FanDuel MLB Daily Picks and Pivots – Monday September 18
Welcome to the Monday 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!
PLAY FANDUEL: New users win first contest or get credited up to $120!
Saturday’s winning GPP scores were above our season average as it took 266.7 FanDuel points to take down a tournament! Over the first 161 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 161 slates of the FanDuel MLB season, the average winning score to take down a GPP has been 260.5 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:
Pop Quiz Hot Shot – which starting pitcher on today’s slate has put up 40 or more FanDuel points in six of his last eight starts? If you guessed Clayton Kershaw ($12,100) you would be correct but you would also be correct if you guessed Red Sox right-hander Doug Fister ($7,800) who will take the mound in Baltimore.
Fister was a popular mid-tier DFS choice in his last start after putting up scores of 55, 43, 40 and 52 in his previous four outings and was promptly smacked around for 6 ER by Oakland! The reality is there was some significant bad luck in that start as he had a near .400 BABIP which is materially over his .277 season long mark!
Tonight he will take on an Orioles team that he faced back on August 27th and put up 40 FanDuel points on the back of 7 innings and 7 K’s and with the recency bias of those who rostered him last time out, I think this is a great time to jump back on the train for significantly lower ownership.
On a seven game slate we need to dig deep to find an ownership edge and I expect the masses to flock towards the name value of Kershaw but I will personally pivot away from the inflated price in a hitter’s ballpark like Citizen’s Bank Park! My initial take is that the majority of ownership will be directed towards Kershaw or people will opt to go all the way down to Dan Straily ($6,900) who is the second largest favorite on the board pitching at home against the Mets.
Fister has demonstrated that he has the GPP winning upside to match a “normal” Kershaw with 50+ FanDuel points in two of his last five starts and he allows you the same salary flexibility that rostering a guy like Straily can afford you at likely less ownership!
FanDuel MLB – Top Hitting Stacks:
Dodgers Bats against Nick Pivetta: One of the benefits of fading Kershaw is that you can load up on the maximum number of Dodger bats in an elite hitting environment against Nick Pivetta. Pivetta is a reverse splits pitcher who has given up 2.7 HR/9 to right-handed batters on the season and has seen that number spike to 3.4 when pitching at home! Pivetta is giving up 43% hard contact to right-handed hitters with a 45% mark to RHB in Citizen’s Bank Park so loading up on the Dodgers righties is the way to approach this stack.
Yasiel Puig ($3,500), Chris Taylor ($3,200) and Justin Turner ($4,000) are my top targets today with Puig and his .282 ISO and .372 wOBA against RHP over the last month being my top play from this stack. Pivetta relies heavily on his curveball/slider which profiles perfectly for this trio has all three are hitting these pitches well above the league average over the last month per RotoGrinders PlateIQ. Corey Seager ($3,100) remains criminally underpriced at shortstop – consider for a minute that Jose Reyes costs $4,000 and no this is not 2006 – and you can easily add Seager into any Dodgers four man stack!
Marlins Bats against Matt Harvey: Harvey is the lowest priced pitcher on this slate and after watching his last two starts you can see the guy simply has nothing left on his pitches and zero confidence. As a Mets fan I really wish they would just shut him down and let him work to strengthen his arm out of the public eye but the reality is, the Mets may not even tender him a contract (which is crazy to think based off where he was two years ago) but we not have a pitcher we can aggressively stack against.
Giancarlo Stanton ($4,000) is the premier play here for all the obvious reasons but the bat I am most interested in is Justin Bour ($3,500) who will likely be over-looked with Cody Bellinger on the slate! Harvey on the season is giving up 2.5 HR/9 to left-handed batters with a 36% hard contact rate and .261 ISO which sets up perfectly or Bour to go home run hunting! Harvey continues to rely on his slider/change-up due to his diminished velocity on his fastball and Bour hammers both those pitches at 5% above the league average so pairing Bour with Stanton is a great way to get your Marlins exposure tonight!
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
- MLB Rumors: Justin Verlander has a clear suitor, but it comes with a catch
- 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: Doug Fister ($7,800)
C: John Hicks ($2,000)
1B: Justin Bour ($3,500)
2B: Brian Dozier ($3,900
3B: Justin Turner ($4,000)
SS: Corey Seager ($3,100)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($4,000)
OF: Yasiel Puig ($3,500)
OF: Chris Tsaylor ($3,200)
Slate Overview: As with any slate Clayton Kershaw is on, what you decided to do with him will determine the rest of your roster construction. With the price point over $12k and in a great hitte’s park, I think this is an ideal spot to fade the Dodgers Ace left-hander and instead pivot down at SP and load up on high upside bats as your core tournament strategy!
Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the late breaking line-up news and roster updates!