FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Friday July 21
Welcome to the Friday 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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Thursday’s Main Slate winning GPP scores were well below our season average as it took 235 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 111 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.9 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 111 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 262.9 points.
Thursday’s Picks and Pivots Main Slate was a successful one as we built our line-ups around the Texas/Baltimore right-handed power bats then sat back as we saw 16 runs scored and home runs from Mike Napoli, Mark Trumbo and Jonathan Schoop! Heading into the later games we still had Madison Bumgarner going (who was interestingly owned at a relatively even percentage with Luis Severino) so there were high hopes for an even bigger night. Ultimately Bumgarner was only able to deliver 22 FanDuel points while Severino put up 49 FanDuel points so although we didn’t hit it big, we were still well beyond the cash line as a result of our hitter picks on the slate!
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:
Welcome to a massive Friday slate that has the makings of a multi-entry GPP players dream with an insane amount of elite pitchers on the hill with 10 offenses with a 5+ run projection!
Scrolling through the starting pitchers on this slate we have Max Scherzer, Alex Wood, Yu Darvish, Aaron Nola and Chris Sale all toeing the rubber and what that means to me is you simply cannot afford to miss on your starting pitcher choice on a one pitcher site like FanDuel. It also means that if you take one of these high-priced arms that you will have to make sacrifices with your batters and with high totals games across the league, including a Coors Field game, this could be a spot where players look to try to “capture value” and drop down at pitcher.
Chris Sale ($11,800) is the highest priced arm on this slate and my take after digging through this slate is that we have more than enough value to easily roster him and still get exposure to elite offensive spots!
Sale comes into this game with double-digit strikeouts in three straight games and has 50+ FanDuel points in five of his last six outings. The Angels have one of the lowest implied totals on the slate with a 3.1 run projection and although they have Mike Trout back in the line-up, this is an offense that can be targeted when looking for run prevention with out starting pitcher choice.
By locking in Sale we are left with only $2,900 per batter so I expect that price point may scare people away but there is no doubt Sale is the highest upside arm on this slate with his massive strikeout ability (36.4% K rate this season).
My gut reaction is that Alex Wood pitching at home versus the Braves as a crazy -280 favorite for $1,600 cheaper than Sale will be the preferred route that most will opt to go if they are paying up for pitcher and with so many elite arms on the slate I expect the ownership to be fairly spread out which means we can get Sale for slightly reduced ownership!
There are simply too many good arms with elite strikeout ability on this slate to try to get cute in my opinion so if I am going to allocate salary to a high-end starter then I will go all the way up and lock in the best pitcher in baseball this season!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
With Chris Sale locked into our rosters at starting pitcher we only have $2,900 per hitter remaining but this is another slate where the FanDuel pricing is soft enough and the slate is large enough where finding high upside value should be relatively easy to do!
Kansas City Royals versus James Shields: It is not often we have the Kansas City Royals projected to be the second highest scoring team on a slate with a 6.1 run projection just a fraction of a point behind the Rockies at 6.2 but hot weather and James Shields on the mound has a funny way of spiking Vegas expectations!
Shields on the season is giving up 3.8 HR/9 to left-handed batters and has surrendered 33% hard contact to LH’s with 38% to right-handed batters so all the Royals batters are in play here and the price points here work perfectly with a Sale roster.
The highest priced hitter on the Royals is Eric Hosmer ($3,400), with Lorenzo Cain ($3,200), Mike Moustakas ($3,200) and Salvador Perez ($2,900) all sitting in a price range that allows for a full on stack against Shields!
Houston Astros versus Ubaldo Jimenez: The Astros come in with a 6 projected run total which is the third highest on the slate which considering they are facing Ubaldo Jimenez in Camden Yards should not surprise anyone!
With Chris Sale at pitcher, the George Springer/Jose Altuve combo is likely out of our price range but there are Astros bats at value price points we can still target here! Jimenez on the season is giving up 3.26 HR/9 to left-handed batters with a 33% hard contact rate which puts Brian McCann ($2,700), Josh Reddick ($2,900) and Carlos Beltran ($3,100) in play as a cost-effective mini-stack!
Miami Marlins versus Homer Bailey: The one under the radar spot I like the most today is the Marlins in Great American Ball Park as they face off with Homer Bailey who has given up 6+ ER in three of his five starts this season – the perfect boom/bust pitcher to take a shot on with an opposing stack!
Justin Bour ($3,300) profiles perfectly against Bailey in this spot as Bailey is a change-up/slider pitcher which are the two pitches Bour hammers above a league-average rate! Dee Gordon ($2,900) makes for a nice addition to a Marlins mini-stack here at the top of the order and considering Bailey has already given up four steals in five starts, this is a sneaky spot for Gordon to rack up points on the bath paths!
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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P: Chris Sale ($11,800)
C: Brian McCann ($2,700)
1B: Justin Bour ($3,300)
2B: Dee Gordon ($2,900)
3B: Mike Moustakas ($3,200)
SS: J.T. Riddle ($2,000)
OF: Josh Reddick ($2,900)
OF: Carlos Beltran ($3,100)
OF: Lorenzo Cain ($3,100)
Slate Overview: My general feel on this slate is that we simply have to spend up at starting pitcher and I believe we have enough value hitters to make a roster centered around Chris Sale work relatively easily. The Royals bats are my top target on this slate if you are looking for a full on stack as the match-up and price points are ideal to fit around Sale in this spot! The Astros bats are my second favorite spot if you are looking to mix and match and I will utilize the likely over-looked Marlins as my sneaky mini-stack to give my line-up some differentiation from the field on this massive slate!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR and @2lockSports on Twitter for all the late breaking line-up news and roster updates!