FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Sunday September 3
Welcome to the Sunday 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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Saturday’s winning GPP scores were well above our season average as it took 280.5 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 147 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.4 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 147 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.4 points.
Saturday’s Main Slate was simply – how many Twins bats did you roster? My goodness! Eduardo Escobar was the star of the night as he hit two home runs, knocked in 6 RBI’s and tallied 63.6 FanDuel points as the leader of a Minnesota team that dropped 17 runs on the Royals Saturday Night! Although pitching seemed like it would dominate the slate, Max Scherzer was largely ineffective, Marcus Stroman was knocked out by a Mark Trumbo line drive and Chris Archer left the game after only two outs….gotta love DFS craziness!
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:
Do I have to? Ervin Santana, Josh Tomlin and Mike Fiers are my top end arms to choose from – where do I sign?
If you read Picks and Pivots each day you know I approach each slate from a GPP perspective and if you love GPP’s then today is your day because you might as well get a dart board and start chucking to pick out your starting pitcher!
Lucas Giolito ($6,000): On this slate I am simply going to avoid the high-priced low upside arms and the likely “safe”mid-tier” plays like Mike Montgomery who is a massive -230 home favorite today for the Cubs and instead be willing to roll the dice with some low-priced arms in intriguing match-ups.
Giolito is the arm that stands out to me the most as any time I can get an elite talent/prospect like him on the cheap I am willing to roll with the pedigree. Giolito has been a solid strike-out arm in the minors, putting up between 24% and 26% K rates regularly but that has yet to translate to the major league level. In his last two starts for the White Sox we are seeing some positive signs as he has a 10% swinging strike rate in both of those starts and today faces a strikeout prone offense in the Tampa Bay Rays.
In his last start against the Tigers, Giolito racked up 43 FanDuel points on the back of 7 shut out innings, striking out 4 batters and gaining the win/QS bonus! On today’s slate anything even remotely resembling that performance is going to be good enough to win!
I always preach slate strategy rather than simply writing up the best plays and today it is critical to understand how low the opportunity cost is when selecting your pitcher. There is not a single arm on this slate that is capable of winning you a GPP but every single arm is capable of losing one for you so simply find an arm you are comfortable rostering within your overall roster build, cross your fingers and hope the BABIP Gods are on your side!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
On a slate with a plethora of brutal arms and the wind blowing out in seemingly every stadium, it is not going to be hard to find hitting spots to attack but you will need to choose wisely as if you pick the wrong stack, there are enough other great spots that could shoot right past you in the standings!
Houston Astros versus Chris Flexen: Poor Chris Flexen, this dude is simply not ready to pitch at the Major League level and now he gets to face a loaded Houston Astros team that will welcome Carlos Correa ($3,900) back to their line-up today!
Flexen on the season is giving up 2 HR/9 and 34% hard contact to hitters from both sides of the plate so an all out Astros stack here is a great place to start especially with Correa back and able to man your shortstop position! Correa ($3,900), Jose Altuve ($4,200) and George Springer ($3,700) are core plays for me today within an Astros stack and by paying down at pitcher it is easy to fit all three!
Cubs bats with the wind blowing out at Wrigley! I am sure Max Fried, the Braves LHP taking the hill today, is a nice guy but the fact he has only throw 6 innings above AA ball makes him much like the aforementioned Flexen and with the wind blowing out in Wrigley this could be an ugly spot for him today against the Cubbies!
In AA this season, Fried went 2-11 with a 5.92 ERA and struggled with control as shown by his 11% walk rate. That is about all I need to see here – a pitcher without elite K stuff (22% at AA) who struggles with control and now has to face off against elite bats like Kris Bryant ($4,600) and Anthony Rizzo ($4,900).
Marlins power bats versus Jake Thompson: Thompson is another arm with little major league sample size who in his brief career is giving up nearly 2 HR/9 and 35% hard contact to hitters from both sides of the plate and has to take on a Marlins team he just pitched against where he gave up 7 hits, 2 home runs and 5 ER in only 5 innings of work!
Marcell Ozuna ($3,900) and Christian Yelich ($3,800) were both 3 for 4 in that game against Thompson and Yelich added a home run to boot so starting with these two and potentially adding Giancarlo Stanton ($4,700) for a full on Marlins OF stack is a strategy that is in play today!
How do we fit all these studs? Go ahead and start your roster with Lucas Giolito and the bats I have outlined above and you will quickly find that you have $0 left over and you still have catcher to fill. Well, Picks and Pivots readers know I am always a fan of punting at catcher and today FanDuel offers us a Free Square – LITERALLY – Raudy Read ($0) can be rostered for free at catcher today!
I will be honest, I know NOTHING about the guy other than it is possible he is the son of Rowdy Roddy Piper and it is unlikely he ever sees the field for the Nationals but if you are going to punt at catcher why not roll the dice here with what it opens up for the rest of your roster. If Read somehow starts then he will become the DFS Twitter superstar but even if he doesn’t start – a pinch hit single or even just taking the zero is a viable GPP strategy! Dear Nationals, please let this guy play today – he hit 17 HR’s in the minors this year so maybe a pinch hit homer? Man I love DFS!
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: Lucas Giolito ($6,000)
C: Raudy Read ($0)
1B: Anthony Rizzo ($4,900)
2B: Jose Altuve ($4,200)
3B: Kris Bryant ($4,600)
SS: Carlos Correa ($3,900)
OF: George Springer ($3,700)
OF: Marcell Ozuna ($3,900)
OF: Christian Yelich ($3,800)
Slate Overview: Cash game players look away, this is not the slate for you. Simply put down your phone/computer and go enjoy the day – its GPP day and you are not invited. Today is all about loading up on bats, finding an arm that won’t kill your dreams and maybe getting lucky with a free punt play. I will either win a GPP or score 6 FanDuel points today and that is the route I am taking – now if you will excuse me I need to hit up the liquor store so I am ready for how this slate will unfold.