwin Encarnacion (54.4 pts), Trevor Story (34.9 pts) and Gerrardo Parra (32.1) based an offense that put up over 27 points per batter in the winning lineup. We have seen over the last 3 days – it is taking a 25-29 point performance per batter in order to take down the large field tournaments so the strategy needs to be to shoot for the high upside stacks as they tend to be the most profitable for these contests.

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 - Early Slate

Starting Pitchers

David Price ($9,900) – Even with Clayton Kershaw on the mound, I am struggling to find a lock down cash game play as Kershaw’s price of $13,000 and matchup with the Blue Jays offense introduces entirely too much risk. Instead I will look towards a trio of arms to mix and match with the Red Sox lefty as my top priced arm going against the Yankees. For one of the best arms in baseball, Price has been wildly inconsistent to start the season with 3 games over 50 points and 3 games under 25 points which lends Price to be a much better tournament play than a traditional cash play. Even with an ERA north of 6, Price is flashing elite strikeout upside as he has punched out over 30% of batters this season and with the Yankees recent struggles at the plate, I absolutely want to roll out Price in a few lineups on Saturday but will differentiate in other lineups to mitigate the potential blowup risk.

Ian Kennedy ($8,000) – Perhaps the “safest” play on the board is Ian Kennedy who is averaging 37.8 points per start and has flashed 50+ point upside in 2 of his 5 starts this season. Going up against the Indians, who are 25^th out of 30 teams in strikeouts per game with just under 9/game, gives Kennedy a great matchup for success. Kennedy has struck out at least 6 in 4 of his 5 starts this season and is favored to get the win on the road which makes him a great target for cash games on the early slate.

Jeff Locke ($6,300) – For large field tournaments, take a look at Jeff Locke who over the last 15 days has captured 7.1x value in his outings which is exactly the kind of upside we are looking for. Locke put up 54 points two games ago in Coors field, racking up 8 strikeouts and capturing the win over 6 innings. Last game, Locke put up 30 points in a no decision against the Reds but still racked up 6 strikeouts over 7 innings. The matchup against the Cardinals is not ideal and will likely drive owners to look elsewhere but Locke has put up top end value over his last two starts in less than ideal matchups and I will look to employ him in tournaments in an effort to capture that upside again.

Next: Top Hitters/Stacks

Hitters/Top Stacks –

Rangers stacks against Mike Pelfrey – The Rangers have the highest team total on the board in the early slate and with a matchup against Pelfrey we can expect runs to be scored in bunches. Pelfrey has been a mess this year with a strikeout rate of 9.8% and a walk rate of 12.3%, and anytime you are walking more than your striking out we should look to load up against that pitcher! The top left handed bats are all elite plays for me in any format on the early slate as Rougned Odor ($3,700), Nomar Mazara ($3,300) & Mitch Moreland ($3,100) all have terrific numbers with the platoon split in their favor as they have each hit 3 home runs against RHP this season. Prince Fielder ($2,900) is just frankly too cheap for the matchup and the upside he can provide at this price point makes him one of the top plays dollar for dollar.

Los Angeles Dodgers at Toronto facing RA Dickey – The narrative going up against the knuckleballer is simple as the unpredictability of the pitch can lead to huge offensive outings. The Dodgers have one of the highest team totals on the board and with a lineup full of left handed power, I will look to employ a variety of “mini stacks” across my lineups so that I can ensure I have some exposure to this game but will not look to employ a full on stack due to the difficulty in predicting the effectiveness of the knuckleball. Adrian Gonzalez ($2,800) is in a similar spot to Fielder where the pedigree and upside are clearly present in their matchups at a price points that feels entirely too low for the type of players they are.  Corey Seager ($3,600) & Yasmani Grandal ($2,900) also have great power upside and the benefit of the platoon split and can be easily combined with the Rangers stack while utilizing either Price/Kennedy as your starting pitcher.

Next: FanDuel Trends At First Base In April

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