FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Monday August 14
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 the season average with 238.8 FanDuel points. Over the first 130 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 130 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.7 points.
Sunday’s Main GPP slate essentially boiled down to the chalk spots in many ways as Corey Kluber delivered 49 FanDuel points on the back of 9 K’s over 7 innings of work and the Royals offense which was one of the highest projected scoring on the day scored 14 runs! Our Picks and Pivots core was built around the Mets stack which thanks to Michael Conforto (22 FD points with 1 HR) and Curtis Granderson (41 FD points with 1 HR) helped push us past the cash line for a nice rebound day after a tough Friday/Saturday night!
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 Pitching Picks:
Looking over this slate we have four offenses with run totals projected over 5 runs with games in Coors Field and Chase Field and no single pitcher priced over $10K on FanDuel. The top arm, Zack Greinke ($9,500) has a slate leading 28% K rate and 13.2% swinging strike rate but gets to face the best offense in baseball, the Houston Astros, who strike out at a slate low 17% and in a hitter’s paradise like Chase Field.
With so much risk sitting with Greinke, the safer pivot may be to move down to Jose Quintana ($8,400) who gets a home start against the Reds and has been installed as a massive -200 favorite, by far the largest on this slate.
Quintana is not by any means the definition of a safe pitcher as he has given up 14 runs in his last four starts but his 26% K rate is the second highest on the slate and he has two double-digit strikeout games over his last six starts which shows the kind of upside he has any time he takes the mound.
The one arm that stands out to me as the best GPP play however is Jerad Eickhoff ($7,400) who gets perhaps the best pure match-up on the board in San Diego against the Padres. Eickhoff faced off against this same San Diego team in Philadelphia just a few starts ago and delivered 5 innings of shutout ball with 8 ‘s and 45 FanDuel points.
Digging into that start even more you will see that Eickhoff had a staggering 36% K rate with a 20% swinging strike rate in that game and now gets the face this team in perhaps the best pitcher’s park on the slate.
What this all boils down to really is that we have no “all-in” pitcher on this slate so this is going to be a multi-entry day where I mix and match my lines based on salary constructs with Quintana and Eickhoff. Make no mistake that Quintana is the better pitcher but the match-up for Eickhoff simply could not be better and at only $7.4K the price point allows you to load up on hitters which is exactly where we want to be today!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Bombs Away in the Bronx: Normally I spend my time in this part of Picks and Pivots by focusing on the team stacks I like but I think this is a slate with so many good pure hitting spots that mixing and matching or using mini-stacks is the better approach on this specific slate.
The Mets and Yankees tangle in the Bronx tonight for the Subway Series and with Masahiro Tanaka on the D.L. we are going to get Rafael Montero versus Luis Cessa – so get ready for some offense!
Montero is the definition of a pitcher we want to stack against as he struggles with walks (11.3%) and is prone to giving up HR’s (1.5 HR/9 to righties this season) which is typically a recipe for disaster and his recent game logs support the cause as over his last four starts he has given up 16 ER, 7 HR’s while walking 10 batters.
The true “blow-up” potential may not exist with Montero but he is a near lock for his 3-4 runs to be given up while he is out there so mini-stack of the Yankees is absolutely in play here with Aaron Judge ($4,200) the premier play to focus on but do not overlook Didi Gregorious ($3,500) who helps you fill a tough shortstop position and give you a nice correlation play off Judge!
On the Mets side of the ball, they will take on Luis Cessa who over his short career has given up 1.6 HR/9 to left-handed batters and 2 HR/9 to right-handed batters with a massive 37% hard contact rate against left-handed sticks. Michael Conforto ($4,000) is an absolute lock and load for me today as his .302 ISO and .427 wOBA against RHP make him a great one-off play or core part of a Mets mini-stack.
What I love about the Mets as I mentioned on Sunday is the value that they provide on FanDuel as a result of recent trades and in this spot against Cessa, depending on the line-up, there are a handful of bats you could utilize here for value savings. Dominic Smith ($2,000) at minimum price is an amazing tournament play as he will hit near the heart of the order and will be sub 5% owned which considering his elite minor league pedigree as a hitter should make you intrigued as a GPP player!
Look around the league and go home run hunting! We have a game in Coors Field so we know the ownership and attention will be focused there but there are a couple spots that I am willing to go to first as a GPP pivot off the chalk Coors bats.
Giancarlo Stanton ($5,000) is officially in fade at your own risk territory as he has hit nine home runs in his last ten games! Today, Mr. Stanton gets to face off against Ty Blach, an underwhelming left-hander giving up 34% hard contact and 1.5 HR/9 to right-handed batters this year with only a 10% K rate – at the same price point as Coors Field bats like Charlie Blackmon, he may get over-looked today and is in prime position to keep up his power binge.
Jake Lamb ($3,300) What I love about DFS is that every player has a core set of guidelines they develop over the grind of an MLB season, some hard and steadfast rules they live by regardless of the underlying numbers or metrics. Jake Lamb in Arizona against a right-hander is one of those rules for me and at only $3.3K he is going to be in EVERY SINGLE LINE I MAKE TODAY!
Lamb will take on Colin McHugh who throughout his career has been more of a reverse splits pitcher so the match-up on paper is not one that will jump off the page but Lamb at home this year versus righties has a near .400 wOBA with a .288 ISO and the fact you can get him for the same price as Derek Dietrich today at 3B is laughable.
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: Jose Quintana ($8,400)
C: Travis d’Arnaud ($2,000)
1B: Dominic Smith ($2,000)
2B: Rougned Odor ($2,600)
3B: Jake Lamb ($3,300)
SS: Didi Gregorious ($3,500)
OF: Aaron Judge ($4,200)
OF: Michael Conforto ($4,000)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($5,000)
Slate Overview: The pitching on this slate is ugly but the price points are fair enough that you can shoot for some high upside games with Quintana or Eickhoff for $1,000 cheaper today and load up on the bats you are going to need to take down a tournament tonight! As I said, this may not be a night where you need to full on stack but my focus will be on the bats in New York with the upside of the elite power bats in Judge/Conforto but will also make use of the Mets value to round out my roster and take some power one-offs in the rest of my line-up with Stanton and Lamb!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR and @2LockSports on Twitter for all the late breaking line-up news and roster updates!