MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday April 3
Welcome to the Tuesday 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.
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 – Starting Pitching Options:
Unlike Monday’s MLB DFS slate, this Tuesday slate has some top-tier starting pitching options to choose from and normally when that is the case I will make a point to prioritize starting pitching in my line-up build. Clayton Kershaw ($24K) being on the mound on Tuesday really dictates to me how I want to approach this slate with him as a cornerstone of your roster construction, even in a seemingly tough match-up in Arizona.
The metrics with Kershaw are off the charts with a 30% K rate in each of the last two seasons and even in Arizona has struck out 91 batters in 74 innings of work over his career. Outside of Paul Goldschmidt, this Arizona line-up has had very little success against Kershaw and even with Goldy, this is a team striking out in over 28% of at bats against Kershaw in nearly 140 career at-bats. The price is obviously sky-high on Kershaw which is really the only reason to consider moving off him and using your salary elsewhere but in cash games and even in tournaments, if you can find the value to make Kershaw work then he should be a foundation piece of your roster.
With the Mets being PPD on Monday due to snow, I have no issue going back to Matt Harvey ($15.3K) at home against Philly. Harvey has gotten rave reviews from coaches and teammates in Spring Training as new mechanics has seemingly helped drive his velocity back up in Spring Training with the help of new coach Mickey Callaway.
With cold temperatures in the northeast and even some lingering rain, this could be a cold, damp night in Citi Field that would favor the pitcher but it is clear that Vegas is hesitant to jump back on the Dark Knight as he is only a slight home favorite over Ben Lively and the Phillies. In his last two spring starts, Harvey pitched 10 innings, striking out 13 and only walking three and that is the kind of upside we are looking for with Harvey in this spot. Personally, I want to jump on before people see the “he’s back” start and try to capture the upside at low ownership as a SP2 with Kershaw.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
If there is one bat I simply have to have on this slate it is Bryce Harper ($9.9K) against Julio Teheran who he flat-out owns. Harper is 17 for 37 with SEVEN home runs against Teheran and he gets the added bonus of this game being in Atlanta which is one of the bets hitting spots for left-handed power. At home versus LHB last season, Teheran had a 2.25 HR/9 rate with a whopping 38% hard contact rate so stacking Harper with the red-hot Adam Eaton ($8.7K) is a great way to attack the platoon splits here against Teheran.
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Staying in this game, I love the idea of using Freddie Freeman ($8.9K) as a one-off play against AJ Cole who in his career has struggled getting LHB outs and has surrendered 1.8 HR/9 with a 39% hard contact rate. A Freeman-Harper-Eaton stack is firmly in play here on Tuesday!
If you want to build a roster around Kershaw and bats like Harper/Freeman, you are going to need value and this is where I love the idea of using a cheap Oakland stack against Cole Hamels. Hamels struggled with RHB last season to the tune of a 38% HC rate and 1.3 HR/9 and that continued in the first game of the year when he surrendered 2 HR’s in only 5 innings of work. Khris Davis ($8.6K) is the only real expensive bat on Oakland and he has owned Hamels, going 4 for 12 with 3 HR’s off him in his career. A full on stack with the A’s is incredibly doable as well as power bats like Matt Chapman and Marcus Semien are only $7.3K which makes this a relatively inexpensive high upside stack to build around.
Next: DFS Golf - Masters GPP Sleepers
Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.