FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Thursday August 31
Welcome to the Thursday 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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Thursday’s winning GPP scores were right above our season average as it took 273.5 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 144 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.5 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 144 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.5 points.
Wednesday’s split slate was essentially the same story for Picks and Pivots as we nailed both of our pitchers with R.A. Dickey and Robbie Ray both putting up 50+ FanDuel points with high strikeout totals! Offensively our early Nationals stack and late game Reds stacks were stymied which led to an uneven output and a frustrating day/night below the cash line!
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:
Madison Bumgarner ($9,800): When I opened this slate I looked at our pitching choices, saw Bumgarner at home and then my next two choices being Gio Gonzalez and Kyle Hendricks and I assumed I would have to dig deep when finding my pitching choice but FanDuel made this one too easy. On a short slate with a ton of garbage to sift through at pitcher, to have Bumgarer at home for under $10k is just begging you to lock him in.
As a season long owner of the Giants ace I know he has not been his dominant self but in his recent starts I think we are starting to see him pick up steam as he has generated a 12% or higher swinging strike rate in three of his last five starts. The numbers have not been eye-popping, but the reality is that MadBum has put up 40+ FanDuel points in five of his last six outings, with 2 ER or less in those five games but only one win to show for it due to the ineptitude of the Giants offense.
Honestly if the price point was over $10K you would really have to weigh the upside of Bumgarner in this spot as he is not a guy who is going to put up a 50+ performance but on this slate and at this price point, I think it simply makes too much sense to pass up. The Cardinals projected line-up on the season has a strikeout rate of 21% which has spiked to 23% over the last month so there is some added punch-out potential in this game.
In large field tournaments I suppose you could make the case for basically anyone else from a game theory perspective due to the inflated ownership and lack of “I need to have this guy to win” upside from Bumgarner but I am happy to lock in my 40 points from my starting pitcher here and move in to hitters where I have more than 3.1k per hitter to spend!
If you are looking for a pivot play, there are two cheap arms who are in play as they will take on familiar teams they have had significant success against this season. Marco Estrada ($7,800) has pitched some of his best games against the Orioles this season including a 49 FanDuel point outing and a 12 strike-out 66 FanDuel point outing! C.C Sabathia ($6,700) will take on a Red Sox team in Yankee Stadium tonight that he has put up 34, 37 and 49 FanDuel points against this season.
With the limited upside of Bumgarner and likely massive ownership, I could see a pivot play to these arms for tournaments and you essentially can pick and choose whichever high-end bats you want!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Spots:
Although I know many people despise the use of Vegas totals in DFS, I do think from a slate overview perspective it is helpful to use them as a barometer for how a slate may shake out. What is interesting to me on this Main Slate is that even with so many less than stellar pitching options we only have three teams with Vegas run totals over 5 runs – the Marlins, Blue Jays and Orioles.
From a slate strategy perspective, although I do like the Marlins stack against Ben Lively, I think the prices are a bit inflated – put it this way, if you want Bumgarner with a Gordon/Stanton/Yelich/Ozuna core stack you would only have $2.1k per player to fill out the remaining four roster spots in your line-up!
Rather than a full on stack, you could focus on the left-handed batters in this line-up as Lively on the season is giving up 1.71 HR/9 to left-handed batters with a massive .400 ISO over the last month which makes me VERY interested in Christian Yelich ($3,800) and Dee Gordon ($3,500).
Toronto Blue Jays/Baltimore Orioles: The price structure on the Toronto and Baltimore bats is frankly much more reasonable and there is a great correlation here between the two teams from a roster perspective as you will see as we build out our team.
The Blue Jays will face off with Jeremy Hellickson, a RHP who on the season is allowing over 1.7HR/9 to hitters from both sides of the plate with essentially the same ISO (.235) and wOBA (.330). The only true difference from a splits perspective is that he surrenders higher hard contact (34.3%) and a higher fly ball rate (53%) to left-handed batters. Over the last month however there has been an interesting spike in his numbers versus RHB as he has a .279 ISO and .357 wOBA allowed!
All the usual Blue Jays bats are in play at reasonable price points today – Josh Donaldson ($3,400), Jose Bautista ($3,000) and Justin Smoak ($3,300) – and if Ezequiel Carrera ($2,000) is in the lead-off spot he makes for an elite punt play hitting in front of these big bats!
On the Baltimore side, the match-up against Marco Estrada is one that on paper seems exploitable with Estrada’s fly ball tendencies but as I noted, Estrada has had success against this Baltimore team already this season. Rather than a full on stack, I would focus on the roster correlation here and utilize the strong 2B/SS combination of Jonathan Schoop ($3,900) and Tim Beckham ($3,800) to get you Baltimore exposure 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
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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: Madison Bumgarner ($9,800)
C: Rene Rivera ($2,000)
1B: Justin Smoak ($3,300)
2B: Jonathan Schoop ($3,900)
3B: Josh Donaldson ($3,400)
SS: Tim Beckham ($3,800)
OF: Jose Bautista ($3,000)
OF: Ezequiel Carrera ($2,000)
OF: Christian Yelich ($3,800)
Slate Overview: The Main Slate tonight boils down to a very simple core for me as you can easily plug-in an under-priced Madison Bumgarner and mix and match the top three offenses on the slate in the Marlins/Blue Jays/Orioles. If you are prioritizing stacks, I would prefer the Blue Jays due to their price and how it correlates to the Bumgarner play as a full on Marlins stack means you are going to have to pay down at pitcher which is a strategy I am unsure I am willing to employ! Play smart tonight, manage your bankroll and live to fight another day – this is not a great day of DFS so play smaller field tournaments/leagues/multipliers and look to build your bankroll today!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis across MLB, NFL and EPL!