FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 7
Welcome to the Wednesday 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!
Tuesday’s Main winning GPP scores were well above our season average as it took 325 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 70 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.1 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 70 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.1 points.
Tuesday’s DFS slate will forever be remembered as the day Scooter Gennett took over the world. Yes, you read that correctly. The utility player for the Reds erupted for 98 FanDuel points on the back of 4 HR and 10 RBI’s. Basically if you had Gennett (only 6% did) you cashed, if you didn’t you were left fighting for table scraps among the Scoooter-less DFS rosters!
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:
Zack Greinke ($10,700): The Main Slate pitching options are incredibly cut and dry to me – you simply pay up for Zack Greinke in this spot and let others try to get cute.
Greinke is the largest favorite on the board (-190), the Padres have the lowest team total on the slate and Greinke’s 29.7% K rate is the highest of any pitcher in action!
I say this all the time, but sometimes the best DFS process is to keep it simple – we have a huge favorite with the highest K upside facing a team projecting to score the fewest amount of runs! Greinke comes into tonight’s with 52 or more FanDuel points in three of his last four starts and will take on a Padres team he faced earlier this season, racking up 11 K’s and 58 FanDuel points!
If you are not playing Greinke you will need to pay $200 more for Dallas Keuchel who simply does not have the same K upside as Greinke or you can pay down to Yu Darvish in Texas who has failed to top 40 FD points or pitch more than 6 innings in any of his last three starts.
This is one of those slates where I simply do not see logical pivots off the top option so rather than force it, I think you can “eat the chalk” at starting pitcher and look to differentiate your line-up in other ways. Greinke is the clear top pitcher on this slate and if he does what Vegas and the underlying statistics imply that he will – the rest of the field will be chasing you with their sub-par pitching choices!
Update – Initially I was not looking for a pivot, but the more I dug into the slate the more I became intrigued by one Buck Farmer ($5,500). Farmer is the lowest priced pitcher on the slate but gets an exceptional match-up against a Mike Trout-less Angels line-up that does not have a single starter with an ISO over .180. Farmer made a spot start against the White Sox last week and flat out dominated with 11 K’s and 62 FanDuel points so we would be crazy to outright dismiss the Ole Farmer tonight against another weak line-up. In tournaments I like the idea of locking in Buck and picking an All-Star line-up of high priced hitters that have Scooter Gennett like upside.
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Reds LHB versus Lance Lynn: The Reds will take the field today in Great American Ball Park facing Lance Lynn, a pitcher who has struggled with left-handed power this season which sets up nicely for a mini-stack of the Reds left-handed bats. On the season, Lynn is giving up 31% hard contact and 2.54 HR/9 to left-handed batters and in a ball park like Great American, this could spell trouble due to his 41% fly ball rate to LHB.
Joey Votto ($4,100) is always in play and I expect Scott Schebler ($3,100) to be back in the line-up and both profile extremely well against Lynn. Billy Hamilton ($3,400) is a player who feasts on fastballs, the primary weapon of Lynn, and with Lynn’s elevated 14% BB rate to LHB this season, we could see Hamilton get on base and wreak havoc immediately.
The one player that I simply do not know what to do with is Tuesday Night’s hero, Scooter Gennett, who dropped 98 FanDuel points with 4 home runs and 10 RBI’s.
The game theory/GPP player tells me this is the easiest fade in the world, but my new favorite tool – RotoGrinders Plate IQ – shows that Scooter profiled exceptionally well against Lynn. Lynn throws 81% fastballs and primarily locates them down and in against LHB which is the hottest zone in Gennett’s heat map! At $2.2K in cash games I think you simply need to plug him in and in tournaments I am having a hard time finding a reason other than ownership to fade him but the spot looks great again!
Rangers LHB versus Zack Wheeler: The book on Wheeler is pretty straight forward – he is murder on right-handers but gets shelled by left-handers. On the season Wheeler is giving up 47% hard contact and a fly ball rate 16% higher to LHB which in Texas could spell trouble against the Rangers power lefties!
Joey Gallo ($3,500) has an absurd .319 ISO against RHP this season, crushes fastball/curveball pitchers – the two most commonly thrown pitches in Wheeler’s arsenal! Nomar Mazara ($3,400) is the perfect addition to a mini-stack here with his .202 ISO and .357 wOBA and is coming off a big night Tuesday where he went 4 for 5 with a home run and 31 FD points!
Arizona versus Luis Perdomo: Perdomo is not a guy I target hitters against often due to his high ground ball rate but he will have to pitch in Chase Field against an Arizona team that lit him up for 8 runs in only 3 innings the last time they faced off!
Perdomo is a fastball/curveball pitcher who will have to contend with Jake Lamb ($3,900) and his .300 ISO against RHP this season! Lamb is perhaps the top play on the board and can be easily paired with some cost-effective options at tough to fill positions like Chris Herrmann ($2,100) or Chris Owings ($2,700) to help fill in a weak C/SS pool tonight!
FanDuel MLB – Same GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Zack Greinke ($10,700)
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C: Chris Herrmann ($2,100)
1B: Joey Gallo ($3,500)
2B: Scooter Gennett ($2,200)
3B: Jake Lamb ($3,900)
SS: Chris Owings ($2,700)
OF: Scott Schebler ($3,100)
OF: Nomar Mazara ($3,400)
OF: Billy Hamilton ($3,400)
Slate Overview: From a pitching perspective, keep it simple – play Zack Greinke. When building your line-up, I think this is a great spot to take the approach of more mini-stacks, focusing on 2-3 man stacks in premier match-ups as opposed to a full on team stack. I have mentioned this multiple times lately but the winning teams each night seem to deploy this approach with frequent success!
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!