FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Monday August 21

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!

PLAY FANDUEL: New users win first contest or get credited up to $120!

The winning GPP line-up on Sunday put up scores well below the season average with 243 FanDuel points. Over the first 137 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 137 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 261.2 points.

Sunday’s Main Slate was low scoring and for most of the afternoon the cash line in tournaments hovered right around 100 points until same late afternoon offense pushed it up, however it was still one of the lowest scoring slates in the last week. The top performers came from the Miami Marlins who although they only put up 6 runs, had one of the best fantasy days against one of the highest owned pitchers in Jacob deGrom. Adam Conley was dominant with 11 K’s and 61 FanDuel points, Giancarlo Stanton hit a three run home run and Dee Gordon wreaked havoc on the base baths building a nice contrarian stack against the 20% plus that rostered deGrom on Sunday!

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:

Each day I open the FanDuel MLB slate and work down the pitching choices and categorize them by putting them in categories – Pitchers to Use, Pitchers to Target and Neutral Arms. Let’s just say the neutral category got a work out today!

Starting at the top, Alex Wood ($9,700) is the top arm on the slate and there was a time where ona  short slate like this he would have been the clear massive chalk even at a price over $10k but this s not the same pitcher from earlier in the season. Earlier in the season, Wood was featuring his fastball 50-55% of the time , routinely racking up K rates north of 30% each game but his recent outings show a pitcher who has changed his approach and it should be a red flag for those looking to use him.

Over his last five outings his fastball usage is trending significantly downward – 54%, 48%, 45%, 46%, 43% and add in the fact that he has not struck out more than 6 batters in his last six outings, I think this is a chalk pitcher who will be over owned based on early season memory and we should avoid against a contact heavy Pirates team!

The one thing to note on this slate is we have three teams in action today with some of the highest K rates of any teams in baseball over the last month as the Brewers, Diamondbacks and Mets are three of the top four teams in strikeout rate over the last month. With a plethora of mediocre arms on the slate, sorting through the opposition is a great way to find an edge.

Chris Stratton ($6,000): No team in baseball strikes out more over the last month than the Milwaukee Brewers who strike out at nearly 27% over the last month and now get to head to an extreme pitcher’s park in San Francisco. Today those Brewers just happen to face a guy who is coming off a double-digit strikeout effort against the Nationals where he dropped 10 K’s and 60 FanDuel points and you can roster him for only $6k!

Stratton’s minor league numbers show an arm with a low 20% K rate so expecting double-digit strikeout games on the regular is likely not a wise move but this is a pitcher who so far in his big league career is limiting hard contact (24%) and has a 0.5 HR/9 allowed which considering the friendly pitching environment tonight only adds to his run prevention appeal.

The game time temperatures will be around 65% tonight in AT&T Park and the Brewers have the fourth lowest run total on the board so Vegas seems to believe the Brewers will be hard pressed to put up offense which again aligns with Stratton’s career performance to this point.

If you add all this up, you get a pitcher in perhaps the best ballpark possible with cool temperatures against the best strikeout team in baseball the last month and you have an intriguing combination of safe floor/run prevention with high K upside all for $6k on FanDuel!

FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Spots:

Baltimore Orioles: With so many mediocre arms to choose from you would think the offensive options would be plentiful but the reality is we have a bunch of “OK” arms who will likely give up a few runs without any significant gas cans to target. The Orioles are the only team with a projected run total over 5 and they will likely be the chalk offensive stack against Chris Smith in Camden Yards tonight.

Smith, a right-hander, has some extreme reverse splits in his early career with a staggering EIGHT home runs allowed in only 21 innings to right-handed batters which equates to a 3.32 HR/9. A 40% fly ball rate and 38% hard contact rate mean big time trouble against a right-handed power team like the Orioles and even with their popularity they are hard to pass up at these prices!

Manny Machado ($4,100) is the premier play to pay up for on Baltimore with a .265 ISO over the last month and will be a cornerstone play for me on this slate where salary is frankly of no concern. Tim Beckham ($3,400) in the lead-off spot is the perfect shortstop play tonight as he has been scorching hot over the last month with a .294 ISO and team leading .464 wOBA. Rounding out a 1-3 stack here is a severely under-priced Jonathan Schoop ($3,300) and I love having the ability to fill my 2B/SS positions with the top stack option of the night which opens up flexibility for some premier 1B/OF bats!

Home Run Hunting: Outside of the Orioles, there is no offense I am willing to go all in on and I would rather focus on picking out high-end one-off plays to surround the Orioles stack at the core of my roster build.

• Mike Trout ($5,200): Sunday’s slate was fascinating to see Mike Trout at 30% ownership in GPPs considering he has been sub 10% the two days prior and with a big fat goose egg on Sunday, let everyone else jump off and we can roster the best hitter in baseball against a hittable Cole Hamels tonight!
• Paul Goldschmidt ($4,000): First base is a spot I want to pay up for on this slate but with Joey Gallo and Cody Bellinger hurt and expected to miss a few days and Freddie Freeman in a lefty-lefty match-up, the best pure play on the board may be Goldy in Citi Field against Robert Gsellman. Goldy has a .291 ISO and .431 wOBA against right-handed pitching this season and with so many injuries at the position we could see folks opt to spend down with may lead the Arizona 1B to be under-owned.
• Khris Davis ($3,600) and Matt Kemp ($2,600): Both of these power bats get the splits advantage tonight as Davis gets to take on LHP Wade Miley and Kemp faces off against LHP Andrew Albers. With the deflated price points on these two sluggers, this is a great way to target power without having to break the bank on this slate!

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.   

More from FanSided

• MLB Rumors: Braves trade grade, Cardinals trade bait, Red Sox selling
• USMNT news: Turner to Forest, Trusty to Sheffield, Reynolds to Westerlo
• Inside the Clubhouse: What I’m hearing as the MLB Trade Deadline nears
• Yankees: Luis Severino has blunt assessment of another miserable outing
• Bills: 3 2023 roster holes that could cost Josh Allen a Super Bowl and why

P:  Chris Stratton ($6,000)

C: Buster Posey ($2,800)

1B: Paul Goldschmidt ($4,000)

2B: Jonathan Schoop ($3,300)

3B: Manny Machado ($4,100)

SS: Tim Beckham ($3,400)

OF: Khris Davis ($3,600)

OF: Matt Kemp ($2,600)

OF: Mike Trout ($5,200)

Slate Overview: The more I look at this slate the more I am convinced you build the offense you want and simply retro-fit the starting pitcher you want at that price point. Without any elite pitchers to utilize, I would instead focus on the K upside of the opponents and prioritize the pitchers going against the Brewers and both arms in the Arizona/New York game! Offensively the Orioles stack will probably be the chalk approach so keep that in mind as you build around it and try to find ways to differentiate your line-up build with mini-stacks and one-offs that have the ability to take you over the top!

Next: DraftKings MLB Picks

Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis as we break down MLB, NFL and EPL action!