FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 11
Welcome to the Sunday 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 1:05 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!
Saturday’s Main winning GPP scores were right above our season average as it took 273.4 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 74 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.9 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 74 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.9 points.
Saturday’s Main slate winning line-ups essentially boiled down to whether or not you maxed out your Yankees exposure and then which batters you chose within that subset! The Yankees bats went off for 16 runs and three players in the Bombers lineup went for 40+ FanDuel points, Gary Sanchez, Matt Holliday and Aaron Judge. Continuing with the Yankees theme, Luis Severino was flat-out dominant again with 52 FD points, racking up 8 K’s over 7 easy innings against the Orioles.
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:
Chirs Archer ($11,000): If you play MLB DFS each day you will notice trends in your roster construction and how you tend to gravitate towards certain match-ups. One of those spots for me is Chris Archer whenever he is pitching at home as he becomes an immediate lock and load play!
Archer is an elite pitcher no matter where he toes the rubber but there is something about Tropicana Field that pushes his game to another level. Digging into the statistics this season, Archer has a 23.1% K rate on the road which spikes to a massive 36.4% when he pitches at home – a 13% K rate jump!
Take a stroll through Archer’s game logs this season and you will see he has struck out at LEAST 11 batters in each of his last four home starts and today will take on a Oakland team that has a 24.7% K rate against RHP which is the 4th highest mark in all of major league baseball.
Sometimes it is important to look at your roster approach in previous days and try to learn from them and I think Saturday’s Early Slate has a very similar feel to today’s pitching slate. On yesterday’s Early Slate, Carlos Martinez was the clear top arm against the Phillies but we took an approach of fade the chalk, go with a 1% owned arm in Trevor Williams and load up on bats! Well, Martinez went off for 11 K’s and 70 FD points and we were left dead in the water across our entries!
Look at today’s slate and it has a very similar look and feel as Archer has the clearest path to huge DFS outing and has the opponent to put up a massive K performance. I am not going to make that mistake again today and will happily lock in a pitcher who dominates at home against a line-up that strikes out in bunches versus RHP!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks
New York Yankees versus Kevin Gausman: The chalk stack of the day! The Yankees bats are red-hot, are at home and are facing one of the most hittable pitchers in baseball this season in Kevin Gausman – let’s be clear that this will be the first place everyone looks today!
Now game theory aside, this is not a spot I think we can all out fade as Gausman is giving up 34% hard contact and 1.5 HR/9 with no dominant platoon splits so we can essentially lock in whichever Yankee hitters we want!
From a roster build perspective, 2B/SS is the hardest position to fill today so I think stacking up Starlin Castro ($3,100) and Didi Gregorious ($3,100) who both homered on Saturday Night is a great way to get exposure to this game while filling two difficult FanDuel roster spots!
Cubs with the wind blowing out in Wrigley: Remember yesterday when the wind was blowing out in Wrigley, the game had a 13 total and everyone ran to this game and was let down? Yeah, I fell victim to it too, it left a bad taste in my mouth and I suspect most others feel the same way which is EXACTLY why we should go back to the well today!
The wind is blowing out at 15-20 MPH again in Wrigley Field and with the Yankees being the most popular stack it could leave the Cubs bats to be under owned in this spot! Antonio Senzatela will tow the rubber for the Rockies and although he has been very good this year, he has shown vulnerability to LHB with a 1.42 HR/9 and 33% hard contact rate!
Anthony Rizzo ($4,200) is the premier play here and we can utilize any number of left-handed OF bats with Ben Zobrist ($3,000), Jason Heyward ($3,000) and Kyle Schwarber ($2,500) all at value prices. Do not overlook Miguel Montero at only $2,000 as a punt catcher option if he breaks the line-up today!
Mets Right-Handed Bats versus Jamie Garcia in Atlanta: If you played yesterday’s Early and Main FanDuel slates you did not have the chance to play any Mets/Braves bats but there was one piece of news that came out of yesterday that we need to pay attention to – Yoenis Cespedes is back!
In his first game back off the DL, Cespedes walked to the plate and absolutely crushed a Grand Slam!
Today the Mets will take on Jaime Garcia, a pitcher who has been exceptional against LHB this season but has given up 1 HR/9 to right-handed hitters at home this season. The Mets are not an offense that up until now we have been able to utilize with right-handed bats but the Cespedes return gives us a fantastic opportunity for a mini-stack of Wilmer Flores ($2,800) and Yoenis Cespedes ($3,800) that will likely be over-looked with the focus of the day on the crosstown Yankee bats!
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Chris Archer ($11,000)
More from FanSided
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- Inside the Clubhouse: What I’m hearing as the MLB Trade Deadline nears
- Yankees: Luis Severino has blunt assessment of another miserable outing
- Bills: 3 2023 roster holes that could cost Josh Allen a Super Bowl
- Colts RB Jonathan Taylor shoots down rumors of troubling injury
C: Miguel Montero ($2,000)
1B: Anthony Rizzo ($4,200)
2B: Starlin Castro ($3,100)
3B: Wilmer Flores ($2,800)
SS: Didi Gregorious ($3,100)
OF: Yoenis Cespedes ($3,800)
OF: Jason Heyward ($3,000)
OF: Mallex Smith ($2,000) Sometimes DFS mystifies me and Mallex Smith ownership on Saturday was truly baffling. We had a short slate, Smith was coming off a monster 52 FD point outing and was back in the lead-off spot at only $2k yet was owned at only 15% clip in GPP’s! Smith was back in the lead-off spot again yesterday, stole another base and is still priced at $2k today! I am going to keep playing this guy if he is going to stay minimum priced and is left under-owned!
Slate Overview: My gut reaction on this slate was to lock in Chris Archer at home and then stack as many Yankee bats as I could against Kevin Gausman. I expect the Yankee approach will be highly popular so this is where I make my GPP stand and look to pivot off them with the Mets right-handed bats and the Cubs hitters with the wind blowing out in Wrigley one day after they let everyone down! Good luck today all!
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!