FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 16
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 below our season average as it took 249.6 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 79 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.1 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 79 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.1 points.
Thursday’s winning GPP roster build was amazingly simple in terms of following “traditional” GPP roster theory as the winning team game stacked the Rockies/Giants in Coors Field which delivered with 19 total runs scored. This roster utilized two of the top value plays in the OF to make it work – Mallex Smith and Brian Goodwin who were both near minimum price but it was starting pitcher where they really differentiated and took Nick Pivetta at 0.6% ownership against Chris Sale who delivered 52 FanDuel points in a 7 inning, 9 k outing! The line-up was essentially the “chalk” build but they made one bold choice at SP that made all the difference!
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:
I would expect the overwhelming narrative today to be – do I pay up for Max Scherzer or Coors Field? What if I told you that my answer was neither and we can effectively fade both on this large Friday slate!
Listen, Scherzer is arguably the top arm on the slate but at $12,400 pitching in Citi Field against a Mets team that has put up 8 ER against him in two starts this season seems like an over pay. Now the one thing I will say is that outside of Chris Sale last night, we have seen the “tournament pivot” arms gain significant ownership traction the last few days which has actually left the aces under-owned (Kershaw and Kluber both 10-15%) so if we get the feeling Max will be under-owned he could make for an interesting GPP play.
That said, there are two arms sitting at essentially the same price point who have similar strikeout upside to Mad Max and are priced $2.5k cheaper! Luis Severino ($9,900) and Carlos Martinez ($9,800) are the next highest priced pitchers but remain at a relatively material discount off Scherzer tonight on a slate where every dollar counts.
Severino will get a road start in Oakland against an A’s team that has the third highest K rate in all of baseball this season against right-handed pitching while his advanced metrics while not as dominant as Scherzer are simply outstanding across the board. Severino has a 28% K rate, 12.1% swinging strike rate and a dominant 54.7% ground ball rate and has at least 7 K’s and less than 2 ER’s in each of his last five starts while posting 50+ FanDuel points in three of those five outings.
Martinez gets a road start in Camden Yards against the Orioles and is coming off an incredible 70 FanDuel point, 11 K outing against the Phillies his last time out. In fact, Martinez has struck out 8 or more batters in each of his last four starts with similar metrics to Severino – 28.1% K rate, 10.8% swinging strike rate and a 51% ground ball rate.
From a roster build perspective, if you are pivoting away from Scherzer you are going to need an arm that has similar strikeout and big game upside and from my perspective Severino/Martinez are the clear plays in that thought process. Personally, I love that they are priced essentially the same as I have mentioned I am a two-lineup guy – where I prefer to build the same core with slight pivots across two lines in all my contests. By using Severino/Martinez you can essentially have the exact same roster build/batters with slight differences at starting pitcher to differentiate your lineups and give yourself some contingency instead of going all in on one versus the other!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
As I mentioned in my pitcher breakdown, I expect the first question to be Scherzer or Coors Field for the majority of DFS players today. Last night on a seven game slate and Matt Moore pitching it made sense to eat the chalk but tonight on a 15 game slate with 5 other teams projected to score 5 or more runs, I think you can easily pivot off Coors Field in equally advantageous hitting environments.
Dodgers in Great American Ballpark versus Tim Adleman: The first stop on my Fade Coors train takes us to the Great American Small Park where the Dodgers get to face off with a fly ball pitcher giving up nearly 2 HR/9 this season.
Adleman has been particularly generous to left-handed batters this season with a 2.1 HR/9, 54% fly ball rate with a 15%k compared to an 11% walk rate. The Dodgers are absolutely loaded with left-handed bats and with Adrian Gonzalez out of the line-up, the core stack here simply aligns perfectly.
Adleman is a predominately fast ball pitcher (over 65% of the time to left-handed bats this season) who will make in a change-up nearly 25% of the time but he simply doesn’t have the velocity or swinging strike rate to neutralize a line-up like the Dodgers in this great hitting environment. The lefties in this line-up have a .207 ISO against RHP this season which is driven by Cody Bellinger ($3,800) and his .333 ISO this season but honestly all of these players are squarely in play due to their recent hot streak.
Over the past 15 days the Dodgers bats have been on fire with Bellinger (16.5), Chris Taylor (14.1), Corey Seager (11.7) and Justin Turner (10.3) all averaging double-digit FanDuel points per game! This is the top stack in the board in my mind if you are looking to move away from Coors Field tonight!
Mariners in Texas and Brewers in Miller Park: I am lumping these two teams together because frankly they are in almost identical environments – incredibly favorable hitting spots against relatively unknown pitchers!
The Mariners will take on Tyson Ross (remember him?) who was a dominant pitcher for the Padres before an injury derailed his career and we have essentially not seen him since 2015 so using advanced stats here may be a bit meaningless. Ross struggled in his AAA rehab outings this year putting up a 7.7 ERA and 1.9 WHIP over 4 starts and with the Mariners prices relatively cheap we can get exposure here with players like Robinson Cano ($3,300) and Ben Gamel ($3,300).
The Brewers meanwhile will take on Miguel Diaz, a former hard throwing Milwaukee prospect who made his first start of the year last time out for the Padres and only was able to last two innings before losing control and leaving the bases loaded before getting the hook. Eric Thames ($3,300) and Travis Shaw ($3,700) are both reasonably priced here and you can make an easy mini-stack here with two high upside hitters in any roster construction!
Mets versus Scherzer: The reason I bring this one up is that FanDuel gave the Mets bats the “Kershaw treatment” and priced them all at substantial discounts which is perfect if you need salary savings and intend to fade Max! The Mets have legit BvP success against Scherzer with Michael Conforto ($2,700) going 6 for 15 with 3 home runs and Travis d’Arnaud ($2,000) going 2 for 4 with 2 HR’s this season against him! I am not advocating a stack here against Max but if you need some salary savings you can look to the Mets power bats as one off’s as Scherzer’s one Achilles heel is that he gives up HR’s!
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Luis Severino ($9,900)
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C: Travis d’Arnaud ($2,000)
1B: Eric Thames ($3,300)
2B: Robinson Cano ($3,300)
3B: Travis Shaw ($3,700)
SS: Corey Seager ($3,700)
OF: Ben Gamel ($3,300)
OF: Chris Taylor ($3,100)
OF: Michael Conforto ($2,700)
Slate Overview: As I mentioned, I expect most to look at this slate and struggle with Scherzer versus Coors but I hopefully made the case to you that you can fade both entirely with a variety of spots that are equally as good. With 7 total teams projected for 5+ runs I think you can afford to spread your offensive exposure and with high K arms like Severino and Martinez priced at a 20% discount off Scherzer, you can easily take the savings and capture similar upside!
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!