FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Tuesday July 25
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 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!
Monday’s Main Slate winning GPP scores were below our season average as it took 239 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 114 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.5 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 114 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.5 points.
Monday’s Main Slate winning line-ups were centered around James Paxton who dominated the Red Sox with 10 K’s and 61 FanDuel points. Offensively it was less about stacks and more about finding the right big bats as Giancarlo Stanton blasted two home runs (43 FD points) and Jose Altuve (41 FD points) racked up 4 hits, 3 RBI’s and 3 runs which anchored big time DFS days!
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:
Mike Clevinger ($8,200): Looking over the Main Slate today what stands out to me from a roster build perspective is that outside of Madison Bumgarner, we have a ton of legit options in the $8-$9k range so we have the ability to mix and match arms in this price range if we want to multi-enter this slate.
As Matt Rogers pointed out today in his FanDuel Pitching Breakdown I think paying up for MadBum is unnecessary on this slate and instead I will be looking to the mid-range arms with high K upside to anchor my staff!
Clevinger is an arm I have been using with regularity in recent starts and his price points simply remains too cheap for his level of strikeout talent! Clevinger steps to the mound tonight at home coming off four straight starts of 40+ FanDuel points with 7 or more K’s in three of those four starts.
Clevinger has the second highest K rate of any pitcher on this slate (27.8%) and the highest swinging strike rate (13.6%) which are two metrics that I key in on when picking my SP on FanDuel each day.
The argument against using Clevinger is that the Angels are an offense that does not strike out, coming in with a 20.1% K rate as a team. My counter argument to that is Clevinger’s last start against a Giants team with an even lower K rate (19.8%) where he racked up 7 K’s, a 30% K rate and a 15% swinging strike out rate which represents the K upside Clevinger has each time he takes the mound.
With so many decent options in this price range I am simply not worried about ownership as I expect the popularity to be largely spread out and with the savings we get by selecting someone like the Indians right-hander we have a material amount to spend on each hitter in our line-up!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
The more I look over this slate the more I am convinced this is a night where we can spread out our exposure and employ mini-stack/one-off plays instead of full on team stacks as we have a plethora of pitchers to pick on but not many that have massive blow up potential.
Texas Rangers versus Dan Straily: The Rangers let everyone down last night and tonight they have the highest run projection on the slate – this is the game theory spot I love to attack as we get a high-end offense in a great spot at reduced ownership due to recency bias.
Straily is a reverse splits arm, giving up 1.73 HR/9 and 38% hard contact to right-handed batters so this is the spot to target Rangers hitters. Elvis Andrus ($3,200) is the top play for me at a weak shortstop position but I would also look to some of the value bats in the line-up including Jonathan Lucroy ($2,200), Carlos Gomez ($3,200) and Delino Deshields Jr. ($2,500).
Indians bats versus Jesse Chavez: On the season, Chavez is giving up 2.54 HR/9 and 39% hard contact to right-handed hitters so the Indians RHB are a spot we can target on this slate for power upside at reasonable prices.
Edwin Encarnacion ($3,500) can be paired with second base eligible Jose Ramirez ($3,700) for a 1-2 power punch in the middle of the Indians line-up and if you are looking for a full on stack, Indians lead-off man Bradley Zimmer ($2,500) can be used for value!
Arizona versus Mike Foltynewicz in Chase Field: Any time we can get Arizona in Chase Field you know Picks and Pivots is going to be interested and with a pitcher on the mound giving up 1.7 HR/9 and 33% hard contact to left-handed batters we can go to the usual suspects of Jake Lamb ($3,800) and David Peralta ($3,400).
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.
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
P: Mike Clevinger ($8,200)
C: Jonathan Lucroy ($2,200)
1B: Edwin Encarnacion ($3,500)
2B: Jose Ramirez ($3,700)
3B: Jake Lamb ($3,800)
SS: Elvis Andrus ($3,200)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($4,200)
OF: David Peralta ($3,400)
OF: Bradley Zimmer ($2,500)
Slate Overview: – This slate is WIDE open today which makes it a great day for GPP’s and multi-entry if you want to go that route. There is no must have arm or stack so you can easily mix and match in the same roster build with similarly priced players in solid match-ups.
Next: FanDuel Pitching Breakdown
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!