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 7:05 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!
Monday’s Main winning GPP scores were below our season average as it took 242 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 69 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.2 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 69 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.2 points
Monday’s winning GPP roster was built around Jeff Samardzija who ended up as the clear chalk pitcher (27.7% owned) but delivered with a 10 strikeout, FanDuel point performance!
Offensively it was the those who took the risk on the Philly/Atlanta game that ended up the big winners as the Phillies went off for 11 runs with Picks and Pivots featured play Odubel Herrera delivering a huge 40 FanDuel point outing on the back of 2 doubles, a home run and 2 RBI’s!
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:
Chris Archer ($10,700): Welcome to a jam-packed 15 game Tuesday DFS day where we have an absolutely loaded pitching slate including Max Scherzer, Jake Arrieta, Jacob deGrom, Robbie Ray and James Paxton.
What you will notice as you dig through the pitching options on FanDuel is that we have a ton of high upside, high strikeout arms on the slate so strategically I think you are going to need to pay up at SP on this slate.
For my money, my favorite play is Tampa Bay Rays RHP Chris Archer who gets a home start against the White Sox.
Archer simply pitches at another level in his home ballpark, as he sees his K rate jump to 35% at home, his HR rate drop to 0.6 HR/9 and surrenders only a .261 wOBA to opposing batters. Today he will face a White Sox team that is bottom 5 in baseball in team wOBA and ISO against RHP and strikes out at the eight highest clip (23.1%).
If you look Archer’s latest starts at home – he has 11 or more K’s in each of his three starts against the Yankees, Royals and Blue Jays.
On a slate like this we need to play for the highest K upside we can as the opportunity cost is simply too high to try to win with bats tonight. You can make the case for any of the top arms tonight but any time Archer is at home he is going to vault to the top of my rankings and with a match-up against one of the worst teams against RHP, I will be all in on Archer tonight!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Yankees versus Red Sox in Yankee Stadium: Looking over this slate, outside of the game in Coors FIeld, essentially every other game on the slate has a projected total of 9 runs so there are a number of legit spots we can look for offense tonight.
If you are paying up at SP as I recommend, you will be left with roughly $3k per player to build your line-up so finding a stack that works in this construct will be a challenge. The one game that stands out to me when looking at players in this price range is Yankees versus Red Sox, as outside of Mookie Betts and Aaron Judge, the price points for these hitters all sit right around $3k.
Starting with the Red Sox, they will face off with Masahiro Tanaka who I believe is a pitcher we can look to stack against in DFS due to his boom or bust nature. Over his last four starts, he has had three outings where he surrendered 6 or more runs and has given up 8 home runs in those starts.
On the season Tanaka is giving up 2.1 HR/9 and a 34% hard contact with only a 20% K rate, the lowest of his career. The name value here may scare people off but I think a full on Red Sox stack is in play here tonight!
If I am looking at the Red Sox, I will start with the two mid-tier OF bats in Andrew Benintendi ($2,800) and Jackie Bradley Jr. ($3,400). Benintendi is coming off a monster two home run outing on Sunday and JBJ has hit safely in 6 straight games for the Red Sox. Both first baseman in this game are in play too as Hanley Ramirez/Mitch Moreland will hit in the heart of the order and at the same $3,300 price point you can easily mix and match them across line-ups.
The Yankees stack may be one of my favorite on this slate due due to the price points as outside of Judge they are all $3.6k or lower which makes them easy to fit in with a high-priced arm. The Yankees will face off with Drew Pomeranz who has a 34% hard contact rate and is giving up 1.4 HR/9 outside of Fenway Park this season.
All the Yankees bats are in play here, especially those from the right side of the plate and I will likely look to Gary Sanchez ($3,600) as the anchor to my roster at catcher. Starlin Castro ($2,900) is a great value play at 2B, hitting in the heart of the Yankee order and you can pair him with Didi Gregorious ($2,900) who is a lefty masher and priced very fairly considering his upside. If you are looking for a pivot off the Red Sox, you can move to Matt Holliday ($3,400) at 1B or Aaron Hicks ($3,400) in the OF as well!
With this game in a great hitting environment and the price points from both sides essentially equal, you can mix and match full on game stacks here tonight in your GPP line-ups!
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Chris Archer ($10,700)
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C: Gary Sanchez ($3,600)
1B: Matt Holiday ($3,400)
2B: Starlin Castro ($2,900)
3B: Pablo Sandoval ($2,900)
SS: Didi Gregorious ($2,900)
OF: Jackie Bradley Jr. (3,400)
OF Andrew Benintendi ($2,800)
OF: Chris Young ($2,200)
Slate Overview: The key to this slate from my perspective is paying up at pitcher and building around a high upside, high strikeout arm. With so may aces in play it is unlikely they all under perform so you are going to need a true ace to keep pace with the field. What that means is you have only $3k or so per hitter which puts the Coors bats and high-priced stars out of reach so you have to find a mid tier stack with upside. The Yankees/Red Sox game is that spot for me as I expect it will largely go over looked but the price points really work interchangeably which is very valuable if you are looking to build multiple game stacks here tonight!
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!