FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Wednesday July 19
Welcome to the Wednesday 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!
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Tuesday’s Main Slate winning GPP scores were just below our season average as it took 256 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 109 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 263.6 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 109 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 263.6 points.
Tuesday’s Picks and Pivots DFS plays started off with a bang as we got early home runs from Shin-Soo Choo, Chris Herrmann and two bombs from Chris Davis which when paired with another 50+ FanDuel point outing for Clayton Kershaw meant a lot of happy readers and some great screenshots shared which always makes my day as a fantasy writer!
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:
First things first, if you are playing the Early Slate we have some great breakdowns from our Fantasy CPR team on the Early Slate FanDuel Pitching and DraftKings MLB Early Slate. Personally I plan on staying away from the early four game slate as I simply did not like the roster build and the concentration of options for GPP play on a small slate!
I will therefore turn my attention to the Main Slate where we have two elite arms to choose from – Jacob deGrom ($11,200) and Zack Greinke ($10,200).
deGrom is almost a must play any time he is at home as evidenced by his last four home starts where he has put up FanDuel point totals of 64, 64, 52 and 52 while punching out 11, 12, 6 and 6 batters.
I think the general feeling on deGrom is that he is the “safer” play of the two as he gets a home start against a weaker opponent in St. Louis so that will likely lead to higher ownership when compared to Greinke. Not that Vegas data is always perfect but I noticed an interesting trend in the Vegas lines/totals for these two games:
- deGrom – Opened at -158 favorite and currently at -145
- Cardinals total opened at 3.6 and has increased to 3.7
- Greinke – Opened at -143 favorite and currently at -159 favorite
- Reds total opened at 4.4 and has decreased to 4
Step back and think about that for a second, deGrom faces the “lesser” offense, is at home and is a significantly lower favorite than the road pitcher in Greinke. Now you may think that is due to the offenses that back each of these teams up but the implied run totals for the Reds and Cardinals is MUCH closer than I expected so there are some interesting red flags coming from Vegas that may support a pivot to Greinke.
My gut reaction was to skip over Greinke as a road start in Great American Ball Park is never ideal but the reality is this is a guy who starts half of his games in Chase Field so is the ball park as big of an issue with an arm who is used to excelling in elite hitter’s parks?
Greinke just faced this same Reds team in his last start before the break in Arizona and delivered 52 FanDuel points and 7K’s while delivering an elite 16% swinging strike rate.
On the season, Greinke has a 28.7% K rate which is the highest of any pitcher on the slate and with a 13.5% swinging strike rate he has the ability to match/exceed deGrom tonight for $1,000 salary savings and I would expect a lower ownership percentage!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
The Main Slate has no Coors Field to entice us so the ownership should be far less concentrated and will force people to look outside the usual spots. The Baltimore Orioles have the highest team total against Martin Perez but please do not fall for this trap spot – Perez has only allowed more than 1 HR in a game this season (against Houston) yet has this perceived “gas can” label that I am sure the industry will play up today – let others go that route, there are better spots.
Arizona Diamondbacks versus Tim Adleman: First off, the fact that Arizona was able to acquire J.D. Martinez is incredible as that line-up is simply out of control nasty now. Assuming the newest Arizona Diamondback is in the line-up today it makes Mr. Adleman’s job that much tougher and this is already a pitcher I want to pick on!
On the season, Adleman is giving up 2.66 HR/9 to left-handed batters with a 15% K rate, 11% walk rate and has given up 2 or more home runs in each of his last three home starts. The left-handed bats are in an elite spot here as Adleman gives up 34% hard contact to left-handers at home this season so I am going right back to the under priced Jake Lamb ($3,400) and David Peralta ($3,000) today.
Do not over look the right-handed bats here as Adleman has given up 38% hard contact to RH at home this season and with a relatively underwhelming 1B crop at the mid-tier I think it is worth paying up for Paul Goldschmidt ($4,300) in this spot!
Texas Rangers versus Kevin Gascan, sorry Gausman: One thing I noticed during Tuesday’s Picks and Pivots roster build was how nicely the Rangers/Arizona fit together as a stack and the price points outside of maybe Goldschmidt are all in the same $3k range which makes them an easy stack to build around an elite arm like deGrom or Greinke.
I am going right back to this core again tonight and I simply do not care that the Rangers have let down the world in two straight great starts as that will just suppress the ownership even more! Gausman is the worst pitcher on this slate and has given up 15 ER’s and 4 home runs over his last two starts so I am loading up on Rangers bats!
Gausman has given up 1.83 HR/9 to left-handed batters this season with only a 15% K rate and 13% walk rate with 37% hard contact rate. The left-handers will be where I start my build here going right back to Shin Soo Choo ($3,100), Nomar Mazara ($3,100) and Rougned Odor ($2,900) who all saw their prices drop from Tuesday!
FanDuel MLB – Sample GPP Line-Up and Slate Overview:
Please Note: This is NOT an optimized line-up, it is simply illustrative to show the type of roster build we can have using the logic previously laid out in Picks and Pivots. My actual line-up may differ from the line-up shown here.
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- 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
P: Zack Greinke ($10,200)
C: Jett Bandy ($2,000)
1B: Paul Goldschmidt ($4,300)
2B: Rougned Odor ($2,900)
3B: Jake Lamb ($3,400)
SS: Elvis Andrus ($3,000)
OF: Shin-Soo Choo ($3,100)
OF: Nomar Mazara ($3,100)
OF: David Peralta ($3,000)
Slate Overview: This slate has the look and feel of Tuesday’s slate where we can easily pay up for the top arms on the slate and still stack high-end offenses due to some advantageous pricing! As you can see, the Rangers/Arizona bats (outside of Goldy) are all in the $3K price range which makes paying up for deGrom/Greinke an easy route to take while still capturing two of the highest projected scoring offenses on the night. Let’s make it two nights in a row Picks and Pivots!
Best of luck today in your FanDuel MLB contests, stay tuned to Fantasy CPR and @2lockSports on Twitter for all the late breaking lineup news and roster analysis!