FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 2
Welcome to the Friday 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!
Thursday’s Main winning GPP scores were below our season average as it took 247 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 65 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 259.5 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 65 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 259.5 points.
Thursday’s Main Slate was an interesting one to break down as we had Zack Greinke at the top with legit pivot options in Marco Estrada and Eduardo Rodriguez. Ultimately the chalk won again as Greinke dominated and Estrada/E-Rod bombed out while the popular Toronto stack scuffled and it was the Yankees stack (basically Gary Sanchez and Aaron Hicks) that made all the money!
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 Pick:
FINALLY! A FULL SLATE! I cannot tell you how happy I am to have a full slate today as the past few days of 3-4 game mini-slates have been a drain on GPP players like myself with the chalk plays winning out over and over. I am ready to get back to a full slate where we can worry less about game theory/ownership and really drive our top roster build.
If you were wondering where all the good starting pitching has been the last few days, well it has been saved for tonight’s slate as Clayton Kershaw, Yu Darvish, Dallas Keuchel, Michael Pineda and Matt Harvey (just kidding) are all going tonight.
Even with all that star power, the arm I am most interested in building around is Washington RHP Stephen Strasburg ($11,200) who gets a road start against the Oakland Athletics.
Strasburg comes into this game coming off his two best starts of the year where he struck out 15 and 11 batters putting up 76 and 60 FanDuel points against the Padres and Braves. Over the last two weeks no team has struck out at a higher rate than Oakland, with a massive 31.7% K rate in the last 14 days!
Take a stroll through the last series with the Indians staff and you will see that no Cleveland pitcher had any less than 7 K’s in their starts and we saw some gaudy numbers with Trevor Bauer striking out 14 and Corey Kluber striking out 10 in his first start back!
Any time we get a slate with multiple aces I am going to work my roster build around a high-priced starter as the opportunity cost is simply too high to drop down on a one pitcher site like FanDuel. With so many great arms on the slate we should also see the ownership slightly spread out although I do expect Strasburg will be the second highest owned arm behind Mr. Kershaw. This is one of those slates where I am not trying to get cute with ownership at pitcher and simply take the highest upside arm in the best match-up and I will let others take the unnecessary risk!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
Reds at home versus Mike Foltynewicz: The Reds and Braves have the highest game total on the board and the Reds have the highest implied team total on the board so this is not a stack I expect will be “sneaky” but it doesn’t mean we should overlook it!
Folty is a home-run prone pitcher who gives up 1.6 HR/9 and 34% hard contact to left-handed batters and will face a Reds team loaded with power bats that simply crush RHP. Take a look at the ISO for the top Reds hitters this season against RHP:
- Scott Schebler ($3,100): .287 ISO
- Adam Duvall ($3,600): .258 ISO
- Joey Votto ($4,300): .255 ISO
- Zack Cozart ($3,300): .233 ISO
- Eugenio Suarez ($2,800): .215 ISO
What I love about the Reds stack (outside of Votto) are the price points as you can easily stack them alongside a high-end pitcher without an issue on FanDuel. With the match-up and ballpark in their favor today the Reds stack will be at the core of my Picks and Pivots line-up in all formats.
On the other side of this game, the Braves (second highest implied team total) take on Bronson Arroyo who is giving up 3.1 HR/9 (that is not a typo) and 36% hard contact so I would not over-look the Braves bats although rather than a full on stack, I would target Matt Kemp ($3,800) and Matt Adams ($2,600) who have the two highest ISO’s against RHP this season!
Red Sox versus Alec Asher: The Red Sox have the third highest team total on the board and face off in Camden Yards against Alec Asher, a fly-ball pitcher who gives up 36% hard contact to LHB in his career and 1.24 HR/9.
The Red Sox are an interesting stacking option as we can build a mini stack at 1B-OF with middle of the order, fairly priced bats like Andrew Benintendi ($3,100) and Mitch Moreland ($3,400) but you can also find some great punt plays to build around them like Sandy Leon ($2,100) and Josh Rutledge ($2,400).
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Stephen Strasburg ($11,200)
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C: Sandy Leon ($2,100)
1B: Mitch Moreland ($3,400)
2B: Josh Rutledge ($2,400)
3B: Eugenio Suarez ($2,800)
SS: Zack Cozart ($3,300)
OF: Scott Schbler ($3,100)
OF: Adam Duvall ($3,600)
OF: Andrew Benintendi ($3,100)
Slate Overview: The key to this slate is going to be to pay up for pitching and then find a stack that works in the $3k/player price range to build around them. On a slate where the Reds/Braves game is the marquee hitting environment, I would expect ownership will be largely spread out so I think you get core exposure to that game and then mix and match in other spots (like Boston). Enjoy this full slate everyone, Happy Friday – let’s get it!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR on Twitter for all the late breaking line-up news and roster updates!