FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – May 16
Welcome to the Tuesday 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 7:05PM 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!
Monday’s winning GPP scores were below our season average as it took 243.3 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 48 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 256.8 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 47 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 257.1 points.
Monday Night’s Picks and Pivots was a mixed bag of success as our pitching choice, Luis Perdomo delivered in a big way with 40 FanDuel points on the back of 9 strikeouts over 6 innings. The Arizona bats remained quiet until the 8th inning but a late outburst saved the day for the Diamondbacks hitters. The Mets hitters on the other hand fell flat which was ultimately the one piece of our roster build which held us back from cashing as we put up 126 FanDuel 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
Tonight’s Main Slate is loaded with high-end arms as we can choose from any of Dallas Keuchel, Yu Darvish, Stephen Strasburg or Zack Greinke. All four of those arms are perfectly fine for cash games and each and everyone has the upside for tournaments and with so many arms on the slate it should spread out ownership in GPP’s.
With that being said, I actually plan to attack this slate by loading up on hitters and dropping down to two arms in the mid-tier who I think make for sneaky GPP plays.
Clayton Richard ($6,800) at home versus Milwaukee: If I am going to pivot off the high-end arms then I need to find value pitchers with strikeout upside and Richard gets a sneaky good match-up against a Brewers team that has the third highest strikeout mark against LHP in all of baseball.
Richard is an extreme ground ball pitcher with the third highest ground ball rate in all of baseball (61%) while limiting hard contact to under 29%. Those numbers absolutely sky rocket against left-handed batters (81% GB rate and 17% hard contact rate) which will help neutralize Eric Thames/Travis Shaw assuming they are even in the line-up!
Richard has flashed the kind of upside we are looking for already this season with 51 and 49 FanDuel point outings against Arizona and the Dodgers. The appealing thing about this match-up to me is that Richard has the pure stuff to limit the damage an opposing team can do, especially in a ballpark like Petco and the Brewers have the strike-out upside which make this even more of an appealing GPP play.
Matt Boyd ($7,100) versus Baltimore: If you are looking for a pivot play, Boyd actually checks a lot of the same boxes as Richard. The Orioles have the fifth highest strikeout rate in all of baseball against left-handed pitching and even with many of the “name” hitters in their line-up they rank in the middle to bottom of the league in ISO and wOBA against southpaws this season.
Both Boyd and Richard are slight home favorites (-120) and are facing two of the top 5 easiest offenses to punch out when facing left-handers. The Orioles have a middle of the road team total and the Brewers actually have the third lowest team total on the slate so while I prefer Richard over Boyd, I like the idea of using Boyd as a pivot play who will likely be under 5% owned.
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
Chicago Cubs at home versus Bronson Arroyo: As I mentioned earlier, there are a TON of great hitting spots to attack today which makes me way more likely to pay down at starting pitcher so I can afford the big bats.
Let me break this down – the Cubs play in Wrigley Field today where it will be in the mid 70’s with the wind blowing out 15-20 mph against Bronson Arroyo. Sounds juicy doesn’t it? Yeah I want in.
Arroyo is giving up 35% hard contact and 2.2 HR/9 this season and with a 43% fly ball rate and the wind blowing out, this is a multiple home run kind of day for the Cubbies. The top end stack is firmly in play today with Kris Bryant ($4,200), Kyle Schwarber ($3,100) and Anthony Rizzo ($3,900) all top end options.
With a left-hander on the mound in Arizona also most of the 1B ownership will lean towards Paul Goldschmidt which could leave Rizzo over looked! If you are building out a full Cubs stack do not overlook Miguel Montero ($2,500) who is 8 for 19 with 3 home runs in his career off Arroyo!
Washington Nationals versus Chad Kuhl: So far this season Chad Kuhl is giving up a 43% hard contact rate and 1.42 HR/9 against left-handed pitching and takes on a Nationals team that has some pretty decent left-handed bats. Kuhl has given up 18 runs in 12 innings versus left-handed hitters this season so this is an elite spot to attack with Bryce Harper ($5,100) and Daniel Murphy ($3,800) who are priced up which may lead them to be under owned as the masses pay up for starting pitching today!
FanDuel MLB – Top GPP line-up and Slate Overview
P: Clayton Richard ($6,800) or Matt Boyd ($7,100)
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C: Miguel Montero ($2,500)
1B: Anthony Rizzo ($3,900)
2B: Daniel Murphy ($3,800)
3B: Kris Bryant ($4,200)
SS: Alicedes Escobar ($2,300) Back in the lead-off spot for KC.
OF: Bryce Harper ($5,100)
OF: Kyle Schwarber ($3,100)
OF: Yasmany Tomas ($3,300) or Khris Davis ($3,000) Elite one-off power bats to fill out your roster with multi-home run upside!
Slate Overview: With a game in Chase Field (which we didn’t even target here) and great hitting spots in Chicago/Washington, I think the best approach in tournaments is to load up on bats and take shots with low owned starting pitchers facing high-strikeout teams!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests tonight and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!