FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 15
Welcome to the Thursday 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!
Wednesday’s Main winning GPP scores were right above our season average as it took 272.7 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 78 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.2 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 78 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.2 points.
Wednesday’s Main Slate was set up for another offensive evening with a variety of blow up prone pitchers on the slate but outside of the Houston offense (13 runs) and Mookie Betts ( 56 FD points), the rest of the league was relative blah. From a pitching perspective, Francisco Liriano was one of the highest owned pitcher’s in GPP’s but he also came through with a winning score of 46 FD points on the back 7 innings and 9k’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:
The last few days of MLB DFS have been incredibly interesting to watch unfold as we have seen some interesting trends in how players are treating the top arms when it comes to tournaments. On Monday, Stephen Strasburg was over 30% owned in GPP’s and proceeded to put up a dud against the Braves and we saw the recency bias immediately the next night where gamers moved away from top arms in imperfect spots as Clayton Kershaw was 10-13% owned in GPP’s.
Last night was really no different either as Corey Kluber was 15-16% owned while the masses opted for the “tournament pivot” in Michael Pineda who was nearly 30% owned in GPP’s. So the question is – are we seeing a trend in roster build for large field tournaments where the masses avoid the high-priced arms?
Tonight will be a great way to test out that recent trend as we have one clear top arm – Chris Sale ($11,500) taking the mound in Philadelphia. Sale has the highest K rate and swinging strike rate of any pitcher on the slate and is a massive -200 road favorite with the Phillies projected to score the fewest points of any team in action.
Sale literally checks every box you could ask for when selecting your pitcher on a one arm site like FanDuel but with a game in Coors Field and the recent trends fresh in our mind, will we see Sale go under-owned? My take on Sale is that he is the one arm in DFS that seems to be universally highly owned each and every slate so I have a feeling he will be 20-30% owned again tonight. In his last start, a split slate Saturday game with only 6 total games he was over 25% owned in GPP’s with guys like Severino, Stroman and Wood all taking the hill the same day.
The pivot options today are not nearly as apparent so this feels like a day where the narrative will be – “just pay up for Sales, he has the highest floor and highest ceiling of any pitcher in action.”
That being said, I think there is one pivot option that stands out for me in GPP’s today and that is Jordan Montgomery ($7,500) who gets a road start against Oakland. Montgomery’s advanced stats on the season really stand out when compared to the rest of our options as he has a 12.7% swinging strike rate (third highest on the slate) and gives up only 25% hard contact and 7% HR/FB rate which are both top 3 marks on today’s action.
Montgomery is facing off with a Oakland team that strikes out at a 25.3% clip against LHP which is the 4th highest mark in all of baseball. In his last start against the Orioles, a team similar in strike-out rate versus LHP this season, Montgomery racked up 8 K’s and 49 FD points after putting up 43 FD points the start before that.
For comparison sake Chris Sale has 43 and 46 FD points in his last two starts and costs $4k more today.
On a short slate like this we need to take stands and my perspective is that the masses will flock towards the “safety” of the top arm but I will let them chase that upside in Citizen’s Bank Park and I will look to pivot down to an arm with discounted strikeout ability in an elite match-up!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Rockies in Coors Field versus LHP Matt Moore: The Rockies have a game in Coors Field and are the highest projected scoring team on the slate and will face off against a left-hander in Matt Moore who they have already touched up for 11 ER in two starts this season!
In those games, Moore surrendered home runs to Charlie Blackmon, Nolan Arenado, Mark Reynolds and Trevor Story and you had 6 Rockies batters hitting .400 or more in those two contests (one in Coors and one in SF).
This is THE premier spot for offense today and normally I am an all-out fade Coors kinda guy but the price points on a short slate like this are reasonable enough where we can easily stack four Rockies hitters if we are not paying up for Sale.
In looking through the RotoGrinders Plate IQ tool, Moore is a guy who throws – Fastball, Curverball, Change-up and Cutter – and all the big time righties in the Rockies line-up profile exceptionally well against those pitch types. Assuming the Rockies throw out their normal line-up you can fully stack the 2-5 right-handed batters here with D.J. LeMahieu ($3,400), Nolan Arenado ($4,600), Mark Reynolds ($4,000) and Ian Desmond ($3,800) and hope to capitalize on the slate leading 5.9 projected Rockies run total!
Mets RHP versus Gio Gonzalez: As a Mets fan, I have seen enough of Gio Gonzalez against this team to know that his propensity for a blow up is exactly what we want to target in GPP’s and I also know that there are hitters on this team that absolutely own him!
Juan Lagares ($2,300) will likely bat lead-off again today for the Mets and is putting up over 15 FD points per game as the lead-off hitter versus LHP this week. In his career, Lagares is 15 for 38 (.395 average) with one home run against Gio and would make for an elite value OF play tonight. You can easily pair him with Yoenis Cespedes ($3,600) who has seen his price come down $300 since his DL activation over the weekend and has similar BvP history going 6 for 10 with 2 home runs against Gio! I love the Lagares-Cespedes mini-stack in this spot at incredibly reasonable price points!
FanDuel MLB: Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Jordan Montgomery ($7,500)
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- 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: Martin Maldanado ($2,200)
1B: Mark Reynolds ($4,000)
2B: D.J. LeMahieu ($3,400)
3B: Nolan Arenado ($4,600)
SS: Andrelton Simmons ($3,400)
OF: Ian Desmond ($3,800)
OF: Yoenis Cespedes ($3,600)
OF: Juan Lagares ($2,400)
Slate Overview: Today is another slate where I am really interested in listening to the industry chatter to see if the overwhelming narrative is that we “HAVE” to pay up for Chris Sale in this spot. With it being a short slate and no other obvious pivots, I suspect we will see Strasburg level 30%+ ownership which no matter the arm, is where I intend to jump off in GPP’s. I think you can capture a better point per dollar performance from an arm like Montgomery while stacking the high upside offensive bats in Coors 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!