FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 9
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 7:05 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!
Thursday’s Main winning GPP scores were right above our season average as it took 267.9 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 72 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.8 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 72 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.8 points.
Thursday’s Main Slate winning GPP roster was built around Joe Ross who dominated the Orioles line-up with 12 strikeouts and 65 FanDuel points over 7+ innings. Offensively it was the Yankee bats who continued their dominance of David Price as Gary Sanchez homered twice and scored 54 FanDuel points! The secondary stack that was used across many rosters was the Nationals and the two big guns in the roster – Trea Turner and Bryce Harper delivered with over 60 FD points between them!
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:
Looking over the Main Slate pitching options there is one clear elite arm – Corey Kluber ($10,500) who stands out not only in price as the only pitcher above $10k but also in match-up as he gets to take on the White Sox at home. Kluber will be the highest owned pitcher on this slate, I really see no way around it – as the pivot options at the top – Ervin Santana, Tanner Roark and Matt Shoemaker are not enticing enough to draw ownership away. Kluber has the ability to dominate as he showed with 10K’s against Oakland in his first start off the DL but I simply am not playing the chalk pitcher on a 14 game slate and will be rooting for the White Sox to knock Kluber out early!
Brad Peacock ($7,000): The pitching options right below Kluber are not overly enticing but there are some value arms on this slate I really like and I will more than likely be living in this range when building my tournament rosters tonight!
Peacock’s overall season numbers/fantasy output may not jump off the page as he has only recently transitioned into a starting role, making three straight starts ramping up to 85 pitches in his last outing. In those three starts, even with 70-80 pitch counts, Peacock has been a dominant strikeout pitcher with K outputs of 8, 8 and 9 in those three outings – 25 total in 15 innings of work.
If you are fading Kluber you need to find a pitcher who can offer you similar K upside and for my money, Peacock gives you the biggest bang for your buck!
In his three starts this season, Peacock has a 37% or higher K rate in each game (33% in total on the season as a starter/reliever), with a 13.7% swinging strike rate which is second only to Kluber on this slate!
Peacock is a massive -182 home favorite and his opponent, the Angels, have the third lowest team total of any team on the board tonight. The upside is VERY real with Peacock and he makes for an elite GPP play on this slate that allows you to build a completely different roster than those who decide to pay the extra $3.5K for Kluber!
If you are looking for a pivot, the one player who stands out in the same price range is Jordan Montgomery ($6,700) who gets a home start against the Orioles. The Orioles are a team we have attacked all year-long with LHP as they have the fifth highest K rate (25.3%) against lefties this season and Montgomery was able to punch out 7 Orioles in their previous meeting this season.
From an advanced stats perspective, Montgomery has a 12.6% swinging strike rate, the third highest on the slate behind Kluber/Peacock but what sets him apart in this spot is his elite ability to limit hard contact as his 24% hard contact rate is by far the lowest on the slate!
When looking for pivot plays, I want to identify players in elite spots that sit at similar price points to my top choice so that I can essentially build the same core roster so moving between Peacock/Montgomery tonight is the perfect set-up for me and will be the basis for how I approach this Friday slate!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
Chase Field: Any time we have a game in Chase Field it is going to be a top hitting target – any time we have confirmation (which we do) that the roof is going to be open, well it becomes a near must play! The one tricky part on this slate is that we have an Arizona team that will be facing a Milwaukee squad that profiles roster wise very similarly from a DFS perspective with the 1B/3B combo of each team being the preferred core!
What it comes down to in this spot for me is the opposing pitcher and although I love Eric Thames/Travis Shaw as a pairing, the Arizona bats have the better pure match-up against Zach Davies.
The one thing I will say for Thames/Shaw as a pairing is that the pricing is criminally low in this spot with Thames at $3,000 and Shaw at $3,500 which is a substantial savings off Goldy/Lamb and works perfectly if you intend to pay up for Kluber tonight.
Davies this season is giving up 1.4 HR/9 and 32% hard contact with a 15.4 HR/FB rate which are markedly worse metrics than his opponent, Randall Delgado. The big hitters in the Arizona line-up are the clear top targets here with a 2-4 stack of David Peralta ($3,400), Paul Goldschmidt ($4,500) and Jake Lamb ($4,200)!
Mets/Atlanta in Sun Trust Park: As a Mets fan, I have historically watched Julio Teheran dominate the Mets, but this season Teheran looks like a completely different pitcher and especially at home is someone who profiles as a great stack against candidate!
On the year, Teheran is giving up 2.7 HR/9 and a 32% hard contact rate in Sun Trust Park and when you break that down further to LHB at home the number spike to 4.4 HR/9 and 40% hard contact!
Obviously it is a small sample size but there is clearly something about Teheran in this new park that profiles extremely well for opposing left-handed hitters and we saw this left-handed heavy Mets team drop 6 ER against him the last time he took the mound against them in Atlanta.
The 1-4 stack here is firmly in play with Michael Conforto ($4,000), Asdrubal Cabrera ($2,900), Jay Bruce ($3,600) and Neil Walker ($3,300) all set up for big nights in one of the best hitting environments in baseball!
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Brad Peacock ($7,000)
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C: Sandy Leon ($2,100)
1B: Paul Goldschmidt ($4,500)
2B: Neil Walker ($3,300)
3B: Jake Lamb ($4,200)
SS: Asdrubal Cabrera ($2,800)
OF: Michael Conforto ($4,000)
OF: Jay Bruce ($3,600)
OF: David Peralta ($3,400)
Slate Overview: Although Corey Kluber is the top SP option on the slate, there are viable high upside alternative at bargain price that allow you to stack two offenses in ideal hitting environments tonight. If you choose to drop down and save the $3-4k with Peacock/Montgomery you literally do not have to sacrifice any offensive upside (as you would with Kluber). On larger slates like this I tend not to over think ownership when looking at my hitter’s so even though I expect Arizona to be popular, I am happy to eat the chalk and will look to differentiate at SP!
As I mentioned, the Thames/Shaw combo costs only $6.5k as compared to $8.7K with Goldy/Lamb so you can take that $2.2k savings and move up to Kluber if you want to go that route while still getting exposure to Chase Field.
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!