FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – July 9 2017
Welcome to the Sunday 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 DFS action!
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!
PLAY FANDUEL: New users win first contest or get credited up to $120!
Saturday’s winning GPP scores were FAR BELOW our season average as it took 207.8 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 103 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 263.2 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 103 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 263.2 points.
Saturday’s Main Slate was one of the lowest scores slates I can recall recently which is amazing considering we had games in Coors, Chase and Arlington but it just goes to show the true variance that exists in DFS baseball. Although the Picks and Pivots bats (outside of Mr. Nolan Arenado) went quiet, our top pitching arm, Mike Clevinger came through with 40 FanDuel points at 15% ownership against the Tigers and was routinely found at the top of winning GPP lineups on Saturday 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:
Before we get into today’s slate, I want to sincerely thank each of you who come to Picks and Pivots each day, read our thoughts and interact with us across social media. Throughout the first half of the season, I have received countless numbers of messages thanking me for providing my insight and more importantly helping people think differently about their roster build. That frankly is what Picks and Pivots is all about – we are NOT a line-up provider, we do not kick out optimized lines so you can play them blindly and we are not a screenshot twitter monster who begs for re-tweets when we hit it big. We are here each and every day to provide you insight into our roster build based off our player by player research and we hope that this process has made you more knowledgeable, a better DFS player and hopefully made you some money to boot!
On to today’s slate, the last one before the All-Star Break, where we get a few days off from the MLB DFS grind so let’s make it a good one.
Brad Peacock ($8,100): On the final day before the break we have a number of great pitching options and one thing that could really skew your rosters today is line-up construction across MLB as the regulars may get a day off heading into the break leaving us with a ton of AAA caliber line-ups we can attack. More than any other day in baseball, this is one to keep an eye on the announced line-ups!
If there is one thing I hope you have taken away from my pitching choices this season, it is that I lean heavily on finding arms with high K rates and high swinging strike rates. In GPP play, strikeouts are gold and I am willing to take on risk in search of that upside.
Peacock may not have the same name value as others on this slate but the advanced metrics put him at the very top of our choices today as he sports a slate leading 35.1% K rate with a 13.7% swinging strike rate which is top 3 on today’s slate.
The match-up against a Blue Jays lineup with a ton of power bats may scare people away and when you add in the fact that Peacock is a road underdog and the Blue Jays have a 4.83 projected run total (0.7 runs higher than their season average), most will likely look for safer choices which could lead to reduced ownership.
What I love about Peacock is the pitch profile as the Blue Jays are one of the worst teams in baseball against the slider. Peacock throws his slider a whopping 36% of the time this season with an absurd 22% swinging strike rate.
Peacock comes into today’s game throwing between 96-106 pitches in each of his last three starts while averaging 8 K’s per game and has 39 or more FanDuel points in five of his last six starts. At only $8.1K today, Peacock gives you the salary savings to spend up on some of the slate’s premier bats while allowing you to capture elite K upside – All. In.
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
With so many great arms on today’s slate it makes finding the exploitable hitting environments tougher to narrow down. Between Jon Lester, Chris Archer, Yu Darvish, Jimmy Nelson, Masahiro Tanaka and David Price we have six elite arms I am not in a rush to pick on and with Peacock as our starting pitcher, I am ruling out 7 of the 20 offenses on this slate before we even get started!
Coors Field Chalk?: With a 12 projected game total in Coors, it is not hard to find the first spot everyone will look for offense but that does not mean that it is not the right place to go. You may think Arenado will be the chalk because he is facing a left-handed pitching at home as he was yesterday but considering that he was only 13% owned in GPP’s yesterday shows you that sometimes the “obvious” chalk gets ignored as everyone plays game theory.
Nolan Arenado ($4,700) will be the first person in my line-ups today as he faces off against LHP Carlos Rodon and will look to make a mini-stack by adding SS Trevor Story ($3,600) to help not only fill a weak SS position but get me exposure to the highest projected scoring team on the slate.
Rangers left-handed bats in Arlington: The Rangers bats let a lot of people down last night but frankly what offense didn’t underwhelm on the Saturday slate – so I am fine going right back to the well here. The Rangers face off against J.C. Ramirez who is giving up a massive 46.3% hard contact rate this season to LHB with a 2.54 HR/9 and .389 wOBA.
All the Rangers left-handers are in play here and considering the price points, you can easily stack guys like Rougned Odor ($3,600), Nomar Mazara ($3,200) and Shin-Soo Choo ($3,100).
Mets Left-Handed Power versus Lance Lynn: I do not think the Rockies/Rangers will be contrarian by any means today but rather than fading them, I instead will look to build a mini-stack within that same roster construction with a team I think will be largely ignored today – the New York Mets.
Lance Lynn on the season is giving up 33% hard contact to left-handed batters with a 43% fly ball rate while surrendering 2.34 HR/9. Lucas Duda ($3,200) is my favorite 1B play today who I expect will be completely ignored by the masses but Lynn is a guy who relies on his fastball nearly 80% of the time and works primarily in on left-handed hitters which is the sweet spot for a power hitter like Duda.
Jay Bruce ($3,400) has absolutely destroyed Lynn in his career for all you BvP lovers, going 14 for 33 with 3 home runs and has the same elite match-up as Duda which makes then a great mini-stack to differentiate your line-up today!
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-Up and Slate Overview:
P: Brad Peacock ($8,100)
More from FanSided
- USMNT news: Turner to Forest, Trusty to Sheffield, Reynolds to Westerlo
- Inside the Clubhouse: What I’m hearing as the MLB Trade Deadline nears
- Yankees: Luis Severino has blunt assessment of another miserable outing
- Bills: 3 2023 roster holes that could cost Josh Allen a Super Bowl and why
- Colts RB Jonathan Taylor shoots down rumors of troubling injury
C: $2-2.1K Punt Catcher (there should be tons on the Sunday before the ASB)
1B: Lucas Duda ($3,200)
2B: Rougned Odor ($3,600)
3B: Nolan Arenado ($4,700)
SS: Trevor Story ($3,600)
OF: Nomar Mazara (3,200)
OF: Shin-Soo Choo ($3,000)
OF: Jay Bruce ($3,400)
Slate Overview: On the last slate before the break, we have a ton of great pitching options to choose from so this is not a slate to get cute at SP – pay up and get the arms you feel most confident in and work in the value bats around them. Remember that with this being the last day before the break, many of the regulars will be an unscheduled day off so pay attention to the rosters and adjust accordingly. This goes for hitters as well as pitchers – if choosing between two arms, look at the line-ups they are facing as you could get a built-in advantage against some of these AAA line-ups (ahem Luis Castillo versus Arizona last night).
Enjoy the break all – take some time to recharge and we will see you back here Friday when the second half begins!
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!