FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 18

Welcome to the Sunday Father’s Day 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 well above our season average as it took 292 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 81 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.4 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 81 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.4 points.

Saturday’s Early Slate (which really should have been the Main Slate) delivered with some big time scores as the offenses again carried the day with the Orioles exploding for 15 runs while the Dodgers bats that we featured in Picks and Pivots grabbed 10 runs of their own! If you look across the winning GPP line-up, the winning teams went heavy on the stacking approach with 4 man Dodgers/Orioles stacks which is what delivered them a big time GPP DFS day!

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!

Top FanDuel MLB – Top Starting Pitcher Pick:

Robbie Ray ($11,000) versus Philadelphia: When looking over the Main Slate pitching options Ray stands alone at the top with a $11k price tag before you drop down to Jacob deGrom ($9,800) and then to a variety of GPP dart throws. Writing up Ray feels like the easy way out on this slate but sometimes DFS is not about getting cute and simply playing the match-ups and plays you feel are the clear best regardless of ownership.

Ray checks all the boxes for a pitcher in DFS as he has an elite K rate (32.4%) and swinging strike rate (13.9%) and has been installed as a -140 road favorite in Philadelphia. Ray has taken his game to another level in his recent starts with three straight games posting double-digit K’s and 60+ FanDuel points!

Over those three games Ray has posted a K rate north of 40% and a swinging strike rate of nearly 17% which would be substantially higher than his season long marks and puts him in a “fade at your own risk” territory.

If you are going to fade (I won’t be) then I would recommend you drop ALL the way down to Jacob Faria ($6,500) who although he has a tough match-up against the Tigers, has shown the elite advanced metrics that make him a tremendous DFS asset. Faria has delivered 41 and 50 FanDuel points over his first two starts against Toronto and the White Sox with a swinging strike rate of nearly 17% which is the highest mark on the slate. The risk of facing the Tigers bats is already heavily priced in here and if you choose to drop down to Faria you can essentially pick and choose whatever bats you want today!

FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:

Los Angeles Dodgers versus Bronson Arroyo: I haven’t had a chance to wish all the Dad’s out there a Happy Father’s Day so let me do so in this section – my gift to all you hard-working Dad’s is Bronson Arroyo in Great American Ball Park against a power packed under priced Dodgers squad!

Seriously sometimes you just need to keep it simple in DFS and after two days of stacking the Dodgers in Picks and Pivots, I am certainly not jumping off now with the best possible match-up they could ask for. The Dodgers have the highest implied team total on the slate (5.6 runs) and take on a pitcher with a 13% K rate and only a 30% GB rate which spells trouble in this hitter’s park!

Arroyo this season is giving up 4.62 HR/9 against left-handed hitters – seriously that is not a typo – he has given up 13 HR’s in 25 IP versus LHB to go along with a 38.5% hard contact rate and 58% fly ball rate.

All the Dodgers left-handed bats are in play here including Corey Seager ($3,500), Cody Bellinger ($3,900) and Joc Pederson ($2,900) but you can also utilize Justin Turner ($3,600) who has a .217 ISO and .385 wOBA against RHP the last two seasons which is the highest mark of any Dodger hitter. Just simply get four Dodgers in your line-up today and move on!

New York Mets versus Joe Ross: If you start your rosters with Robbie Ray and the four man Dodgers stack I mentioned you will only have $2,500 per player to round out the remaining four spots on your line-up so it will be difficult to find a value stack with upside but I believe the Mets bats are a solid place to start!

Joe Ross is an absolute mess against left-handed bats as he sports 38% hard contact rate and is giving up 2.84 HR/9 on the season. Ross faced this Mets team earlier this season and gave up 5 ER in only 4 innings of work including two home runs to Jay Bruce and Rene Rivera. Considering we need salary savings and we want to focus on left-handed power hitters – the trio of Lucas Duda ($2,700), Jay Bruce ($3,000) and Michael Conforto ($3,200) is all squarely in play today and can be used as a nice two-three man stack around the Dodgers bats in this Robbie Ray roster construction!

FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:

P: Robbie Ray ($11,000) 

C: 2-2.3k punt catcher

1B: Lucas Duda ($2,700)

2B: Paul DeJong ($2,100) DeJong is absolutely on fire right now with back to back games putting up a home run and totaling over 63 FanDuel points in the process!

3B: Justin Turner ($3,600)

SS: Corey Seager ($3,500)

OF: Cody Bellinger ($3,900)

OF: Joc Pederson ($2,900)

OF: Jay Bruce ($3,000)

Slate Overview: This slate really breaks down quite simply for me – I am locking in Robbie Ray and a four man Dodgers stack as the core of my roster and will mix and match with the Mets power bats at discounted prices to fill in my roster! As with any Sunday slate keep an eye out on lineup news and we could see rest days around the league which open up unexpected value which frankly would be a welcome sight with this roster build!

Next: Fantasy Football Dynasty Preview

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!