FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – April 10 (Early)
Welcome to the Monday FanDuel MLB edition of Picks and Pivots, a fantasy baseball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for today’s Early slate which kicks off at 1:05 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 nine slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 236.6 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 nine slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 236.6 points.
Sunday’s Main Picks lineup ended well above the cash line with 157 FanDuel points on the back of a solid outing from Stephen Strasburg (40) and a big day from our Houston Astros stack as George Springer (24.9), Jose Altuve (15) and Evan Gattis (21.7) came through big performances. The biggest difference maker in this line-up however was the addition of Aaron Judge (31.4) who was our OF pivot once we got word that Joey Rickard would not be in the line-up for the Orioles on Sunday.
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
Justin Verlander ($10,400) For many on the Early Slate, the starting pitching decision for the day will come down to Chris Sale versus Justin Verlander as we have more than enough salary to make these roster builds work, but for my money I am going with the Tigers ace as my preferred target.
Verlander gets to take on a Red Sox lineup at home today that has been batting guys like Mitch Moreland and Chris Young in the 4/5 spots so this is not a Boston lineup that I am overly afraid of targeting on this short slate. The Tigers right-hander has the highest strikeout rate of any starting pitcher on the Early Slate at 28.1% and is coming off a dominant 10 strikeout performance against the White Sox in his first trip to the mound this season.
Verlander was dominant against the Red Sox last season as well – pitching to a 1.50 ERA and holding the Red Sox to a .190 BAA over 12 innings of work, going 2-0 with 10 punch outs. Looking at BvP metrics it is also worth noting in this case that no single active Red Sox player(sorry Big Papi) has hit a home run against Verlander in their careers so we actually can use BvP to further the SP’s case in this instance!
On a short slate like this, I think paying up for the ace pitcher is the way to go as the mid-range options are incredibly volatile(please do not roster Michael Pineda) and with only four games, I am going to take a 100% stand in my roster build with a guy like Verlander today who I think has the best match-up and point potential on the afternoon only slate.
FanDuel MLB: Top Hitting Stacks
Detroit Tigers versus LHP Chris Sale: Say what? Yes, I am advocating a full on stack against Chris Sale with the Tigers bats today but hear me out!
First, the Tigers have hit Sale HARD in his career as they are very familiar with him from his days in Chicago as Miguel Cabrera ($3,800) and Victor Martinez ($2,700) both have exceptional career numbers against the lefty. Miggy is 14/46 (.304 average) with four home runs while VMart is 20 for 46 (.435 average) with four home runs of his own.
For as dominant as Sale can be, he also sees his K rate drop 7% against RHB while his walk rate more than doubles and he gives up 33% hard contact to boot so I am fine stacking Cabrera, Martinez and the red-hot Nicholas Castellanos ($3,000) against Sale today in GPP play.
There is a bit of game theory behind this play too as I expect Verlander/Sale to be the two highest owned pitchers on a four game slate so by fading Sale AND stacking against him, we can get a massive advantage on the field if the match-up breaks the way we think it will!
Tampa Bay Rays versus Michael Pineda: Pineda is the perfect GPP pitcher to stack against as he has an elevated HR rate, gives up nearly 35% hard contact to LHB and today has to pitch in Yankee Stadium with their short porch in right field against a lefty heavy Rays lineup.
This same Rays line-up just touched him up for 4 runs in only 3.2 IP in his first start and with their depressed price points they are easy to fit in all formats today! Chris Dickerson ($2,800), Kevin Kiermaier ($2,800) and Brad Miller ($2,900) make for a high upside power stack in this spot against Pineda who gave up 2 HR/9 last season when pitching at home!
Arizona Diamondbacks versus LHP Matt Moore: I expect now that Matt Moore is back pitching at home he will be a popular GPP SP option on this slate so I am going to take the approach of stacking against the popular GPP hurlers and load up on some of the Arizona right-handed hitters!
Although Moore was dominant against LHB at home last season he gave up nearly a 33% hard contact and 1.2 HR/9 to right-handed batters so I am all for stacking the right-handed heavy Diamondbacks against him today with my preferred targets being A.J. Pollock ($3,700) and the red-hot Chris Owings ($2,700) who should continue to hit at the top of the order against a LHP.
FanDuel MLB – Top GPP Lineup and Slate Overview
SP: Justin Verlander ($10,400)
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C: Victor Martinez ($2,700)
1B: Miguel Cabrera ($3,800)
2B: Brad Miller ($2,900)
3B: Nick Castellanos ($3,000)
SS: Chris Owings ($2,700)
OF: Corey Dickerson ($2,800)
OF: Kevin Kiermaier ($2,800)
OF: A.J. Pollock ($3,700)
$200 Salary Remaining
Slate Overview: Any time we get a short slate for GPP play you need to take a stand to really differentiate yourself from the field and today I am going 100% with Justin Verlander and stacking the Tigers bats against the popular Chris Sale. Also, this is a perfect slate to play the late swap FanDuel tournaments as we have two of the four games with start times over 3 hours later than the first two games so we want to have flexibility in the event of some unexpected days off!
Next: FanDuel MLB Picks and Pivots (Main Slate)
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!