FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Tuesday August 22
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 well below the season average with 209 FanDuel points. Over the first 138 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 138 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.8 points.
Monday’s Main Slate was one of the lower scoring slates in recent memory and considering how ugly it was to break down, the low scores are not all that surprising! Essentially the night boiled down to the Orioles bats, which were the chalk spot to attack, and which ones specifically you rostered. Adam Jones was the key piece as his two home run and 46 FanDuel point night was frankly the difference between cashing or losing on this night so hopefully you had some exposure to the Orioles CF!
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 clear top arm on this slate is Chris Archer ($10,200), who has a slate leading 29.7% K rate and the second highest swinging strike rate at 13.4%. Tonight he will take on a Blue Jays team he has faced four times already this season :
- At Toronto: 10 K’s and 46 FanDuel Points
- At Home: 11 K’s and 46 FanDuel Points
- At Toronto: 5 K’s and 38 FanDuel Points
- At Home: 8 K’s and 45 FanDuel Points
Looking at those game logs you see remarkable consistency, a pitcher that is a -200 home favorite and your obvious cash game pitcher but we are GPP players here so can we/should we fade him?
First off, it is reasonable to expect he will be the highest owned arm on the slate but with a large slate I would assume this falls in the high teens instead of eclipsing (see what I did there) the 20% mark.
The second and more important thing to think about is whether or not he has the truly elite ceiling we NEED to have to win a tournament. The double-digit K’s are enticing but is his ceiling really only 46 FanDuel points? If this is really the “score to beat” at starting pitcher I am much more inclined to fade the chalk arm and pivot down on this slate although if you want a safe 40+ FD points from your pitcher I can certainly make the case to stick with Archer.
Patrick Corbin ($8,700): Take a stroll through Corbin’s recent outings and you will find consistent double-digit swinging strike rates, in fact nine straight starts with double-digit swinging strike rates for the Arizona left-hander. Look more recently and you will see strike-out totals of 10, 8 and 7 against the Giants, Cubs and Astros (not exactly easy match-ups) while racking up FanDuel point totals of 43, 54, and 57. You want upside and a score that could outperform Archer, this is where I think you need to go!
The Mets offense over the last month is a shell of what it has been throughout the season as the Amazin’s have traded away the majority of their veterans and called up their top prospects. In fact, the projected Mets line-up today has a massive 27.6% K rate which only adds to the appeal of utilizing Corbin as our pitcher on FanDuel. Realistically outside of Yoenis Cespedes and Wilmer Flores this is a line-up to exploit with left-handers as Adam Conley showed on Sunday with a 60 FD point outing and 11 K’s.
Ultimately if we are setting our SP “ceiling” with Archer at 45-50 FD points then pivoting off him means we need to find arms with similar upside and the recent performance plus the ideal high K match-up for Corbin makes him my preferred arm to build around today!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Arizona Diamondbacks: It is difficult to show reader’s my excitement through words but the pure euphoria coursing through my fingertips as a type the name Tommy Milone is making me want to empty my entire bankroll into the Arizona hitter’s. This is setting up to be a nice week – win all the Tommy Milone stack money on Tuesday and then take home Powerball on Wednesday. Good week indeed!
With Steven Matz scratched, Milone will get the start and this literally could not be a worse spot for the left-hander and a better spot for DFS players. Milone on the season has given up 10 HR’s in only 24 innings to right-handed hitters which is a tidy little 3.7 HR/9 rate and will be making his first start since May 21st when he took on the Angels and was immediately demoted.
I remember that game vividly as I took my son that day to Citi Field so we could see Mike Trout in person and as a DFS junkie I also game stacked the Angels once I saw Milone was getting the start. Tommy Boy lasted 1.1 innings, gave up 3 home runs and 7 ER and was on his way back to AAA.
Milone actually faced this Arizona team the start prior in Chase Field and gave up 5 ER in only 5.2 innings so let’s just say I expect runs to be scored here today early and often which will then give way to the Mets brutal long relief core and some more potential runs.
This is the easiest stack of the day for me as Paul Goldschmidt ($4,100), J.D. Martinez ($3,900) and A.J. Pollock ($3,200) will be at the core of every line-up I build! Oh by the way, it is hot and humid in NY with 15-17 MPH winds blowing straight out. I don’t care if these guys are 100% owned, I am somehow going to find a way to be overweight on them.
Baltimore Orioles versus Paul Blackburn: The Orioles were the chalk stack yesterday and have the highest implied team total (5.9) on this slate but there is part of me that thinks they may get over-looked today as they largely were underwhelming last night (outside of Jones and Schoop) and we have a full slate tonight with THIRTEEN teams with 5 or higher run projections!
Blackburn on the season has shown reverse splits, giving up 1.4 HR/9 to right-handed batters and with a single digit K rate, we can expect lots of contact from the Orioles bats.
What I really love about the Orioles in this spot are the price points as outside of Manny Machado the prices are reasonable and they correlate extremely well with an Arizona core. Jonathan Schoop ($3,500) and Tim Beckham ($3,500) give us the ability to lock in two high upside bats at 2B/SS, positions that are open within an Arizona build. Adam Jones ($3,000) will likely be popular after his two home run outing so pivoting to Trey Mancini ($3,000) at the same price point gives us the same upside at lower ownership! Over the last month, Mancini has a massive .355 ISO against RHP, by far the highest mark on the team and .150 points higher than Jones who will be significantly more popular!
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: Patrick Corbin ($8,700)
C: $2K Punt Option
1B: Paul Goldschmidt ($4,100)
2B: Jonathan Schoop ($3,500)
3B: Jose Ramirez ($3,100)
SS: Tim Beckham ($3,100)
OF: Trey Mancini ($3,000)
OF: A.J. Pollock ($3,200)
OF: J.D. Martinez ($3,900)
Slate Overview: This slate all starts with Arizona for me as the hitting spot is absolutely perfect for the right-handed bats and Patrick Corbin gives me the strike-out upside against a line-up with a massive K rate over the last month. Mixing and matching your secondary stack or using strong one-off plays like an under-priced Jose Ramirez ($3,100) against Doug Fister are a great way to round out your line-up on an offensively loaded slate!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis across MLB, NFL and EPL!