FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Wednesday August 16
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 AND 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 Tuesday put up scores just below the season average with 245.7 FanDuel points. Over the first 132 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 132 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.7 points.
Looking through the winning tournament rosters on Tuesday night it is interesting to me how many variations of players I came across and how many unique roster builds as there was really no single common theme. Pitching was strong on this slate as Danny Salazar (58 FD points) and Dinelson Lamet (46) were the most frequent winning roster pitchers and hitting was really spread out to focus less on stacks and more power one-offs including Carlos Santana (2 home runs and 53 FD points) who was one of the best one-off hitting targets on the day!
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 Pick:
Gerrit Cole ($9,400): We have a three game Early Slate AND a three game afternoon only slate (why this cannot be combined with late swap is another story entirely) but at first glance the Early Slate has the better contest options on FanDuel so I will focus my attention on the first three games of the day!
The early pitching decision for many (including me) is going to come down to what we do in Milwaukee with Gerrit Cole facing Jimmy Nelson as with only a $400 price difference you are really making this about which pitcher you believe will be the better pure point play.
With these two teams facing off against each other frequently, we have the benefit of seeing how these two pitcher’s have fared against the opponent so far this season:
- Cole – 3 starts against Milwaukee – 52, 43 (in Milwaukee) and 46 FanDuel Points
- Nelson – 2 starts against Pittsburgh – 18 and 15 FanDuel points (both on the road)
From a pure metrics perspective, Nelson has the higher K rate and swinging strike rate but Cole has the advantage of facing a Brewers team with the highest K rate of any on the slate so this is a question of individual talent versus match-up.
Cole on the season has a K rate of 21.4% however in the three match-ups against the Brewers he has racked up K rates of 37%, 20% and 33% with swinging strike rates of 10.7, 5.8 and 10.9 which would be above his 8.1% season average. It is worth noting that the worst K rates came IN Milwaukee where today’s game is being played.
Nelson on the other hand has a season K rate of 27% but in his two starts against the Pirates he has seen that mark at only 22.7% and 20%.
I think you can make the case for either arm in this spot and with Jimmy Nelson getting shelled in his last outing he may be under-owned on a short three game slate however for my money, I am going to prioritize Gerrit Cole due to his success against Milwaukee this year and the higher K upside based off his opponent.
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Spots:
Miami Marlins and the unstoppable force: I vividly remember watching the McGwire-Sosa home run chase and Barry Bonds record season and there is something about a must watch at-bat in baseball that really is something special and right now Giancarlo Stanton ($5,000) is absolutely must watch T.V. every time he steps to the plate. With home runs in six straight games and the price at ONLY $5K on a three-game slate you almost have to lock the man in and move on with your roster. The Marlins slugger gets to take on Matt Cain who he is 8 for 22 against with 4 home runs in his career and if Madison Bumgarner can’t stop this guy, I am not counting on Matt Cain to do it – lock and load, move on.
As far as the rest of the Marlins roster, they are one of the best pure hitting stacks on the day but if there is one guy I am prioritizing with Stanton it is Marcell Ozuna ($3,600) who has a .273 ISO and .392 wOBA against RHP this season which trail only Mr. Stanton on the Marlins roster. Cain throws his curve-ball 23% of the time which is over twice as much as the league-average and Ozuna has a hit rate twice as high as the league average against curve balls so if Cain leaves a spinner in the zone for Ozuna you can go home run hunting here with the Marlins right-handed slugger!
Washington Nationals versus Ricky Nolasco: Nolasco is a reverse splits pitcher as he is giving up a massive .296 ISO and .410 wOBA to right-handed batters this season so starting your teams with Ryan Zimmerman ($3,400) and Anthony Rendon ($3,300) allows you to fill out two weak positions on this short slate with elite hitters on the right side of the platoon split.
Let’s not pretend that Nolasco is anything special against left-handers though as he is giving up 1.4 HR/9 and 33% hard contact to LHB so rolling out Daniel Murphy ($3,300) and punt play Adam Lind ($2,300) allows you to fill out the Nationals stack and attack perhaps the worst starting pitcher on the slate – although Matt Cain may want to argue that point!
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.
P: Gerrit Cole ($9,400)
C: Elias Diaz ($2,000)
1B: Ryan Zimmerman ($3,400)
2B: Daniel Murphy ($3,300)
3B: Anthony Rendon ($3,300)
SS: Brandon Crawford ($2,500)
OF: Adam Lind ($2,300)
OF: Marcell Ozuna ($3,600)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton (Not Nearly Enough)
Slate Overview: The roster build on this slate starts with some simple core plays – Gerrit Cole or Jimmy Nelson and Giancarlo Stanton. Click those buttons and move on with your morning cup of coffee. On short slates like this my advice is avoid the large field multi-entry GPP’s and focus on smaller GPP’s and multipliers with the best core plays and ignore ownership theory completely! I will focus on the Marlins and Nationals bats (as I am sure most will) and if you can nail the correct ones, you will stay above the cash line today!
FanDuel MLB – Top Starting Pitcher Picks
Yu Darvish ($10,400) versus the Chicago White Sox: Wow thanks Brian, really going out on a limb here with this one. So you are telling me to take a pitcher with back to back double-digit K games against perhaps the worst offense in baseball who takes the mound as a -320 Vegas favorite – really tough choice.
Why thank you sarcastic fake person helping me write this article – listen, sometimes the slate dictates plays for you and this is one of those times where I simply cannot see a reason to fade Darvish.
The one arm with similar K upside is Carlos Carrasco but it looks like it will rain consistently in Minnesota throughout the night which eliminates the top pivot option and brings you right back to the Dodgers right-hander as your de-facto pitching choice.
You can argue game theory in large field GPP’s or you can argue that the Dodgers may be cautious with Darvish’s pitch count but considering he has thrown 99 and 106 pitches the last two starts that may be less of a concern. Last night we watched Alex Wood throw 79 pitches, deliver 7 innings of 6 K ball and 40 FanDuel points so even with a pitch limit it is tough to not simply lock in Darvish tonight at a price point that feels about $1-2K too low on this slate!
If you are feeling frisky and want to pivot then I would look to the arms in Toronto as Jacob Faria ($8,100) and Marcus Stroman ($8,800) face-off against each other. The last time Stroman faced the Rays at home he racked up 10K’s and 50 FanDuel points and with Faria’s reliance on the slider, a pitch the Jays do not hit well, he was able to rack up 8K’s and 50 FanDuel points in his last start against Toronto on the road.
We have legit pivot options in this game with demonstrated success against their opponent so you can make a case for the Darvish fade in large field tournaments and utilize Stroman or Faria who are priced reasonably and allow you a different roster build from those who go with the more expensive Darvish!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Spots:
If you read Picks and Pivots with any regularity you know that I am not here to simply rattle off the best picks/plays (go find one of the other 5.6 million articles that do that for you – no actually don’t, stay here please) but my goal instead is to give you an idea of roster builds with the plays I consider to be core on any given slate.
The reason I bring this up is that on the Main Slate the question for me is not whether or not I SHOULD roster Yu Darvish, it is more a question of whether or not I like the roster build of hitters that I can fit around him. As I mentioned in the pitching section, you have legit pivots in Toronto for your starting pitcher but if you can build a line-up you like around Darvish then I see no reason to get cute tonight!
Mets RHB versus Jaime Garcia: The Yankees took a shot on bringing Garcia into their pennant race and through two games has given up 9 runs, 2 home runs and surrendered 7 walks versus 10 strike-outs. I have no interest in the LHB here but the two main right-handed batters on the Mets have home run upside in this spot with Yoenis Cespedes ($3,900) the key play. Do not overlook 2B eligible Wilmer Flores ($2,900) who is a lefty masher that also happens to have BvP on his side going 4 for 12 with 2 home runs against Garcia in his career.
Arizona bats in Houston: I love Charlie Morton as a pitcher and he is not someone I typically look to pick on and frankly I won’t with the more expensive Arizona bats but there are some great price points here we can attack with elite hitters. Jake Lamb ($3,500) and A.J. Pollock ($3,000) are simply priced at a point we cannot overlook if we want to fit in guys like Yu Darvish tonight and although I do not want to employ a full on stack here, a mini-stack with these bats gives you exposure to an elite offense for a reasonable price.
Power One-Offs and Value Plays: As you can see by my write up, this is not a slate I am looking to stack on and will instead target one-off plays with power upside in good match-ups. Joey Gallo ($3,600) has homered in back to back games and 5 of his last 8 and now gets to face Anibal Sanchez – yeah, this price is too cheap. Any time the Dodgers face a left-hander (as they do tonight) we can do to the usual value bats like Enrique Hernandez ($2,100) who feels like a free square on this slate and will likely be highly owned in correlation with Darvish rosters.
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: Yu Darvish ($10,400)
C: Wilson Ramos ($2,200)
1B: Joey Gallo ($3,600)
2B: Wilmer Flores ($2,900)
3B: Jake Lamb ($3,500)
SS: Didi Gregorious ($3,400)
OF: Enrique Hernandez ($2,100)
OF: A.J. Pollock ($3,000)
OF: Yoenis Cespedes ($3,900)
Slate Overview: The Main Slate really comes down to how you intend to attack the massive favorite/chalk in Yu Darvish when building your roster and although I can see the game theory fade to Stroman/Faria as an example I think you can build a high-upside power laden line-up without having to sacrifice much alongside Darvish.
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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!