FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – April 8
Welcome to the Saturday FanDuel MLB edition of Picks and Pivots, a fantasy baseball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for today’s Main slate which kicks off at 7:05 PM EST!
For those of you finding us for the first time, the concept behind FanDuel MLB Picks and Pivots 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 payday!
Over the first seven slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 233 points. Looking back at last season, the winning GPP lineup on average scored 255 FanDuel points with a typical roster build that allocated 25% of your salary cap to your SP and the remaining 75% to your hitters.
Over the first seven slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 233 points.
Friday’s Picks and Pivots was our first official losing night of the season as a slate that we knew going in was ugly, ended up just about as bad as we thought! We went into the night fading Francisco Liriano who got absolutely hammered, put up -10 FanDuel points and was pulled but our top choice of Zack Wheeler (9 points) frankly did not fare much better. Our pivot SP, Mike Leake was fantastic with 8 dominant innings and 43 FD points but our Cubs/Houston stack absolutely bombed with no single player putting up more than 6 points!
Each day we will break down our top Starting Pitcher and our top hitting stacks of the day while giving you our thoughts on roster build and lineup construction.
As always, we will look to update our picks and final lineup thought prior to lock on our twitter account @FantasyCPR so make sure to give us a follow for all the late breaking lineup news.
Without further ado, let’s get into today’s slate!
FanDuel MLB – Top Starting Pitcher Picks
Madison Bumgarner ($11,900) After a night where Francisco Liriano was over 40% owned in GPP play we are mercifully back to a slate where we have some legit top end arms to choose from. The Main Slate is loaded with Bumgarner, Clayton Kershaw and Yu Darvish at the top so paying up for one of these three high strike-out studs is going to be the best route for line-up construction especially with all the soft hitter pricing early in the season.
Of the three starters I think it makes the most sense to pay up for Bumgarner as his match-up in San Diego against the Padres could not be much better. MadBum is the largest favorite on the slate, gets to pitch in of the of worst hitters ballparks in MLB and faces a Padres team with one of the highest K rates in all of baseball.
Bumgarner flashed his upside on Opening Day when he twirled 7 innings, striking out 11 batter in an elite hitting environment in Arizona and dropped 49 FanDuel points. The ballpark tonight in San Diego and the light-hitting line-up for the Padres sets Bumgarner up for another massive outing and he is worth his price today!
If you are looking to pivot away from Bumgarner, Kershaw and Darvish both are certainly in play and I think today is a day where you should build alternate lineups to get exposure to each of these three studs.
Kershaw will be pitching in Coors Field where he has a career 4.63 ERA, 1.30 WHIP so there is always concern but Kershaw has dominated the LHB’s in this lineup over his career (Blackmon and CarGo under .200 BA) and if he can navigate through Arenado/Story/Reynolds he could end up matching Bumgarner for a fraction of the price and much less expected ownership.
Darvish is likely my go-to pivot today as he has the highest K rate of any SP on this slate (31.7%) and gets a favorable match-up against the Oakland A’s. Oakland is one of the toughest teams in the league to strikeout but he did punch out 32 batters in 25 innings last season against them so the upside is absolutely there.
The reality is – all three of these guys could end up with the highest raw point total tonight and although Bumgarner is my preferred target, you can make pivot lineups with Kershaw/Darvish tonight to ensure you get exposure to all three studs!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
Arizona Diamondbacks versus RHP Trevor Bauer: Arizona comes into tonight’s game at home with the fourth highest team total on the slate and gets a favorable match-up with RHP Trevor Bauer. Looking at Bauer’s splits last season, he surrendered a 37% hard contact to LHB and gave up nearly 10% more fly balls to hitters from the left side which sets up to be a dangerous combination in a ballpark like Chase Field.
Arizona has two LHB that I am looking to target on this slate as Jake Lamb ($3,300) and David Peralta ($2,900) are simply too cheap hitting at the top of the DBacks lineup. Lamb and Peralta are both averaging double-digit FanDuel points to start the season with three home runs between them and at these price-points we can target power upside within a Bumgarner roster build.
Los Angeles Dodgers at Coors Field against Jon Gray: Yesterday’s Early Slate was a Coors Field roster day and the lack of offense and high ownership meant that a strategic fade gave you a significant advantage. I am hoping that recent bias plus the fact the Rockies have their ace on the mound will depress ownership further – but people, this is still Coors Field.
The Dodgers have the highest projected run total on the board at 5.2 which is a half a run higher than the next closest team and the price points on a few select LA hitters are simply too cheap to pass on. Yasmani Grandal ($3,400), Adrian Gonzalez ($3,500) and lead-off man Andrew Toles ($2,800) make for an elite LHB stack against Gray in what we hope is a bounce back day for offense in Coors Field.
Chicago Cubs RHB versus LHP Tommy Millone: The Cubs hitters let us down on Friday night but I think we can go back to the well today as they face a soft tossing LHP in Miller Park which should result in some offensive fireworks!
Millone has an elevated hard hit rate and gives up 1.3 HR/9 to right-handed batters in his career and he will face off against a strong Cubs lineup today which gives us a great chance to stack. Rather than look at the Big 3 (Rizzo, Bryant, Schwarber) here today I think we can be contrarian and save money while stacking the middle infield bats in Addison Russell ($2,700) and Javier Baez ($2,400) as our Cubs exposure on this slate!
FanDuel MLB – Top GPP Lineup and Slate Overview
P: Madison Bumgarner ($11,900)
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C: Yasmani Grandal ($3,400)
1B: Adrian Gonzalez ($3,500)
2B: Javier Baez ($2,400)
3B: Jake Lamb ($3,300)
SS: Addison Russell ($2,700)
OF: David Peralta ($2,900)
OF: Andrew Toles ($2,800)
OF: Mitch Haniger ($2,000) Haniger continues to be one of my favorite bargain bin plays each day as there is simply no reason the #2 hitter in the Mariners line-up should still be $2k. Haniger has an elite line-up spot and legit MLB pop which makes him a great punt play that could be a GPP difference maker!
Slate Overview: After a brutal Friday night of pitching decisions it will be fun to sit back, click on guys like Bumgarner, Kershaw and Darvish and not have to feel queasy about our roster! I would start all your rosters with the high-priced pitchers as I do not believe there is merit to dropping down especially with the cheap hitting options we can utilize across the board in elite hitting environments!
Next: Fantasy Baseball Waiver Wire Pickups
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB lineups today and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR Twitter as we will update our final lineups and rosters prior to DFS lock!