MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Baseball Picks May 11 Early

MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Baseball Picks May 11 – EARLY

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 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.

Follow us on Twitter @FantasyCPR and on Facebook to get up to the minute updates and analysis.

Hump Day! We get a nice little dual slate on Wednesday with 8 games kicking off at 1PM EST on the early slate and another 9 games in the main slate at 7:05PM EST.

I will continue to track winning Tournament 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:

Monday’s tournament winner posted a massive score driven by a value starting pitcher in Aaron Sanchez who posted 45 points and put up 6.3x value at only $7,1000. The hitters across baseball are putting up monster games on a nightly basis and with the increased FanDuel points for offense, we are seeing the target points per batter move between 25 and 30 on a daily basis. Monday night with a game in Coors Field we saw Jake Lamb put up a 50 burger while Jackie Bradley Jr. continued his torrid pace with 45 points and Ketel Marte bust out with 47 points.

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 – Early Slate

Kyle Hendricks ($8,500) – In the early slate with a game at Coors Field, we will want to have some salary relief at pitcher so we can get exposure to that game. Hendricks is one of the largest favorites on the board with a home start against the Padres. The Padres are one of the most strikeout prone teams on the season and have the most strikeouts per game on the road as they average over 11 per game. Hendricks makes for a great cash game play as in two of his 5 starts this season he has put up over 40 points per game which would be just shy of 5x value. I would not recommend Hendricks for tournament plays as his strikeout rate is only 20% on the season, but we can expect a slight uptick in strikeout output with the matchup being as favorable as it is.

Marcus Stroman ($7,700) – Somewhere between the Hendricks cash game play and the GPP Tournament flier Wilson, I keep landing on Stroman as a bit of a “best of both worlds” starter. Stroman gets a difficult matchup against the red hot Giants and the unenviable task of going up against Madison Bumgarner so I expect his ownership to be significantly lower than it should be. Stroman has averaged 35.14 points per start this season, 2 full points higher than Chris Archer who is priced almost $3,000 higher on the same slate. Stroman has seen his strikeout output rise in the last two starts as he has struck out 8 and 9 batters over his previous outing against Los Angeles and Tampa Bay. Stroman has topped 30 points in 5 of his 7 starts and put up a dominant 60 point outing two starts ago against the Rays. From a tournament perspective, Stroman gives you the kind of upside we want to differentiate ourselves and If he can out pitch Bumgarner, we would be at a tremendous advantage to start the day over our competition.

Tyler Wilson ($6,000) – From a tournament perspective, I love Wilson’s potential on Wednesday as he has a favorable matchup against the Twins in Minnesota and goes up against Phil Hughes. Wilson pitched well his last start against the Yankees, taking a one-hitter into the sixth inning, striking out 4 and ending with a 24 point no decision. Minnesota is one of the lowest scoring teams in all of baseball and has a strikeout rate of 24% against opposing right handers. The Orioles should be able to jump all over Hughes, putting Wilson in line for a win and at this price point, a “quality start” with a win would far exceed value and allow us the salary savings to load up on Coors bats.

Next: Top Hitters/Stacks - Early Slate

Hitters/Top Stacks

Coors Stack – With an over/under topping 11 runs, this will be by far the highest scoring game on the early slate. With only 7 games to choose from, fading this game feels like a strategy that will leave us out of the money as frankly the other hitting environments are less than ideal. Who would you roll with instead? Blue Jays against MadBum? Mariners against Archer? Frankly, I do not see too many offensive options that allow us to match the output we can expect in this game so I want as much exposure as I can get! Jake Lamb ($3,700) is my top play from this game as his price point is easy to fit in and he gets the platoon advantage against RHP Chad Bettis. After putting up 50.6 points on Monday and the fact he sits in the heart of the order, makes him a must play for me. My recommendation is to wait until lineups are announced and work to fit in as many batters as you can from this game.

 Rangers stack against Mat Latos – Outside of Coors, the Rangers have one of the highest team totals as they get a matchup against Mat Latos. Latos is only striking out 13% of batters on the season and has given up 18 hits over his last 10 innings so a stack of the Rangers bats seems like a great compliment to a Rockies/Coors stack. Nomar Mazara($3,100) has been one of my favorite plays as he bats at the top of the Rangers lineup and we have seen his price slide back to a very playable price point after a rough 0 for 6 his last game out. I expect a bounce back game from Mazara and will look to pair him with Mitch Moreland ($3,300) and Rougned Odor ($4,300) who at a similar price point to Jose Altuve and Robinson Cano will likely be low owned.

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!