FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Thursday August 10
Welcome to the Thursday 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 Wednesday put up scores just above the season average with 295.3 FanDuel points. Over the first 126 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.0 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 126 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.0 points.
Wednesday’s MLB DFS slate was about as unpredictable as I can recall as we watched the two highest projected scoring offenses get shut down by Bartolo Colon and Miguel Gonzalez, Justin Verlander flirt with a no-hitter and Ryan Zimmerman and Ian Kinsler essentially win the slate as they combined for just under 120 FanDuel points between the two of them! Basically if you rostered either of these hitters you likely find your way into cash contention on this slate and without them, well there was simply not enough offense to go around!
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:
Danny Salazar ($9,300): After a night where we looked to go the value route due to some less than stellar arms at the top, we are met with a Main Slate on Thursday that is loaded at the top with Jacob deGrom, James Paxton, Yu Darvish, Sonny Gray and Brad Peacock all on the hill. What stands out to me on this slate from a pitching perspective is that the strikeout metrics for the top-tier are all elite as we have six arms with a 27% K rate or higher and six arms with a 12% swinging strike rate out higher.
What does that mean from a roster build perspective? You absolutely need high strikeout upside on this slate if you plan to compete so targeting “mid-range” arms is not a strategy I think you should employ and instead should make it a point to go after the high-end arms with strikeout upside tonight.
There is one arm that stands out to me from both a metrics and match-up perspective and that is Danny Salazar at only $9,300 against the Tampa Bay Rays. If you read Picks and Pivots you know that there are some simple metrics I look at when trying to narrow down my DFS pitcher – K rate, swinging strike rate and opponent K rate – strikeouts are the key to DFS GPP success when picking your pitcher!
As I mentioned, we have a slate loaded with strikeout arms but there is no pitcher on today’s slates with better metrics than Salazar as his 32.8% K rate and 16.2% swinging strike rate are both the highest marks of any arm today! Now take those marks and align them with his opponent, the Tampa Bay Rays, who have a 25% K rate which is the second highest mark of any team on this slate.
So looking at metrics alone – we have the highest strikeout arm on the slate going against the second highest strikeout team on the slate – AND we can get him for only $9,300!
If you need more proof, Salazar has been flat out dominant since his return from the DL, striking out 8, 8 and 12 batters in his first three starts generating swinging strike rates of 17%, 13% and 24% in those outings.
The fact that Salazar is the fourth highest priced arm on this slate only adds to his lock and load status for me as in my opinion, I am getting the best arm on the slate and saving salary which is is a move I am happy to make at the core of my roster build today!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Houston Astros versus Carlos Rodon: Yesterday I was reading an article from Chris Gimino at RotoGrinders and he had a great comment when breaking down his top stacks: “See if Astros are on slate, suggest Astros, be correct a lot.”
This made me laugh at the simplicity of DFS sometimes but there is an amazing amount of truth to what he is saying here – sometimes simply recommending the BEST offense in baseball as a stack is the RIGHT move to make when the slate dictates.
On a short slate like we have tonight with a ton of pitching the Astros not shockingly have the highest implied team total (again) at 5.6 runs and one night after letting us all down we have the perfect opportunity to go back to the well and I see no reason to get cute.
The Astros take on Carlos Rodon who this season is giving up 1.86 HR/9 and 32% hard contact to right-handed batters with a 13% walk rate. He does strikeout right-handers at a near 31% clip but the Astros are the hardest team to strikeout on the slate so we have a patient team that makes contact going up against an arm that gives up home runs, hard contact and walks people – sorry if this feels like the easy way out but I am simply playing the percentages here and using the top offense on the board and if last night scares people away, great – we just get them at lower than deserved ownership!
Jose Altuve ($4,300) and Marwin Gonzalez ($3,600) continue to be my go to plays at 2B/SS helping to fill two weak positions and we can go right back to George Springer ($4,000) who returned from the DL yesterday and stepped right back into the lead-off spot. Yuli Gurriel ($3,700) and Alex Bregman ($4,000) are both great addition to any stack if you want to use them at 1B/3B or you can even use Jake Marisnick ($2,300) as a cheap punt play if you need! Basically all the Astros are in play today and will be at the core of my lineups once again!
Cleveland Indians versus Blake Snell: Frankly the Indians mediocre team total today perplexes me – only 4.2 runs – which is one of the lowest on the slate and 0.6 runs lower than their season average. The match-up with Blake Snell is one I want to exploit and I suppose Vegas is weighing the ballpark in Tampa as a run suppressor but this is a spot I think we can look to stack!
The right-handers is really all you are looking for here as Snell is giving up 1.6 HR/9 to RHB this season with a 34% hard contact rate. At home this season he actually sees those numbers as he is giving up over 2 HR/9 in his home ball park to righties with a 10% increase in his fly ball rate.
Edwin Encarnacion ($3,400) and Jose Ramirez ($3,400) both have great match-ups and frankly feel to cheap for this spot and you can easily balance them out with some value in Brandon Guyer ($2,300) who should get a prime line-up spot with a left-hander on the mound for the Rays.
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: Danny Salazar ($9,300)
C: $2,400 or below Punt Option
1B: Edwin Encarnacion ($3,400)
2B: Jose Altuve ($4,300)
3B: Jose Ramirez ($3,400)
SS: Marwin Gonzalez ($3,600)
OF: George Springer ($4,000)
OF: Brandon Guyer ($2,300)
OF: Jake Marisnick ($2,300)
Slate Overview: Today’s slate starts with pitching and finding the right arm with high strikeout upside to build around. This will be the most important decision you make in your roster build today and I would ensure you have one of the high tier arms with my focus being on Danny Salazar. Offensively it all starts again today with the Astros and I will have 3-4 Astros bats at the core of my build today as the highest projected scoring team against a left-hander who gives up home runs and hard contact! The Indians line is one I plan to watch throughout the day to see how Vegas reacts as it feels low to me to start the day but we shall see how the DFS day unfolds!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the late breaking line-up news and DFS analysis on our twitter feed and with @2LockSports!