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 kick off at 1:05PM 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’s winning GPP scores continued well above the season average as it took 275 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 32 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 251.3 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 32 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 251.3 points.
Saturday’s Picks and Pivots were a mixed bag as our Early Slate fell flat with the Orioles line-up being shut down by Michael Pineda but our Main Slate picks more than made up for it. Yu Darvish delivered a 55 FD point 10 K win and the Arizona bats combined with home runs by Jed Lowrie and Khris Davis carried us well across the cash line in all contests!
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
Chris Archer ($9,100) The Main Slate today is loaded with pitching options as we have Noah Syndergaard and Dallas Keuchel on the hill but my favorite option to build around today is Chris Archer against the Toronto Blue Jays!
Keuchel is a guy with league average strike out metrics and I am not ready to pay $11.3k for Thor who is nursing an arm injury against the Nationals offense! Archer to me is the perfect blend of strikeout upside, ideal match-up and price point and can easily match/exceed the point output of these other studs.
Archer will take on a Toronto team he faced earlier this season and delivered 7.2 IP, 8 strikeouts and 45 FanDuel points against! The Blue Jays offense has been simply dreadful this season against right-handed pitching as they have a 23% K rate (9th in all of baseball) and rank bottom three in the league in ISP, WOBA and wRC+ as they are simply not an offense that is hitting the ball hard or scoring runs in bunches!
Archer is very familiar with the current Blue Jays hitters as he has limited them to .221 average over nearly 200 at-bats striking out 27% of those hitters! If you are fading Syndergaard/Keuchel then Archer is your best bet for GPP upside today!
Mike Leake ($8,600) I wrote up Leake yesterday and with the rain out on Saturday he will get the same exact start today against an exploitable Reds team!
Leake is not a guy with a high strikeout rate so he will likely be ignored in GPP play but he has at least 6 strikeouts in three of his four starts, goes deep into games (6+ innings in every start) and has racked up a Quality Start in every single outing.
Today, Leake gets a home start against the Reds and comes into this game as one of the largest favorites on the board (-170). What really stands out to me with Leake in the early season is that he is massively limiting hard contact (18%) which is well below his career mark of 30% and he has been pitching to a near 60% ground ball rate!
On this Main Slate you definitely have “sexier names” you can chase that come with substantially more risk but for my money I think you can lock in a guy like Leake who has 40 or more FanDuel points in three of his four starts and provides you a much safer foundation to build on.
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
On the Main Slate today the two highest projected scoring teams are the Cleveland Indians and Milwaukee Brewers which will lead to them being highly popular stacks. The price points on these highers are extremely high which makes stacking them very difficult if you want to pay up at SP so I think there are better cost-effective pivots we can look towards on this slate.
New York Mets LHB versus Joe Ross: The Mets bats have started to heat up again after a prolonged cold spell and they have done it against the Washington aces in Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer. Today they get to face off with Joe Ross, a pitcher who has historically given up massive hard contact to left-handed hitters (34%) and sees his strike out rate drop to a meager 17%.
The Mets are a team that can load up on the left-handed bats and I think this stack will largely go over-looked today! Michael Conforto ($3,200) is coming off a two home run outing on Saturday and will slide into the lead-off spot ahead of guys like Asdrubal Cabrera ($3,000) and Neil Walker ($3,100) making this a solid cost-effective stack against a SP who struggles with lefties!
Baltimore Orioles versus LHP Jordan Montgomery: Speaking of stacks that will likely go over looked, I absolutely love the Orioles bats today against LHP Jordan Montgomery in Yankee Stadium.
The O’s are a team that is loaded with right-handed power bats and Montgomery is someone who has a low strike-out rate and a high-fly ball rate which could set up perfectly for a home run barrage from the Orioles bats.
Similar to the Mets stack, the Orioles bats are priced incredibly fairly and a full on stack of Manny Machado ($3,300), Adam Jones ($3,400), Wellington Castillo ($3,100) and Trey Mancini ($2,900) is one I will look to roll out across lineups today!
In the same game, do no over look the Yankees bats who get to take on Wade Miley, a pitcher who is giving up massive hard contact rate (38%) to right-handed bats this season. Aaron Judge ($3,700) makes for a great one-off play while his price remains under $4k and you can mix and match him with Didi Gregorious ($2,900) who has come off the DL scorching hot with 30 FD points in his first two games back!
FanDuel MLB – Top GPP lineup and Slate Overview
P: Chris Archer ($9,100)
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C: Wellington Castillo ($3,100)
1B: Trey Mancini ($2,900)
2B: Neil Walker ($3,100)
3B: Manny Machado ($3,300)
SS: Asdrubal Cabrera ($3,000)
OF: Michael Conforto ($3,200)
OF: Adam Jones ($3,400)
OF: Aaron Judge ($3,700)
Slate Overview: The Sunday Main Slate is setting up to be an intriguing one as I think we need to find ways to pay up at Starting Pitcher in all formats. The hitting stacks as a result will need to be built with salary restrictions in mind and although Milwaukee and Cleveland are in great spots, I like the idea of pivoting to the Mets, Yankees, Orioles who will be significantly less owned and have hitters in very fair price points relative to their match-ups!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for allt he late breaking lineup news and roster updates!