FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 5
Welcome to the Monday 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 7:10 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!
Sunday’s Main winning GPP scores were well above our season average as it took 312 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 68 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.5 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 68 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.5 points.
Sunday’s winning GPP roster had a very chalky feel to it, reminding us that sometimes the chalk play is the right play. Chris Sale was 40% owned in GPP’s and although he scuffled in the first inning against Baltimore he rebounded for a 9 k, 46 FD point outing which anchored the majority of the field with a strong pitching performance. The Detroit bats may have been the most popular and we got great performances from J.D. Martinez/Justin Upton but it was the Atlanta/Cincinnati stack that carried winning teams especially Zack Cozart (59.9), Ender Inciarte (50.9) and Danny Santana (47.1).
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:
Sean Manaea ($7,700): One of the benefits of the daily grind in DFS is that you keep your ear to the ground as you watch player performance across the league unfold. From a season long perspective there is nothing that will jump off the page about Sean Manaea, the A’s left-hander who is 4-3 with a 3.91 ERA on the season with 54 K’s in 48 innings of work – solid numbers for sure but are they helpful for DFS?
The last two games Manaea has seemingly found another gear with back to back 55 FanDuel point outings against the Indians and Yankees (both on the road) with 8 and 9 strikeouts in each of those games as he went 7 innings in both contests with only 1 walk and 1 run scored combined!
As with any DFS choice, simply looking at game logs can be misleading so I want to dig into the advanced stats as well which overwhelmingly support his case. Manaea has a 27.4% K rate this season (second highest on the slate), the highest swinging strike rate (14.2%) and is inducing a slate leading 51% ground ball rate with only 33% hard contact allowed.
Pitching in Oakland, not surprisingly, the numbers get even better – as Manaea has surrendered only 1 HR in 22 IP, with a 29% hard contact rate, 55% ground ball rate and .265 wOBA.
The match-up against the Blue Jays bats may scare some away and it certainly gives me pause as with Josh Donaldson and Troy Tulowitzki healthy this is a scary well-rounded line-up, but as always I trust Vegas in this spot and they have the Blue Jays with the second lowest run projection on the slate.
The underlying statistics and Vegas data all support Manaea as a strong play and as the 7th highest priced pitcher on the slate he represents tremendous value that allows us to pay up for our hitters while rostering a pitcher who could end the night with the highest raw point total. I am all in.
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
I had the opportunity to join our friend @Athlead DFS and talk about roster strategies for his DFS podcast on Sunday and one of the topics we covered was building more mini-stacks than full on team stacks. Sometimes it is easy to lock in on a match-up we like and simply go down the line and click in the top 3-4 bats in the heart of a team’s order instead of simply looking at the top 1-2 plays.
Take Sunday for example, the Tigers were the clear best match-up in my mind and although we got home runs from Justin Upton and J.D Martinez – all you really needed was that two-man stack as the rest of the line-up was largely held to pedestrian fantasy days.
As for today – this is a slate we are going to want to spread out our offensive exposure as we have a game in Sun Trust Park, the red-hot Astros offense and a game in Miller Park we can attack!
Houston Astros: The Astros line-up is becoming a fade at your own risk DFS juggernaut and although the prices have risen, I am not sure you can make the case for a fade on a seven game slate. The Houston hitters do get a ballpark downgrade going to Kansas City but they face off with Ian Kennedy who has given up 45% hard contact and 2.6 HR/9 with right-handed hitters at home this season and the Astros have a few right-handed power bats we may have interest in.
Rather than a full on stack here, I am going to look to mini-stack Jose Altuve ($4,300) and Carlos Correa ($4,300) who are both red-hot at the plate and allow us to take the clear two best players at relatively weak positions which should give us an advantage in our roster build over those who choose to go with more cost-effective options at 2B/SS. If you want to build off that core you can absolutely look to pay up in the OF for George Springer ($4,300) who gets the same favorable match-up and has double-digit FanDuel points in eight straight games!
Bartolo in Hotlanta: The best hitting environment on this slate may actually be in Atlanta where the ball has been flying out of the new Sun Trust Park. Big Sexy has struggled all year giving up over 40% hard contact and 1.9 HR/9 to left-handed hitters at home and the Philly bats are the perfect salary saving option that allow you to still chase upside at a bargain price.
Michael Saunders ($2,700) has been struggling at the plate but this is the kind of match-up that could jolt him back to life and do not over look Odubel Herrera ($2,500) who has seemingly awoke from the dead with 5 hits, a home run and 6 RBI’s in his last two games!
Milwaukee left-handed power versus the Shark: I expect the chalk starting pitcher picks today will be Carlos Martinez and Jeff Samardzija so I always like to find ways to attack the most popular pitchers when building out my offense.
The Shark has struggled on the road this year against left-handed bats with a 31% hard contact rate and 2.42 HR/9. Both Eric Thames ($3,100) and Travis Shaw ($4,100) are in play here and they make for a great mini-stack in Miller Park that I would expect to be low-owned.
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Sean Manaea ($7,700)
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C: $2k Punt Option
1B: Eric Thames ($3,100)
2B: Jose Altuve ($4,300)
3B: Travis Shaw ($4,100)
SS: Carlos Correa ($4,300)
OF: Michael Saunders ($2,700)
OF: Odubel Herrera ($2,500)
OF: George Springer ($4,300)
Slate Overview: I always love seven game slates like this as you can really dig into match-ups a bit more than on the larger DFS slates. From my perspective, Manaea is the clear stand out pitching option from a GPP perspective as he has the upside we are looking for and he sits at a price point that lets us still load up on hitters and we are going to want to do exactly that tonight.
The Astros are my top choice to build around tonight and even if they end up being the chalk stack, I think we can differentiate our lineups at SP and utilize a mini-stack of the Brewers power bats to separate ourselves from the field!
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!