FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Saturday August 5
Welcome to the Saturday 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!
The winning GPP line-up on Friday put up scores just above our season average with 273.8 FanDuel points. Over the first 121 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.7 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 121 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.7 points.
Friday’s Main Slate was the first in August in which we saw scores jump above our season average as we not only had big nights from some big arms but a few (chalky) offensive spots which went off as well! Yu Darvish dominated for the Dodgers, racking up 10 K’s against the Mets and putting up 61 FanDuel points for his new squad. Offensively the Astros and Twins entered the day as two of the highest projected owned teams and the winning DFS rosters were full of two team stacks here as they combined for 24 runs and lots of home runs which vaulted those who took the stack approach to the top of their GPP’s!
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:
At first glance with no pitcher priced above $10k tonight we may think that pitching will be a problem but the reality is we have a variety of options in great spots tonight and some sneaky elite K arms to roster!
Gerrit Cole ($9,600): Let’s start with the highest priced arm on the slate who I expect will be the chalk play, cash game lock and highest owned tournament arm as Gerrit Cole gets a home start against the San Diego Padres.
Cole just faced this team in San Diego in his last start, going 7 innings, striking out 8 batters and racking up 52 FanDuel points. In that game Cole had a 29% K rate and a 12.5% swinging strike rate, both numbers significantly higher than his 21% season long K rate and 8.8% swinging strike rate which signals how beneficial a match-up against the Padres can be!
The Padres have the lowest team total on the slate and Cole is a -168 home favorite so I expect that with a price point under $10k, Cole will be very popular today as game log watchers see the last start and the same match-up today and simply hop right back on board.
In cash games I completely understand it and if you are building multiple line-ups I have no issue using Cole here but if the ownership on him is going to be 20% or more (which I suspect on a 12 game slate it will be), I simply am going to find other options!
In large field tournaments I am going to opt to pivot off Cole but stay in this game with his opponent, Dinelson Lamet ($8,000) who also gets to face the same team he took on in his last start.
In that outing, Lamet pitched 6 strong innings, striking out 7 batters and putting up 43 FanDuel points – his second straight outing of 6 or more K’s and 42 or more FanDuel points. In that last outing, Lamet had a 32% K rate and 11% swinging strike rate which compare perfectly to his season long averages of 30% and 13% so the upside is VERY real in this spot!
With the masses on Cole, in a large field tournament I love the idea of pivoting off Cole and moving to Lamet at a fraction of the ownership and the game theory that accompanies this pick. If Cole falters and Lamet shines you could grab the win and vault over the field in a very material way and for all the “game log watchers” who are focused on Cole they will likely overlook Lamet who had a similarly dominant outing in this very same spot!
FanDuel MLB – Top Starting Pitcher Pick
Danny Salazar ($8,900): Quick – which pitcher on the slate today has the highest K rate and highest swinging strike rate on the season? I will give you a hint – it rhymes with Manny Balazar.
Salazar on the season has a 31.7% K rate and 16.6% swinging strike rate which are by far the highest on this slate and if you read Picks and Pivots often you know these are the two metrics I zero in on when looking for my GPP pitcher as I simply want to capture as much upside as I can from a strikeout oriented arm!
Since his return from the DL, Salazar has been lights out, putting up 46 and 49 FanDuel points in each of his two outings with 8 K’s in each of those starts.
The results have been fantastic but digging deeper there may be a change in his approach that is driving this and I simply LOVE this article by Eno Sarris at FanGraphs who did an exceptional job with this breakdown of Salazar’s change in approach since coming off the DL.
Salazar is simply relying more on his four seam fastball and pounding the high strike zone more and relying less on his sinker and the early returns are very promising.
The match-up today with the Yankees in Cleveland is one that I expect many will shy away from – for $500 more you can simply lock in Gerrit Cole at home against the Padres so why would you pivot down to Salazar?
The answer to me is upside as the K rate and swinging strike rate for Salazar are so far above that of Cole’s that even if he gives up a run or two, his has the ability to put up a double-digit K game which could completely separate you from the field!
Although I like Cole for cash games and Lamet as my large field GPP dart, Salazar is the arm I will have the majority of my ownership behind today!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
With a game in Coors Field and the Red Sox at home against James Sheilds we have some obvious spots to attack but frankly I see no reason to eat the chalk on offense tonight and am happy to attack some other spots tonight!
Houston Astros at home versus Marco Estrada: It is hard to believe one of the best offenses in baseball coming off a 16 run outing last night won’t be chalk but I see a very clear path to that being the case tonight. The Rockies are home against Nick Pivetta and the Phillies and the Red Sox are home versus DFS whipping boy James Shields and both teams have a projected run total over SIX!
Again this is just MY read on the slate but I absolutely see a path to the Astros being under-owned tonight and the reality is outside of Jose Altuve ($4,400), the price points on the Houston hitters are cheap enough where we almost cannot ignore them if you are paying up at SP!
Brian McCann ($2,700), Marwin Gonzalez ($3,400), Derek Fisher ($2,700) and Josh Reddick ($3,200) all sit at incredibly reasonable price points for an offense as explosive as Houston’s and with “only” a 4.8 run projection they may not be as popular as they should be.
Estrada is a good pitcher but he is also blow up prone, having given up 4 or more ER in seven of his last eleven starts. Estrada is a fly ball pitcher taking the mound in Houston which could spell big time trouble and with 1.4 HR/9 allowed to hitters from both sides of the plate, this is an elite stacking spot I will have heavy exposure to tonight!
Baltimore Orioles versus Drew VerHagen: The Orioles are my favorite GPP stack of the night as they take on a converted bullpen arm who had a 5 ERA in AAA this year with a 16% K rate and with no Vegas total out yet, they will likely fly under the industry radar.
VerHagen from everything I can tell is nothing more than an “arm” with nothing in his minor league track record to show he has any true swing and miss ability and the biggest red flag is a 10% walk rate in the minors this year over 100 innings of work.
If you are a pitcher who cannot miss bats AND you walk people, this is a recipe for a short outing tonight and I expect the Orioles to jump all over him in Baltimore.
Chris Davis ($3,300), Manny Machado ($3,700) and Adam Jones ($3,200) are the usual suspects but the player I love the most for GPP’s is Jonathan Schoop ($3,900) who is arguable the Orioles best hitter this season.
What I love about Schoop is he is perpetually under-owned and tonight with Altuve, LeMahieu and Eduardo Nunez at the same price points I see no reason for that to change and I will have heavy exposure to a player with an elite skill-set who will likely be ignored by the masses for shinier toys at 2B tonight!
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: Justin Verlander has a clear suitor, but it comes with a catch
- 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
P: Danny Salazar ($8,900)
C: Brian McCann ($2,700)
1B: Chris Davis ($3,300)
2B: Jonathan Schoop ($3,900)
3B: Manny Machado ($3,700)
SS: Marwin Gonzalez ($3,400)
OF: Adam Jones ($3,200)
OF: Derek Fisher ($2,700)
OF: Josh Reddick ($3,200)
Slate Overview: I love this slate the more I look at it and even writing this at 6AM EST, I am pumped for this slate to begin! As I outlined I think there are three very solid pitching options to utilize across different formats and I will have exposure to all three as the price points are similar enough that it does not materially affect your roster build. With the chalk hitting spots in Colorado and Boston, I think pivoting to Baltimore/Houston could deliver similar upside at a fraction of the ownership and the price points are such that you do not have to make any real sacrifices across your roster build!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR and @2LockSports for all your DFS news and analysis.