FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Wednesday August 23
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 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 right at our season average with 263.5 FanDuel points. Over the first 139 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.9 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 139 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.9 points.
Tuesday’s winning GPP rosters featured the main arm on the night as Chris Archer struck out 10 Blue Jays for 55 FanDuel points as the highest owned pitcher at roughly 25% in GPP’s. Offensively the Yankees erupted for 13 runs with two home runs from Gary Sanchez and the Cubs and Reds combined for 22 runs with a monster night from Eugenio Suarez who hit two home runs and racked up 54 FanDuel points!
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 this slate I dug through the entirety of the pitching options and jotted down the arms I liked as I went from top to bottom on the salary scale noting the great arms at the top of the spectrum but wondering if there was a value arm we could uncover to open up salary for bats. What I was left with after this exercise is that this is a slate we simply need to pay up for starting pitching as we have too many good arms and not enough value plays to take the added risk on a one pitcher site like FanDuel.
Corey Kluber ($11,000) and Luis Severino ($9,900) are the top two arms with the top strikeout rates on the slate so paying up for either arm is clearly a viable strategy but the arm that I am drawn to tonight is Zack Godley ($8,800) who gets to take on the New York Mets.
If you read Picks and Pivots yesterday you know that I was all over Patrick Corbin who was priced at $8,700 in the same exact match-up and he flat-out delivered with 49 FanDuel points (only six behind Chris Archer for $2k less in price) on the back of 8 innings, 6 K’s and the Win/QS bonuses! The reason I targeted Corbin in this spot and the reason I am going with Godley today is that this Mets line-up post trade deadline is one we can attack as the projected line-up has a 24% K rate over the last month which is 5% higher than their season numbers.
Godley on the season has a 26.6% K rate (4th highest on the slate) and a 14.2% swinging strike rate which is second only to Corey Kluber, giving us the ability to roster an elite K arm at a fraction of the price of Kluber/Severino. Of those three arms, Godley has the clear best match-up from both a run prevention standpoint and K upside as the Mets strikeout rate over the last month is 4% higher than the Tigers and 8% higher than the Red Sox.
Godley has racked up double-digit swinging strike rates in all but two starts this season, with those two games coming in at 9.5% and 9% so this is a strikeout arm that frankly doesn’t get the love he deserves in DFS. This feels like a spot very similar to yesterday where the masses balked at the price point for Corbin and I could see a similar story playing out today where we get a significant ownership disconnect on Godley as compared to Kluber/Severino so he makes for a great GPP play.
One item to note – Michael Conforto was scratched yesterday with a thumb injury and if he is out tonight Godley is going to become a near must play for me!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Spots:
Chicago Cubs versus Asher Wojciechowski: The Cubs and Reds erupted for 20+ runs last night and frankly I see no reason to head right back to Great American Ball Park tonight as the Cubs will take on Asher Wojciechowski and the Reds. Woj on the season is giving up 1.9 HR/9 to left-handed batters with a 53% fly ball rate and 35% hard contact rate which puts all the usual Cubs bats in play today!
Kris Bryant is expected to miss this game for Chicago but we can deploy the middle of the order stack in Anthony Rizzo ($4,300), Ian Happ ($3,200) and Kyle Schwarber ($3,500) as they have the highest ISO and wOBA marks of any batters in the projected line-up for Chicago against right-handed pitching this season.
Cincinnati Reds versus Mike Montgomery: The Cubs side of this game is the easy one to identify with the metrics for Wojciechowski jumping off the page, but the Reds side of this game is the one I think we really need to dive into and see how the industry reacts today!
On the surface Montgomery is a guy we would normally want to avoid attacking as he has an elite ground ball rate and limits hard contact and home runs but keep in mind that Montgomery has not thrown more than 60 pitches since July 19th so this will be a Montgomery/bullpen game for the Cubbies today. Considering the Cubs needed 4 innings from their pen last night this could be a sneaky good spot for the Reds bats and if the masses shy away from using the Reds bats, this is a great game stack opportunity.
There are two bats that jump out to me in this match-up as Zack Cozart ($3,400) and Adam Duvall ($4,000) have ISO’s over .315 with wOBA’s over .415 when facing left-handed pitching this season and make for a great mini-stack if you want to play the home run hunting game and avoid a full on stack against Montgomery. Keep an eye on the line-up here too as we could get some value plays in the OF with Patrick Kivlehan ($2,100) or Phillip Ervin ($2,100) manning the OF with a lefty on the hill!
Arizona versus Chris Flexen: Seriously as a Mets fan it is sickening to think we are in August and I am forced to watch Tommy Milone and Chris Flexen pitch on back to back nights. What in the name of Zeus happened this season!
Flexen has a low strikeout rate, a high walk rate, gives up HR’s to hitters from both sides of the plate and has a 53% fly ball rate to left-handed batters. Jake Lamb ($3,700) is a lock and load play for me today and at the same price at Eugenio Suarez ($3,700) he may get over-looked in tournaments due to recency bias!
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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- Inside the Clubhouse: What I’m hearing as the MLB Trade Deadline nears
- Yankees: Luis Severino has blunt assessment of another miserable outing
P: Zack Godley ($8,800)
C: Chris Herrmann ($2,000)
1B: Anthony Rizzo ($4,300)
2B: Ian Happ ($3,200)
3B: Jake Lamb ($3,700)
SS: Zack Cozart ($3,400)
OF: Adam Duvall ($4,000)
OF: Kyle Schwarber ($3,500)
OF: Patrick Kivlehan ($2,100)
Slate Overview: This slate starts with pitching and allocating budget to the top end of the salary spectrum will be the preferred strategy on this slate in my opinion. Although Corey Kluber and Luis Severino are great plays I think Zack Godley offers similar upside in the best pure match-up for a discounted price. The Cubs and Reds game is where I plan to start my offensive build with another shoot-out likely in Great American Ball Park but rather than full on game stack I will look to sprinkle in some Arizona bats against Chris Flexen and the Mets!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the late breaking DFS news and analysis as we get you set for MLB, NFL and EPL!