FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Monday July 31
Welcome to the Monday 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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The winning GPP line-up on Sunday put up scores just below our season average with over 240 FanDuel points. Over the first 116 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.1 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 116 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.1 points.
The winning GPP lines on the Sunday Main Slate had a handful of commonalities with the Blue Jays, Angels and Tigers offenses at the core of the roster builds who all put up double-digit runs on Sunday! Pitching was much more of a crap shoot on this slate as the “high-end” arms including Jordan Montgomery and Lance McCullers put up duds while arms like Vince Velasquez and Lance Lynn were able to put up 40 FanDuel point outings which was enough to let their offenses carry them to victory!
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
Danny Duffy ($8,300): Doing my research initially there were two arms that stood out to me and I expect you will see them dominate the industry recommendations today – Luis Severino ($10,100) and Charlie Morton ($8,800). Severino has the highest K rate and second highest swinging strike rate on the slate and Morton has 9 or more K’s in two of his last three starts so I expect these two to be where ownership is concentrated.
Now I certainly see the merit in both arms but from a GPP perspective I have a hard time eating Severino/Morton chalk especially when they face boom or bust line-ups in the Tigers and Rays. Just step back and think about it for a second – do you really want to be sitting there after line-up lock and saying man I am sure glad I have a 25% owned Charlie Morton!
Tonight is a night I think it makes sense to completely fade the chalk starting pitchers as we only have an eight game slate so finding an edge will be tougher than normal!
Duffy is the arm that I am finding myself locking in on as he gets a perfect match-up against a strikeout prone Orioles team that struggles against left-handed pitching! The Orioles have a 24.4% K rate which is the third highest mark on this slate and will face off with Duffy who pitched 7 innings, gave up 2 ER’s and struck out 6 batters in a 37 FanDuel point outing against them earlier this season.
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Toronto Blue Jays versus James Shields: The breakdown of this slate is simple for me – find a pitcher who can get you 30-40 FanDuel points and make sure you get exposure to high scoring offenses as it will be the bats that win you this slate. Seven of the sixteen teams on the main slate have an implied run total of 5+ so it is critical to nail your bats tonight and the salary savings we get with Duffy will allow us a roster build that those who opt for Luis Severino will not be able to afford!
The Blue Jays have the highest implied team total (5.54) of any team in action today and with James Shields opposing them it is not really a surprise! Shields has a 5.67 SIERA (worst on the slate), a 35% hard contact rate and 15.4% HR/FB rate which are bottom 5 marks on the slate – all supporting a Blue Jays stack in this spot!
Shields is giving up 3.5 HR/9 to left-handed bats with a higher walk rate than strikeout rate on the season but a higher hard contact to right-handers (39%) so although the lefties may have the better on paper match-up, I am going to have exposure to the best pure hitters here regardless of platoon match-up! Josh Donaldon ($3,800) and Jose Bautista ($3,300) are my top two targets here and although I love Justin Smoak ($3,900), it is hard to ignore the salary saving pivot of Kendrys Morales ($2,800) when building your Blue Jays stacks!
Washington Nationals versus Jose Urena: The Nationals have a 4.6 projected run total, only 12th on this slate, so they may be a bit overlooked but I love taking offenses against Urena, who simply does not have strikeout stuff, walks too many batters and gives up hard contact to hitters from both sides of the plate!
Versus lefties, Urena has given up 32% hard contact with a 50% fly ball rate so I will look to lock in Bryce Harper ($4,900) and Daniel Murphy ($4,000) who sit at price points that may lead them to be overlooked tonight and have the elite ability to rack up points and win you a GPP! The rest of the Nationals bats are best reserved for stack fill-ins and you can pick and choose your preferred route around the Blue Jays core by using guys like Brian Goodwin ($3,400), Matt Wieters ($2,400) or Wilmer Difo ($2,800).
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
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- 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: Danny Duffy ($8,300)
C: Matt Wieters ($2,400)
1B: Kendrys Morales ($2,800)
2B: Daniel Murphy ($4,000)
3B: Josh Donaldson ($3,800)
SS: Adam Rosales ($2,100)
OF: Bryce Harper ($4,900)
OF: Brian Goodwin ($3,400)
OF: Jose Bautista ($3,300)
Slate Overview: With all of the pitching ownership likely to fluctuate towards Severino and Morton, I think this is the ideal slate to simply play the game theory and avoid two chalk arms that frankly should never be chalk (I can see them both putting up 60 burgers and the Twitter trolls coming out in full force now). There are more than enough legit pivot options on this slate where you can truly differentiate on an 8 game slate and that is exactly how I intend to attack this. The Blue Jays bats will be chalk (along with the Royals) so if you are going that route than I would try to find a second stack that may go under the radar like the Nationals so you aren’t simply stacking the Jays/Royals like everyone else!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR and @2lockSports on twitter for the latest DFS news and analysis!