FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Wednesday August 2 Early Slate
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 Early 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!
The winning GPP line-up on Tuesday put up scores just below our season average with 248.7 FanDuel points. Over the first 118 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.9 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 118 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.9 points.
Wow what a night in DFS – literally not sure I have seen a night play out like that as we saw Chris Sale get rocked and Max Scherzer leave with an injury in the first inning which essentially made the night wide open for half the field and we saw teams with Jimmy Nelson (43 FD points) take down GPP’s! Today we get an early three game slate and a 12 game main slate to breakdown which should give us all a chance to rebound if we got Scherzered or a chance to roll the dice again with our profits from last night (thank you Joey Gallo).
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 – Early Slate Pitching
We have a three game Early Slate with some intriguing games and if you are looking for a way to kill some of your work day, then I think this is actually an interesting slate to play!
At a very high level, let me break this slate down for you – we have two teams (Blue Jays/Yankees) with a projected run total of 5.4 each and a Padres/Twins game with an 8 game total so we have some obvious spots to target for offense and some clear spots to find our pitching!
Although Masahiro Tanaka ($9,400) is the best arm on the slate, I am intent on maxing out my four player Yankee exposure and frankly the Tigers offense is not one I am keen on going after when we have better pure match-ups.
If you are a regular reader of Picks and Pivots you know I am a huge fan of Luis Perdomo ($7,500) as a pitcher and any time we get him pitching in San Diego he jumps into immediate consideration for me. Usually what holds Perdomo back is that he lacks the K upside we want in DFS but on a three game slate where Tanaka is the only arm with a K rate over 20%, I do not think we need to chase “K upside” and can go differently with our roster build.
Perdomo has a massive 65% ground ball rate on the season but when you dig into the stats a bit more you will see his absolute death to right-handed batters – with an absurd 76% ground ball rate against right-handers at home this season. Handedness is the key with Perdomo from a match-up perspective as he has a minuscule 11% K rate versus left-handed hitters but that spikes to 22% against right-handed batters.
The Twins two most dangerous hitters (Brian Dozier and Miguel Sano) both hit from the right side, the Twins lose the DH (meaning RH Ervin Santana has to bat) and now you are left looking at a line-up with Joe Mauer, Max Kepler and K machine Byron Buxton.
This is a great spot for run prevention here with some sneaky K upside depending on the line-up the Twins roll out and you get this all for a mid-range price point that lets you load up on the two highest projected scoring teams on the slate!
FanDuel: Early Slate Hitting
Offense: As I mentioned, the Yankees and Jays have the two highest projected run totals and when you face off with Jordan Zimmermann and Derek Holland it is no surprise that Vegas expects runs to be scored here. I expect that the majority of the offensive ownership will be focused on these two teams and for good reason – do you really want to target hitters in San Diego, a depleted White Sox line-up or Tigers batters against the Tanaka?
I love the idea of game theory on a three game slate but I never play large field tournaments on slates this small (and advise you to do the same) so I will play smaller tournaments and simply focus on the best pure line-up!
Holland on the season is giving up 2.4 HR/9 and 41% hard contact to right-handed batters so if you bat from the right side and play for Toronto then I am interested in playing you today. Josh Donaldson ($3,900) is the premier play here at 3B and has destroyed Holland in his career going 8 for 23 with with 3 HR’s and averaged 11 FanDuel points per game started by Holland!
Jose Bautista ($3,100) is simply priced too cheap and the same can be said about Kendrys Morales ($2,900). Darwin Barney ($2,500) is a sneaky addition to a stack at a weak 2B position as he has put up 15 or more FanDuel points in each of his last three starts.
The Yankees face off with Jordan Zimmermann who is not a pitcher we need to worry about splits when targeting as he simply gives up home runs and hard contact to any and all comers! On the season, the Tigers righty is giving up 42% hard contact to left-handed hitters with 37% to right-handed hitters and 1.8 HR/9 to both sides of the plate!
All the Yankees bats are in play with Aaron Judge ($4,800) feeling like a must play on a short slate like this but I will utilize Gary Sanchez ($3,600) and Didi Gregorious ($3,600) to fill out two of the weakest spots on the slate in catcher and SS.
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
- MLB Rumors: Braves trade grade, Cardinals trade bait, Red Sox selling
- 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
P: Luis Perdomo ($7,500)
C: Gary Sanchez ($3,600)
1B: Kendrys Morales ($2,900)
2B: Darwin Barney ($2,500)
3B: Josh Donaldson ($3,900)
SS: Didi Gregorious ($3,600)
OF: Aaron Judge ($4,800)
OF: Clint Frazier ($3,100)
OF: Jose Bautista ($3,100)
Slate Overview: The Early Slate is simple for me – stack as much Yankee/Jays exposure as you can and look to San Diego for pitching! As I mentioned, this is NOT the slate to play large field tournaments unless you want to build an Ervin Santana, White Sox stack team for fun – instead play small single entry tournaments, 20-100 person leagues or multipliers and build some bank roll for the Main Slate!
Next: DraftKings Early MLB Picks
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests – stay tuned to Fantasy CPR as we break down all the DFS action today!