FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Friday September 15
Welcome to the Friday 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 way above our season average as it took 304.2 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 159 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 159 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.5 points.
Thursday’s Main Slate was one of the highest scoring slates we have seen in weeks as offenses around the league exploded for big time performances. The key stack that won all the money on this night was the New York Yankees who dropped 13 runs with home runs from Gary Sanchez, Todd Frazier and two from Aaron Judge who delivered a 57.6 FanDuel point night for his owners! The winning rosters correlated a Yankee stack with a Mariners stack which punished Andrew Cashner and the Rangers for 10 runs of their own as Nelson Cruz put up 49.8 FanDuel points of his own with a home run, 2 doubles and 4 runs scored!
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 Pitching Pick
Chris Sale ($11,800): The question is never whether Chris Sale is a good play (the answer is always yes) but we need to look at each slate he is on independently and decide if he is a necessary investment at his salary level especially on a full Friday Night slate!
The match-up could not set up better for Sale as he will face a high-strikeout Rays team he has dominated this season, putting up the following totals:
- 52 FanDuel Points – 8 K’s
- 73 FanDuel Points – 13 K’s
- 45 FanDuel Points – 12 K’s
- 58 FanDuel Points – 12 K’s
I think you get the picture now, the guy has a 40% K rate against this team this season – he is worth every penny you invest in him tonight! Sale leads the slate in every possible metric – 35.9% K rate and a 14.9% swinging strike rate – and will step to the mound in Tampa as a -177 favorite against a team with the lowest implied run total.
My takeaway is this – Sale is where you start your rosters in all formats tonight – cash games, multipliers, tournaments, mix-ups, whatever else FanDuel can come up with and you simply move on. Rostering Sale leaves you with $3k per batter to build around and although that means fading Coors Field and the Padres bats (noted sarcasm) I believe you can build a high upside line-up around the best pitcher in baseball quite easily tonight!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Gas Cans Galore: On the other side of the spectrum from Sale we have a plethora of gas can arms to pick on with five pitchers sporting an ERA over 6.00 and seven pitchers with a SIERA over 5.00 tonight!
Picking on Big Sexy: The GOAT, Bartolo Colon, takes the hill tonight at home and will have to deal with a potent Blue Jays line-up that frankly feels under-priced as one you can stack 1-4 very easily. With Richard Urena ($2,600) leading off now and Justin Smoak ($2,900) in the three-hole, you can build a high upside stack and include bats like Jose Bautista ($3,400) or Josh Donaldson ($3,600).
Over the last month, Colon has given up a .303 ISO and .451 wOBA to LHB which makes Smoak my prefered play here and would look to pair him with Donaldson who is sporting a .307 ISO and .392 wOBA over the last month against right-handed pitching!
Dodgers in D.C.: One of the things we need tonight with Sale on the mound is value and the fact we can get it with the Dodgers bats in a good hitting environment in D.C. against Edwin Jackson is the icing on the proverbial cake! Corey Seager ($2,900) stands out as one of the top plays on the board tonight if you need bats to pair with Sale but if you want to stack here against Jackson I would focus on the right-handed batters due to Jackson’s reverse splits.
On the season, Jackson is giving up 3.14 HR/9 to right-handed hitters at home with a 51% fly ball rate and over the last month is surrendering a .381 ISO and .409 wOBA to right-handed batters. Logan Forsythe ($2,800) and Chris Taylor ($3,300) will likely get over-looked due to the righty-righty match-up but with Jackson’s propensity to lean on a slider 25% of the time, it is worth noting that both batters hit that pitch 7-10% above the league average this season!
Homer Time!: We have Bartolo, Edwin and now Homer Bailey – if James Shields and Mike Pelfrey were on this slate I am pretty sure the world would end. With this game in Great American Ball Park we could see the home runs fly for the Pirates considering that Bailey has given up 2.2 HR/9 to RHB and 1.8 HR/9 to LHB at home this season! Andrew McCutchen ($3,300) and Gregory Polanco ($2,400) represent inexpensive ways to fill out your OF against Bailey who just gave up 5 ER’s in his last start against the juggernaut offense that is the NY Mets.
FanDuel MLB – Sample 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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- 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
P: Chris Sale ($11,800)
C: Stephen Vogt ($2,000)
1B: Justin Smoak ($2,900)
2B: Logan Forsythe ($2,800)
3B: Josh Donaldson ($3,600)
SS: Corey Seager ($2,900)
OF: Chris Taylor ($3,300)
OF: Andrew McCutchen ($3,300)
OF: Gregory Polanco ($2,400)
Slate Overview: This slate boils down to Chris Sale and if you think you can build a line-up around him you are comfortable with. As I mentioned we have a handful of spot with gas can pitchers on the hill we can attack and the price points on some elite hitters have dropped to bargain levels which allow us to roster guys like Smoak and Seager for hundreds less than their peak prices this season! Take advantage of the talent level on these guys in great match-ups, lock in your 50 burger from Sale and head towards the cash line!
Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your MLB DFS action and stay here for all the Week 2 Fantasy Football and NFL Action!