MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday April 2
Welcome to the Monday edition of MLB DFS Picks and Pivots, a fantasy baseball column focused on helping you find the best core lineup for this slate of DFS action!
For those of you finding us for the first time, the concept behind MLB DFS Picks and Pivots is to give you a first look at the day’s MLB DFS slate, including our top picks, plays and pivots, using FantasyDraft pricing as a reference, to help you build your best line-up and win big!
Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate.
Sunday’s MLB DFS slate was setup by big time pitching outings from Jose Berrios (39) and Gerrit Cole (37) and Justin Smoak (41) who put up the top outing of the day with 2 HR’s and 6 RBI’s. The biggest thing I took away from the Sunday slate was how underowned the late games on the slate were as the Nationals bats other than Bryce Harper were all less than 15% owned and it was clear people were unwilling to take the early season risk on Shohei Ohtani who was less than 20% owned and out up a solid 21 FP at only $12K on FantasyDraft.
Picks and Pivots is not a simple “best plays” column but rather it focuses on slate strategy and roster construction to help give you insight into how I will look to play this slate. The goal of this article is to dig through the slate, highlight our top plays and help you identify the best slate strategy across your MLB DFS line-ups.
Below you will see the scoring for FantasyDraft which is very similar to my experiences on DraftKings with perhaps the biggest difference being the roster build with allows for the most flexible roster construction across the major sites as you are required to roster two SP’s, 3 IF’s, 3 OF’s and 2 UTIL spots.
As always, we will look to update our final lineup thoughts throughout the day 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!
MLB DFS: Monday Slate Overview:
Welcome to an abbreviated Monday Picks and Pivots column as I am typing this just minutes before I leave for Augusta National and my first opportunity to step foot at The Masters. With the no phone rule, I will not be playing MLB DFS today but wanted to give you all my thoughts on this Monday Main Slate.
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Starting pitching is UGLY – I am sorry but I am simply not paying over $20K for either Charlie Morton or Mike Clevinger so this is a slate where I think you simply play the price game and look for the best point per dollar options. Matt Harvey ($15.2K) as the ninth highest priced pitching option on this slate is simply screaming to me as the top play and that is only slightly clouded by my Mets fandom. Listen, I get the knocks on Harvey but by all accounts the velocity was back up during Spring Training and the eye test in watching him showed me a pitcher who looks like he could have a bounce back season for the Amazins.
The fact that this game is in New York, where it is snowing all morning, presents some “weather risk” but with the snow expected to clear by game time we are going to have conditions in the low 40’s which sets up perfectly for Harvey against the Phillies. There is obviously risk but take a stroll through this slate and tell me that there isn’t risk with any arm you take.
Speaking of risk – Bartolo Colon ($9K) – yeah that’s right BIG SEXY DAY people – get excited. Now if this game was in Texas I would certainly not be rushing to roster the big fella, but with this game being in Oakland and the price point being what it is, I think there is merit to playing him here. Colon pitched once last year in Oakland, going 6 innings, giving up 8 hits and 3 ER and it is that kind of “average” performance you are looking for here if you roster Colon. Really all you want is a solid outing with a chance for a win and the price will afford you the opportunity to pay up for all the bats.
The beauty of going with Harvey and Colon in GPP’s (clearly you should NOT go this route in cash) is you can stack up any and all bats you want – go ahead click in Mike Trout and Bryce Harper and you will still have a TON of salary space left. If you want to stack, I would prioritize the Houston Astros against Chris Tillman who has extreme reverse splits, surrendering 1.6 HR/9 to RHB through his career versus .98 HR/9 against LHB. People will always roster the traditional splits – we saw this yesterday with the Nationals bats against Sal Romano as Bryce Harper was 30% owned while Anthony Rendon was less than 10% and came through with the righty versus righty home run against a pitcher who was hit hard by RHB last year. It may sound silly but the right-handed stack of the Astros – Carlos Correa, Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and George Springer – could actually be a bit under owned in this spot.
We will be back tomorrow with a full Picks and Pivots but for now – enjoy your day of MLB DFS and for me – I am going to get these Pimento Chesse sandwiches I have heard so much about!
Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!