FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – July 4 Early Slate

Welcome to the Tuesday July 4th FanDuel MLB edition of Picks and Pivots, a fantasy baseball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for today’s Early 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!

Monday’s Main winning GPP scores were just above our season average as it took 280.9 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 97 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 263.7 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 97 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 263.7 points.

Monday’s FanDuel winning GPP rosters were built around an over-looked Cardinals stack that erupted for 14 runs against Jeff Locke and the Marlins and when combined with Picks and Pivots pitcher Masahiro Tanaka, who delivered 52 FanDuel points on the back of 8 K’s over 7 innings, we were left with a winning tournament roster!

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 (EARLY):

First off, Happy Fourth of July to each of you Picks and Pivots readers – I hope you get to enjoy a great day with family and friends and a full day of MLB DFS action! Today’s DFS baseball is split into two nice size slates and with tons of big tournaments at FanDuel, this is a great day to build some lineups!

On the Early Slate we get an elite pitcher’s duel in Wrigley Field between Jon Lester and Chris Archer and Michael Fulmerat home against the Giants but the pitcher that stands out the most to me in tournaments in Brewers right-hander Jimmy Nelson ($9,000) who gets a home start against the Baltimore Orioles.

Nelson throughout his career has pitched to an ERA 1.5 runs lower at home than on the road and this season has pitched to a 2.64 ERA with a 26% K rate and only 0.62 HR/9 allowed in Miller Park. Today he takes on an Orioles team with the 9th highest K rate (22.8%) against right-handed pitching and will lose the benefit of a DH in the NL park.

Nelson has the raw strikeout stuff we are looking for when selecting our DFS arm as he has the second highest K rate and swinging strike rate on the slate behind Chris Archer. Over his last seven games Nelson has a K rate over 31% with a swinging strike rate of 14% or more in each of his last three outings.

Nelson’s ability to limit hard contact and home runs this season at home has been a direct result of a change in his approach with better command on his fastball and improved curve ball. As with any DFS slate I am going to look for strikeout upside when selecting my starting pitcher and considering Nelson has double-digit K’s in four of his last seven games he is my preferred arm to build around on this slate!

FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks (EARLY):

Looking over this slate there are a few pitchers that will likely become the trendy “stack against” spots with Ubaldo Jimenez, Matt Cain and James Shields on the mound and although I can certainly see the merit in those spots I think we can take a different approach when building our team.

New York Yankees versus J.A. Happ: With J.A. Happ and C.C. Sabathia on the mound in Yankee Stadium this is a boom or bust spot as we have two dynamic offenses going against each other. When looking at which offense to target in this game I am going to side with the power Yankee bats against J.A. Happ as Happ has given up 2 HR in a game in four of his nine starts this season!

Happ has given up 34% hard contact to right-handed hitters this season and his over reliance on his fastball (nearly 80% of his pitches are fastballs) that sits in the low 90’s makes him a pitcher I am willing to stack against. When digging into his pitch profile on RotoGrinders Plate IQ what really stood out to me is he works primarily low and in against right-handed hitters which is the wheelhouse for Gary Sanchez ($3,700) and Aaron Judge ($4,800). Against left-handed hitters he works primarily low in the zone which is where Didi Gregorious ($3,200) is best against lefties so this is a great place to mini-stack and home run hunt on a day the Yankees could be over looked.

Pittsburgh Pirates versus RHP Mark Leiter Jr.: It is not often I look to stack the Pirates but today in a great hitters park in Philadelphia against one of the worst arms on the slate, I think this is a sneaky place to build a stack! This game only has a 8.5 projected run total so I would expect it is largely ignored on this slate which is exactly what we are looking for in GPP’s!

Leiter has only made two starts this season but gave up three home runs against the Mariners in his last outing and considering this is a pitcher with only a 6% swinging strike and a 12% walk rate, I have no issue with loading up on the cost-effective Pirates! Josh Bell ($2,800), Josh Harrison ($2,900) and Adam Frazier ($2,900) are all priced under $3k on FanDuel and you can lock in Andrew McCutchen ($3,700) for a complete 1-4 Pirates stack that will be virtually un-owned!

FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-Up and Slate Overview (EARLY)

P: Jimmy Nelson ($9,000) 

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C: Gary Sanchez ($3,700)

1B: Josh Bell ($2,800)

2B: Josh Harrison ($2,900)

3B: Matt Chapman ($2,000) Chapman returned to the A’s line-up yesterday ans was inserted into the #2 spot – if he is sitting there again today against James Shields he becomes an elite value play!

SS: Didi Gregorious ($3,200)

OF: Adam Frazier ($2,900)

OF: Andrew McCutchen ($3,700)

OF: Aaron Judge ($4,800)

Slate Overview: Looking over this slate I think there are a few offensive spots that will become chalk as the Tigers have the highest projected run total against Matt Cain and we will see experts across the industry looking to attack James Shields and Ubaldo Jimenez. I think we can build a completely different roster by avoiding those trendy picks with the same offensive firepower all while locking in a top arm on FanDuel. This is a great GPP slate because there is no “obvious” arm to lock in so I think pitching ownership will be largely spread out today!

Next: DraftKings Early MLB Picks

Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest roster news and lineup updates on Twitter!