Welcome to the Sunday 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 1:07 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!
Saturday Night’s winning GPP lineup scored 228.7 FanDuel points on the back of a 61 FD point gem from James Paxton with a Dodgers/Seattle stack! Over the first 17 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 241.8 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 17 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 241.8 points.
Saturday Night’s Picks and Pivots bounced back in a big way landing over the cash line across the board! Jacob deGrom was dominant with 13 strikeouts and 58 FanDuel points and would have been the highest point performer if the Mets bullpen didn’t blow the win! Our punt cathcer Austin Hedges delivered with a home run and 24 FanDuel points and our Dodgers stack of Yasiel Puig (44), Corey Seager (25.4) and Logan Forsythe ($15.2) delivered us across the cash line with big time performances.
The Main Slate on FanDuel today essentially is ignoring all the games from 4PM EST on so keep that in mind when thinking through your roster build!
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
Drew Pomeranz ($7,800) Happy Easter everyone! Hope everyone has a great Sunday and is ready for some day time baseball!
Looking over the Main Slate the pitching options seems a tad over-priced at the high-end so I think it makes sense to drop down a bit in salary and look towards someone like Drew Pomeranz who gets a home match-up with the Tampa Bay Rays.
Of all the pitcher’s on the Main Slate, Pomeranz has the highest strikeout rate at 26.5% and takes on a Tampa squad with the second highest K rate at 25.2%. The Red Sox lefty has dominated this Tampa Bay team so far in his career allowing only a .175 opposing average over 63 at bats.
During that stretch, Pomeranz has struck out 25 of the 63 batters (40% strikeout rate) while only allowing 4 walks so there is elite upside to be had here and he will be the top arm I slot in for GPP play today!
I think Pomeranz will likely be overlooked as there are pitchers with better name recognition (Lester, Carrasco, Gio, Harvey etc) but pitching in Fenway today as a solid home favorite against a high strikeout team gives him the kind of upside we look for at a hopeful low ownership!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
Chicago Cubs at home versus Jameson Taillon: The Cubs offense was our top hitting stack on the Early Slate yesterday and I intend to go back to them this afternoon as they face off with Jameson Taillon in Wrigley Field.
Weather is a critical component to factor into our MLB DFS roster construction and we saw yesterday the wind blowing out with heavy gusts to Wrigley Field which resulted in 15 total runs being scored! Today we have 10-15 MPH winds blowing out to center field again with 20-25 MPH gusts in the early forecasts so this is a spot where I think we load up on hitters and fade the pitchers!
The Cubs are one of my favorite teams to stack as the top of their lineup is loaded with high-upside hitters and although Taillon is one of my favorite young pitchers (I have him on every single one of my season long teams), this is a spot where the Cubs could feast!
The same size is small but the BvP numbers here are very interesting as Anthony Rizzo ($4,300) is 3-5 with two home runs against Taillon in his early career! Taillon has an exceptionally high ground ball rate but he does give up 33%+ hard contact to hitters from both sides of the plate so a mini-stack around Rizzo with Ben Zobrist ($2,900) and Kyle Schwarber ($3,400) is firmly in play!
Cleveland Indians versus LHP Matt Boyd: The weather in Cleveland looks similar to Chicago with a steady wind blowing out to center with 20-25 MPH gusts and with a home run prone lefty on the hill for the Tigers, we are going to want exposure to the Indians bats here!
Matt Boyd gives up 2 HR/9 so far in his career with a 31% hard contact rate and with the wind blowing out, a mini-stack of Indians hitters is certainly in play here. With the way the roster build is shaking out I love the idea of paying up for Francisco Lindor ($3,900) at a weak SS position and will look to stack him with Jose Ramirez ($3,400) who is coming off a massive 2 home run 61 FD point outing on Saturday!
Cincinnatti Reds versus Willy Peralta: Peralta is a guy who has typically been someone we want to stack against but he has been on top of his game so far this season but this is a guy who gave up 1.3 HR/9 last season with a 33% hard contact so I am not going to let two games this season throw me off!
Billy Hamilton ($3,500) is 5 for 10 with a home run in his career against Peralta and makes for a great one-off play due to his ability to rack up steals and get points independent of the rest of the lineup! Peralta struggles with controls from time to time as witnessed by his 4 walks last time out so if Hamilton can get on base, he could rack up points in a hurry!
Adam Duvall ($3,600) should bat clean-up for the Reds and with significant reverse splits he makes for a sneaky addition to a Hamilton mini-stack as I expect most will look to pair Hamilton with Joey Votto if looking to get Reds exposure!
FanDuel MLB – Top GPP Lineup and Slate Overview
P: Drew Pomeranz ($7,800)
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C: Cameron Rupp ($2,200) If you are going to punt at catcher you want to target guys with home run power and Rupp is that guy for me! The weather is going to be warm today in Washington and with Gio Gonzalez on the hill, Rupp will have the platoon advantage!
1B: Anthony Rizzo ($4,300)
2B: Ben Zobrist ($2,900)
3B: Jose Ramirez ($3,400)
SS: Francisco Lindor ($3,900)
OF: Billy Hamilton ($3,500)
OF: Kyle Schwarber ($3,400)
OF: Adam Duvall ($3,600)
Slate Overview: Looking over this slate this should be a great day for offense and I think it makes sense to build 2-3 mini-stacks today instead of going all in on 1 or 2 offenses. The pitching is a bit harder to navigate but by paying down to a guy like Pomeranz it frees up a ton of salary which we can allocate to a big time hitting roster build!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for all the latest lineup news and roster updates!