FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Saturday August 19
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!
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The winning GPP line-up on Friday put up scores well above the season average with 296.3 FanDuel points. Over the first 135 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.2 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 135 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.2 points.
Friday’s Main Slate was chaos as the post lock news of Max Scherzer being scratched plus the East Coast weather concerns made it a DFS free for all! Ultimately this news led to a lot of 0’s for Mad Max owners who did not see the news in time and an influx of Corey Kluber ownership! At the end of the day the slate came down to – did you roster Manny Machado or not? Machado went off with 3 home runs, 7 RBI’s and 70 FanDuel points and was the man to have if you planned to take down a GPP on this slate!
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:
The overwhelming story on the Main Slate today is the top end pitching as we have Chris Sale ($11,500) taking on the Yankees in Boston and Stephen Strasburg ($10,400) taking on the Padres in San Diego.
First things first, I have zero interest in Strasburg who is coming off the D.L. and only threw 66 pitches in his final rehab start. The Nationals have ZERO incentive to push Strasburg in this spot so I expect a strict pitch count and for $10.4k I am not investing that much salary in a guy with capped upside.
Sale is the premier play on the slate with a massive 36% K rate and 15.2% swinging strike rate and I would not argue with you if you want to make him the anchor of your staff today. The issue for me is ownership as he will be the obvious highest owned play and at this price point all by himself it means you will have the same general roster build as the rest of the field – so where else can we go?
When you are pivoting off the highest priced arm I think the tendency is to pivot down to value plays but for me I am simply going to the third most expensive arm in Zack Greinke ($9,800) who gets a road start against the Twins. Greinke is every bit the elite arm that Strasburg/Sale are and will be the forgotten third wheel in the industry today but his 28.1% K rate and 13% swinging strike rate are the second best marks behind Mr. Sale on this slate!
Greinke has had 8 or more strikeouts in four straight starts with a 30% K rate or more in each of those outings! On this slate you are going to need to find K upside if you intend to pivot off Sale and for $2k cheaper, Greinke allows you to pay for bats that Sale owners cannot!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Spots:
Texas Rangers RHB versus Derek Holland: The Rangers have the highest implied team total at 6.6 runs and with hot temperatures and a home run prone LHP on the mound, I am stacking as many right-handed bats as I can from the Texas line-up today.
Holland on the season is giving up 2.4 HR/9 to right-handed batters with a 41.1% hard contact rate, .262 ISO and .406 wOBA. Left-handers are completely off my radar here as his 55% GB rate and 27% hard contact rate to RHB make this is an easy stack to isolate!
Adrian Beltre ($4,400) and Elvis Andrus ($3,800) are the premier plays here but do not overlook Delino Deshields ($2,900) who has a .278 ISO and .377 wOBA and will likely bat lead-off for the Rangers. Last but not least is Mike Napoli ($2,900) as the final piece of the puzzle and considering he is 5 for 20 with 2 home runs against Holland we can feel comfortable with a full right-handed stack here!
Reds LHB versus Julio Teheran in Atlanta: Teheran versus lefties in Atlanta has been a stackable spot all year-long as he is giving up 2.91 HR/9 and 40% hard contact to LHB when pitching at home and the Reds are LOADED with bats that can hurt him.
Although Joey Votto ($4,600) is the premier play here the price is lofty and I think we can get our exposure to this game with some cheaper value plays! Scott Schebler ($2,600) returned from the D.L. last night and should be in the lineup today as one of my favorite value plays with pop on the Main Slate! Billy Hamilton ($3,300) should be able to take advantage of a 13% walk rate and the fact that Teheran has given up 22 SB’s on the year and you can round out your value stacks with Scooter Gennett ($2,900) and Tucker Barnhart ($2,300) to exploit the platoon advantage here!
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: Zack Greinke ($9,800)
C: Tucker Barnhart ($2,300)
1B: Mike Napoli ($2,900)
2B: Scooter Gennett ($2,900)
SS: Elvis Andrus ($3,800)
3B: Adrian Beltre ($4,400)
OF: Delino Deshields Jr. ($2,900)
OF: Billy Hamilton ($3,300)
OF: Scott Schebler ($2,600)
Slate Overview: For me the slate boils down to elite pitching and Rangers right-handed bats and by using Zack Greinke instead of Sale/Strasburg you get some much-needed salary savings to improve your offense! The Reds come in as a great secondary stack that correlates well with the Texas core and helps you get exposure to a spot that will likely be less popular but with massive upside!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the late breaking lineup news and roster updates!