FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Tuesday August 15
Welcome to the Tuesday 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 Monday put up scores just above the season average with 275.9 FanDuel points. Over the first 131 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.8 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 131 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.8 points.
Monday’s Main Slate set up to be a perfect GPP slate with so many questionable arms and a ton of offenses to choose from and the winning results reflected the variance we seemed to expect! Zack Greinke (57 FanDuel points) delivered 6.2 innings and 9 K’s against the potent Astros offense at 14% ownership, Giancarlo Stanton (31 FD points) continued his home run barrage and the Cubs offense exploded for 15 runs as the stack of the day with home runs from Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez for a GPP winning 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 Starting Pitcher Pick:
Looking over tonight’s slate we are met with a plethora of pitching options at the end high with superstar arms like Jacob deGrom ($10,600) and Madison Bumgarner ($10,300) on the hill and what stands out to me the most is the pricing on this slate as we can get either of the top arms for just a tick over $10k allowing us the salary room to still chase some big bats!
After the two big names we have elite arms like Sonny Gray, Alex Wood, Danny Salazar and Bartolo Colon (just making sure you are paying attention) so we have a multitude of avenues we can explore when locking in our pitcher on a one pitcher site like FanDuel.
What really stands out on this slate is the K upside apparent up and down at starting pitcher as we have three arms with K rates of 29% or higher and five pitchers with a swinging strike out rate of 12% or more. If you want to take down a GPP you are going to need K’s on this slate as simple “run prevention” is not going to get the job done!
I would not fault you for paying up for any of the aforementioned arms but there is one arm that has the perfect combination in my mind of strikeout upside, value relative to price and match-up and that is Dinelson Lamet ($8,300) who gets a home start with the Philadelphia Phillies.
From an overall metrics perspective, Lamet has a 29.1% K rate and a 12.9% swinging strike rate, both of which rank third on this slate behind Danny Salazar and Jacob deGrom. Not only is Lamet the cheapest of those three arms but he also takes on a Phillies team with a 23.4% K rate which is the highest opposing K rate of any of the elite arms we have mentioned.
It has been a while since we had the opportunity to roster Lamet at home as he has pitched on the road in five of his last seven starts but it is worth noting the elite upside he shows in spacious Petco Park as he put up 43 and 55 FanDuel points the last two starts he made at home.
On a slate where strikeout upside is going to be at the core of your decision-making process, Lamet now only has top three strikeout metrics but has one of the best possible opponents and sits at a price point that allows you to load up on bats – sign me up!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Coors Field: Let me start in Coors Field because I think the overall strategy on this slate could turn on the status of one batter – Nolan Arenado ($4,600). The Braves are throwing a left-hander which means Arenado in Coors Field is basically a DFS lock but the wrinkle here is that Arenado is nursing a hand injury due to a pitch that hit him on the hand and forced him to miss Monday’s game.
We have the normal Coors totals with an 11.5 projected game total so in no way do I think this will be a sneaky spot but what if Arenado sits? With a left-hander on the mound, Arenado becomes the core piece of any Rockies stack but without him are people really going to pay up for Charlie Blackmon in a lefty-lefty match-up when his stacking partners are an ice-cold Trevor Story or a plethora of hitters with a sub .150 ISO against LHP this season?
Look at the Braves side as well, with a left-hander on the mound the “appeal” of Freddie Freeman takes a hit so are you really going here to stack Brandon Phillips and Tyler Flowers at inflated prices? Add on the fact we had a 3-0 game here on Monday and without Arenado we may see the lowest Coors ownership we have seen in some time!
Los Angeles Dodgers versus Miguel Gonzalez: The Dodgers have a 5.4 projected run total, the highest non-Coors mark on the slate and with a mediocre right-hander on the mound this is the best pure pivot and core build if you are fading the high-priced bats in Colorado.
Gonzalez on the season is giving up 1.3 HR/9 to hitters from both sides of the plate with a minuscule 13% K rate while giving up 33% hard contact so a full on stack with hitters from both sides of the plate is in play here. Gonzalez gives up a .344 wOBA to both sides of the plate but we see the platoon advantage spike in ISO where LHB have a .222 ISO versus .167 for right-handed hitters.
Cody Bellinger ($4,400) is the core play here at first base with Corey Seager ($3,900) and Chris Taylor ($3,800) the other top end bats we can pay up for but do not overlook the value that exists with Yasmani Grandal ($2,800) or Joc Pederson ($2,600) who have massive power upside with the platoon advantage.
Literally you look up and down this roster and all of Taylor, Bellinger, Pederson, Grandal and Yasiel Puig have ISO’s over .230 against RHP this season so this is the best stack on the board but we could see it get over-owned depending on the Arenado news.
Cleveland Indians versus Bartolo Colon: Big Sexy has turned back the clock (again) and put up back to back solid starts which may lead folks to stay away from a supposed gas can but the underlying numbers scream at me to stay the course here and attack him with bats.
In his last two starts, he has given up 47% and 52% hard contact which are significantly higher than his season average of 36% and his BABIP would suggest some extreme luck as he has put up a .280 or lower BABIP in three straight starts which is substantially lower than his season average of .344. What this means to me is that hitters continue to square him up HARD but the last few starts he is simply having them hit AT fielder’s which is allowing him to limit the damage!
The Indians are in a great position here to help Colon’s regression back to his season long numbers and the secondary stack fits in perfectly with a Dodgers core!
Jason Kipnis ($2,400) returned to the Indians line-up on Monday in the #2 hole in the line-up which puts a top of the order stack in play with Francisco Lindor ($3,900), Jose Ramirez ($3,500) and Jay Bruce ($3,300) which is where I would focus my stacks if using the Indians 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.
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P: Dinelson Lamet ($8,300)
C: Yasmani Grandal ($2,800)
1B: Cody Bellinger ($4,400)
2B: Jason Kipnis ($2,400)
3B: Jose Ramirez ($3,500)
SS: Francisco Lindor ($3,900)
OF: Chris Taylor ($3,800)
OF: Joc Pederson ($2,600)
OF: Jay Bruce ($3,300)
Slate Overview: The name of the game tonight is strikeouts when choosing which pitcher you are going to battle with so do not get cute and shoot for K upside with whatever arm you choose to utilize. Keep an eye on the Arenado news as if he plays I expect the normal Coors ownership but if he is out we could see a Coors game stack be somewhat contrarian in large field tournaments!
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!