FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – June 20
Welcome to the Tuesday 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!
Monday’s Main winning GPP scores were right above our season average as it took 285.2 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 83 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.8 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 83 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.8 points.
Monday’s winning GPP entries had a common theme of fading the chalk high-priced pitcher (Clayton Kershaw), pivoting down to Brad Peacock as a high upside K arm and then loading up on bats! The Indians were the team to stack as they erupted for 12 runs and the one-off plays of Mike Zunino (47.4 FD points) and Cody Bellinger (47.4) were enough to take down the biggest tournaments on FanDuel Monday night!
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:
Let’s not bury the lead here – the question of the day is going to be whether or not you roster Chris Sale ($11,700) who is the clear top dog on this slate in a road start in Kansas City. Go down the line of the advanced metrics and Sale is the unquestioned best DFS play on this slate as he has the highest K rate, over 6% higher than the next closest arm while having the highest swinging strike rate and lowest HR/FB ratio.
Every single metric points towards him being the best and if we played this slate 100 times I am sure he would be the top pitcher 90 of those slates but in the words of Little Giants linebacker Becky “The Ice Box” O’ Shea, all it takes is ONE TIME!
On last night’s slate, Clayton Kershaw was the clear “best” arm but we had legit pivots at the top end in Corey Kluber and high upside mid-tier plays like Brad Peacock, and even with all that, Kershaw was still 25% owned in GPP’s. Looking over this slate I think 25% is the floor of the Sale ownership and we could see 30% or more which regardless of ability, I am simply not going to roster that much chalk on a huge slate like this. How did that turn out for Kershaw last night?
The higher priced arms are frankly not all that enticing which leads me to drop down to the Astros top pitching prospect Francis Martes ($6,500) who will take the hill in Oakland for his second Major League start. Martes is a power throwing right-handed arm who has demonstrated a K rate of 25% in the minor leagues and has put up 23.1% through his first two appearances in the bigs.
The metric that really stands out for me with Martes is the swinging strike rate which stands art13.3% thus far. Martes will get the same exact match-up we saw last night for Brad Peacock against an A’s team that strikes out at the third highest rate in all of baseball against right-handed pitching. In that match-up, Peacock generated a 17% swinging strike rate so this seems like a similarly perfect match-up for Martes to exploit.
Martes relies heavily on his fastball which sits at 94-96 MPH with a devastating power curve that he throw 43% of the time in his last start against Texas which has generated a 23% swinging strike rate.
With 75 and 85 pitches in his first two appearances we could see Martes throw over 90 in this outing and with his strikeout ability could put up a 40+ FanDuel outing for a bargain price which would allow us to load up on bats tonight!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
New York Yankees at home versus RHP Parker Bridwell: With a game in Coors Field I would expect most of the “high-priced” ownership of bats to be concentrated in that game but the Yankees step back into the Bronx tonight with the second highest team total on the slate behind the Colorado Rockies with 5.5 runs.
After a six game West Coast trip where the Yankees went cold and the DFS luster wore off a bit for the shiny new toys of the week, this is by far my favorite spot to stack as the Yankees are back in their home stadium against a long reliever making a spot start for the injured Matt Shoemaker.
The major league numbers have been too small to really draw any material conclusions from Bridwell but this is a pitcher with a relatively pedestrian minor league resume who does not have exceptional swing and miss stuff and has given up nearly 40% hard contact so far this season.
The Yankee bats are all priced up which will likely leave them severely over-looked but a full on stack here is absolutely in play against Bridwell and the Angels pen in Yankee stadium and I will lock in guys like Aaron Judge ($4,700), Gary Sanchez ($3,900), Didi Gregorious ($3,300) and Starlin Castro ($3,400) to capitalize on the elite hitting environment.
A night for mini-stacks: With so many great hitting spots on tonight’s slate this could be a spot where you opt for more two-man mini-stacks then full on team stacks to spread your exposure around.
Chad Kuhl takes on the Brewers tonight in Miller Park and with his 1.67 HR/9 and 36.4% hard contact rate to left-handed batters we can feel free to fire up the duo of Eric Thames ($3,700) and Travis Shaw ($3,400) who will likely go over-looked again (both single digit owned last night) in a fantastic spot for home run upside!
The Indians have the third highest total on the board behind the Rockies/Yankees facing off against Chris Tillman who is giving up 33% hard contact and 2 HR/9 on the season. The Indians bats are priced very fairly across the board and we can mini-stack our IF with bats like Jason Kipnis ($3,300) and Francisco Lindor ($3,300) at the top of the Indians order.
Lastly, the Reds will play in Tampa Bay and face off with Alex Cobb who has given up 40% hard contact this season with a 10% walk rate to left-handed batters which could spell trouble against the speed of Billy Hamilton ($2,800) who could simply walk and steal two bases before the first inning has even gotten rolling!. Adam Duvall ($3,400) profiles extremely well against Cobb’s curve ball/splitter combo per the RotoGrinders Plate IQ and makes for a cheap source of power to pair with Hamilton as part of a under-owned Reds stack!
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-up and Slate Overview:
P: Francis Martes ($6,500)
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C: Gary Sanchez ($3,900)
1B: Eric Thames ($3,700)
2B: Jason Kipnis ($3,300)
3B: Travis Shaw ($3,400)
SS: Francisco Lindor ($3,300)
OF: Aaron Judge ($4,700)
OF: Adam Duvall ($3,400)
OF: Billy Hamilton ($2,800)
Slate Overview: This is a great GPP slate as there will be a clear game theory approach to fading the over-overwhelmingly popular Chris Sale. By dropping down to a high upside K arm like Martes you will be able to build a line-up of high-octane stars in elite hitting environments and if Sale is simply “average” today we would find ourselves with an immediate advantage over 25-30% of the 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!