MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday April 7
Welcome to the Saturday 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.
Friday’s MLB DFS slate was dominated by offense as only one starting pitcher landed within the top 20 fantasy scorers of the night while big bats like Manny Machado (40) and Justin Upton (28) drove the scoring for winning DFS rosters.
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 – Early Slate Pitching:
We have a nice little split slate today with an 8 game early slate to kick-start our weekend on FantasyDraft so let’s not mess around and jump right into our pitching options!
Zack Greinke ($21.3K) is the top priced arm on the slate in a road match-up against the Cardinals and steps to the mound with the highest K rate (27.2%) and swinging strike rate (12.6%) of any SP available on this early slate. Greinke was dominant in his first outing of the season, striking out 9 batters, walking none and giving up only 1 run in 5.2 IP against the Rockies. Today’s opponent, the St. Louis Cardinals, is striking out over 10 times per game so far this season which is the fifth highest mark in baseball and Greinke shut this team down in St. Louis last year with 7 innings, 4 hits and 9 K’s in his only start against the Red Birds last season.
Jose Berrios ($19.6K) is coming off a complete game 6 strikeout gem on the road against the Orioles and will now get a home start against a Mariners team without Nelson Cruz in the line-up. Berrios was an absolute beast at home last season, pitching to a 2.41 ERA versus a 5+ ERA on the road while his K rate was nearly 6% higher at home and he gave up a miniscule 24% hard contact rate at home versus over 30% on the road. Today Berrios not only gets a home start but weather wise we are looking at temperatures in the 20’s so not exactly the best hitting conditions for the visiting Mariners who are without their best hitter.
Yu Darvish ($18.6K) is an interesting wildcard on this slate and his K rate and swinging strike rate over the last season mirror the more expensive Greinke and his Opening Day dud against the Marlins may actually serve to keep his ownership deflated. If you dig deeper into that outing you will see that Darvish was really a but unlucky as he gave up only a 23% hard contact rate while having a .333 BABIP which points me to a bit more bad luck than a pitcher who had something fundamentally missing.
Trevor Bauer ($18.1K) is another high upside K arm who had a 26% K rate last season and steps into this game as one of the largest favorites on the board as a -209 home favorite. Bauer struck out 7 in his first start of the year against the Mariners and makes for an interesting SP2 target.
Overall my take on the early slate is that there is not a “must have” starting pitcher to build around and I am more likely to mix and match these four arms when building my line-ups. All four arms have high strikeout upside so really my decision on which starting pitchers to build around will be decided more on my how my hitters fit into my roster build as I think you can make the case to build around any of these arms today.
MLB DFS – Early Slate Hitting:
The early slate hitting is dominated by the New York Yankees bats and if you want to stack up their heavy hitters you are going to need to find some other value bats and potentially drop down at SP from someone like Zack Greinke.
The Yankees have the highest implied run total on the Early Slate at 5.5 runs which is nearly a full run higher than the Cubs who have the second highest run projection and with a home date against Chris Tillman with the wind blowing out to RF at 11 MPH, this could be a home run barrage.
As my friend Allan Lem from Rotogrinders pointed out, Tillman gave up multiple home runs in 7 of his 19 starts last season giving up 1.6 HR/9 to LHB and an absurd 2.82 HR/9 to RHB. Dig a little deeper and you will see a 40% hard contact rate to RHB and a 35% rate to lefties and frankly I think prioritizing the Yankee bats is where you start on this slate.
The prices are high no doubt as Giancarlo Stanton ($11K), Aaron Judge ($10.1K) and Didi Gregorious ($10K) are three of the six highest priced bats on the slate but this is a trio that I want to be over exposed to against arguably the worst pitcher on the slate. Keep an eye on the Yankee lineup as we could get some value here as well with Gary Sanchez, Brandon Drury and Tyler Wade all leaving last night’s game with an injury.
Staying with the New York bats, it seems laughable to me that Gio Gonzalez is priced as the second highest priced arm on the slate and although I will not go full on stack against him, there are some right-handed Mets bats I intend to roll out against him. Yoenis Cespedes ($8.3K) is red-hot right now and has gone 7 for 13 in his career against Gio with 2 home runs and if you are new to Picks and Pivots you better get used to Wilmer Flores ($5.9K) against a lefty in my articles. Flores in his career has simply crushed lefties and his price point allows you significant roster flexibility as a one-off home run hunting play that will help you afford the higher priced Yankee studs.
MLB DFS – Sample Line-Up and Slate Overview: Early Slate
The line-up below is meant to be illustrative only to further back-up the logic laid out in previous slides and is not meant to be an optimal line-up or a roster you simply plug and play on your own!
SP: Yu Darvish ($18.6K)
SP: Trevor Bauer ($18.1K)
IF: Wilmer Flores ($5.9K)
IF: Didi Gregorious ($10K)
IF: Neil Walker ($6.8K)
OF: Aaron Judge ($10.1K)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($11K)
OF: Yoenis Cespedes ($8.3K)
Util: Chris Davis ($5.6K)
Util: Travis d’Arnaud ($5.6K)
Slate Overview: With the Yankee offense being the core part of my build it seemingly leads me to drop down from Greinke/Berrios and go with the Darvish/Bauer combo. As I said earlier, I am fine mixing and matching and letting my offensive roster build dictate which arms I land on. Keep an eye on the Yankee line-up today to see if we get any additional sneaky value (a Miguel Andujar perhaps) as that could open up even more roster flexibility.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Pitching:
What in the world do we do with Gerrit Cole ($24.2K) tonight? Cole is the clear top dog as a massive -260 home favorite coming off an 11 strikeout performance against the Rangers and now gets a Padres team that struck out 7 times against Lance McCullers last night. Every metric says to play him as the top strikeout arm on this five game slate and really the only argument I can make to fade him is the price point but this is a situation where I will click him in as the first guy into my Main Slate build and then figure out where else to go.
Finding your SP2 on this slate is going to really be where your roster separates itself and although there are no stand out options at first glance I will tend to lean on K upside when it is a true toss-up like this which leads me to Mike Minor ($12.1K) against Toronto. From a pure metrics perspective, Minor has a K rate (28.4%) and a swinging strike rate (12%) which would lead all SP options on the Main Slate but it is worth noting that much of that is driven off his relief role last year.
Minor has the K upside to pay off his price but the biggest issue for him is going to be pitch count as the Rangers are going t be careful pushing him too hard early on in this starting role. Minor had a 25% K rate in his first start versus a potent Astros line-up, generating a 13% swinging strike rate so if he can navigate through that line-up it would seem like he could find his way through a much less dangerous Blue Jays line-up. Minor is really more a price play than anything else as you are simply hoping for him to rack up K’s in the time he is on the mound but considering he threw 93 pitches in his opening start there is the potential for him to go deeper into this game today.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Hitting:
We have our first real Coors Field slate (not counting yesterday’s mini slate) and with a 11.5 run total this is going to be the place everyone goes for offense especially with a guy like Anibal Sanchez on the mound. Here is the thing – Coors Field early in the season just is not the same elite hitting environment that it will be later in the year and do not forget we have only 40-50 degree temperatures in Denver today so I am just not sure I am willing to force in the inflated hitting prices here especially when I am trying to pay up for someone like Gerrit Cole as my SP1.
If we are paying up for Cole then I am going to need some value bats and this is where the Oakland A’s left-handed hitters come into play facig J.C. Ramirez who surrendered 2 HR/9 with a 45% HC rate to LHB last season. Matt Olson ($7.3K), Jed Lowrie ($5.9K) and Matt Joyce ($5.9K) not only allow me to stack this platoon spot perfectly but they also open up a ton of salary room which will give me the ability to pay up in other spots.
Fellow Fantasy CPR MLB DFS writer Matt Rogers and I talked about this yesterday – nobody ever seems to stack the Angels and when you consider they are second in the majors in runs it seems like we may be missing a great opportunity to differentiate from the field here. Tonight the Angels will take on Andrew Triggs who lacks the elite K upside but also has managed to limit hard hit balls and HR’s in his career. The Angels will likely go over-looked again here tonight and keep in mind that Shoehei Ohtani will be rested today in advance of is Sunday start at pitcher. From a pure GPP perspective with Coors Field on the slate this could be a spot where a high-priced hitter like Mike Trout ($10.6K) gets overlooked for the Rockies/Braves bats so building a mini stack with him and someone like Justin Upton ($8.3K) could be a path to a low owned GPP winning build.
With everyone looking towards Coors tonight I wonder how much love the Astros will get but considering they are facing a pitcher at home in Bryan Mitchell who have up 8 hits and 5 ER in San Diego his first start, it would feel like this a spot where the Astros bats could do some serious damage. The numbers for Mitchell do not seem to indicate any extreme platoon advantage in his limited Major League sample size so my approach with the Astros is going to be to stack them up based more on price/position as they work within the context of my roster. Pick and choose from the stud bats like George Springer, Carlos Correa and Jose Altuve and mix in the Alex Bregman and Josh Reddicks of the world and move on!
MLB DFS – Sample Line-Up and Slate Overview: Main Slate
The line-up below is meant to be illustrative only to further back-up the logic laid out in previous slides and is not meant to be an optimal line-up or a roster you simply plug and play on your own!
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SP: Gerrit Cole ($24.2K)
SP: Mike Minor ($12.1K)
IF: Matt Olson ($7.5K)
IF: Jed Lowrie ($5.9K)
IF: Carlos Correa ($9.5K)
OF: Matt Joyce ($5.9K)
OF: Mike Trout ($10.6K)
OF: Justin Upton ($8.3K)
Util: Alex Bregman ($8.6K)
Util: Josh Reddick ($7.3K)
Slate Overview: To Coors or not to Coors? Personally I am going to fade Coors early in the season with the inflated prices and cold weather and will look instead to build around the Astros as my core stack today. The challenge really becomes how to get the top bats in with Gerrit Cole and I think early on the A’s left-handed bats at their cheap prices are the best path that allows me to complete my roster. Enjoy all the MLB DFS action today folks!
best of luck in your MLB DFS contests across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings and stay tuned to all the latest DFS news and analysis at Fantasy CPR!