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 1:05PM 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 were well below our season average as it took 224.8 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 46 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 257.2 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 46 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 257.2 points.
Saturday’s Main Slate Picks and Pivots was a big winner as our top line-up hit for 150 FanDuel points which was good enough to finish above the cash line across all formats. Trevor Cahill was solid with 34 FD points although he ended up being the chalk option at 33% ownership. The Tigers bats as we predicted went completely ignored as they were all under 10% owned and the bats of Justin Upton (21.7) and J.D. Martinez (43.9) carried us to a big night at under 5% ownership!
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
First off, Happy Mother’s Day to all the great Mom’s out there today and a special shout out to my wife who puts up with my fantasy sports craziness and allows me to take time each day away from being a Dad to our kids so I can get Picks and Pivots out! Make sure you spoil the Mom’s in your life today and if you are a Mom who plays DFS – I hope you take down the big GPP today!
Kevin Gausman ($6,500): Although we have a variety of high-priced elite arms on this slate, I am looking to pivot down to a cheap option who I believe has massive GPP upside in Kevin Gausman who takes on the Kansas City Royals.
Gausman is an arm I have always believed in as he has elite velocity and came off a season with a 23% K rate and I expected big things coming into this year. The early season results have been subpar to say the least but I believe this is simply a blip on the radar and the underlying talent is very much real.
If you look at Gausman’s pitching approach this season it really has not changed at all from last year as he is remains a fastball/slider pitcher who has seen his velocity stay in the 95 MPH range. The biggest issue this season has been the elevated walk rate (10.6%) which is 4% higher than any previous year which has been driven by a decreased swinging strike rate on his fastball.
Gausman’s last start is a reminder of the elite upside he possesses as he struck out 8 Nationals and put up 49 FanDuel points. The most important thing to me was that in 7 innings he only walked one batter and if he can control the walks he has the elite strikeout stuff to nominate any line-up.
Today he gets to take on a Royals team that is bottom 5 in the league against RHP in wOBA and ISO and that we just saw Dylan Bundy rank up 8 K’s against. The price on Gausman has massive profit potential and allows us to spend up on essentially bat we want – love this spot for GPP’s today!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
Orioles versus Chris Young: As a GPP player the first thing I always look for when picking out my hitters is what starting pitchers are on the slate that have a high HR rate as we know HR’s = DFS Profit!
Chris Young is one of the most fly ball heavy SP’s in all of baseball with a 55% career fly ball rate and 1.28 HR/9 allowed. The Orioles are a line-up I always love to target in GPP’s as they are loaded with boom or bust home run hitters and the price points are usually reasonable enough where you can fit them in without impacting the rest of your roster.
Today I am going to target the bats of Chris Davis ($3,300) and Manny Machado ($3,800) as a mini-stack in the hopes we can go home run hunting against Chris Young and the Royals!
New York Mets left-handed bats versus Wily Peralta: Staying with the home run theme, the Mets finish their series in Miller Park against RHP Wily Peralta and I intend to go after the hitters here in a big way!
Peralta in his career gives up a 34% hard contact rate to left-handed bats and this season is surrendering 2 HR/9 to lefties. Miller Park is an elite hitting environment and the Mets are loaded with left-handed bats so a full on stack here is absolutely in play.
Michael Conforto ($4,200) and Jay Bruce ($4,100) have been crushing right-handed pitching all season long but the hottest bat right now is Neil Walker ($3,500) who is 5 for 8 with 2 home runs so far in the series and has 19+ FD points in three of his last four games.
Houston Astros versus Luis Severino: I expect Severino to be one of the highest owned pitchers today and from a game theory perspective I love targeting hitters against “chalk” pitchers as a way to get a tournament advantage.
As impressive as Severino has been this year, he has given up 7 HR already this year and has a 4.35 ERA in Yankee Stadium giving up 5 HR and 10 ER in 20 IP. I know today is Derek Jeter day at “The Stadium” but I am going to target two ex-Yankees who are familiar with the short porch in RF and stack Brian McCann ($2,900) & Carlos Beltran ($3,000) as part of an Astros mini-stack.
FanDuel MLB – Top GPP line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Kevin Gausman ($6,500)
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C: Brian McCann ($2,900)
1B: Chris Davis ($3,300)
2B: Neil Walker ($3,500)
3B: Manny Machado ($3,800)
SS: Trea Turner ($3,700) Shortstop is UGLY today so I am going to make a point to pay up at this spot and Turner has the kind of elite upside we want as a one-off play.
OF: Michael Conforto ($4,200)
OF: Jay Bruce ($4,100)
OF: Carlos Beltran ($3,000)
Slate Overview: This is a great GPP slate as we have a a handful of starting pitchers in less than ideal spot and no obvious hitting spots to attack so we can really take some chances when building our rosters. I think the opportunity cost at SP is relatively low so I like the idea of paying down for a low-owned arm and mixing/matching power bats in Baltimore/New York. Good luck all and enjoy your Mother’s Day!
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!