MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday April 9
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 Main Slate on FantasyDraft was all about Shohei Ohtani who pitched a 12 strikeout gem for a slate leading 42.55 fantasy points and I have a feeling the days of rostering him at $12-$15K are going to be a distance memory! As we laid out in Picks and Pivots yesterday the early season key is paying up for pitcher and yesterday was no different as six of the seven top scoring plays on the slate were starting pitchers with Mike Trout (28) the only position player to crack that list.
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.
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 Overview:
The big decision on the minds of most today in MLB DFS will be whether to roster Max Scherzer ($24.7K) or Noah Syndergaard ($24.1K) as you get the two highest strikeout arms on the slate taking on the Braves at home and the Marlins on the road. From a pure metrics perspective there are no other options on this main slate that have the upside of Thor and Mad Max as you have two pitchers with a 30% K rate, the two highest swinging strike rates and not shockingly will take on two teams with the lowest implied team totals and will each step into this game as massive favorites with Max a -240 home favorite and Syndergaard a -190 road favorite.
So the question everyone will ask today is who do you anchor your teams to since you almost certainly need one right?
Well, what if I tried to convince you to pay up for BOTH arms tonight?
If you have been playing MLB DFS so far in this early season there has been a consistent theme as early season cold temperatures across much of the US have depressed offenses and it has been pitching that has ruled the fantasy leaderboard on a night in and night out basis. This is why I recap the prior day’s action in my open each day – go ahead scroll back at your contests the last few days, the last week and tell me you do not see that same trend each slate.
Consider then within that context that there are only two games being played in non-dome stadiums (Mets/Marlins is only game being played in a dome) tonight that are expected to have temperatures above 50 degrees this evening (Texas and San Francisco) while even in Coors Field we will see temperatures in the high 40’s.
Now, few will argue that Scherzer and Syndergaard are the top arms tonight but I honestly doubt that many will opt to roster both which will leave you with roughly $6.8K per batter to fill out your offense. My guess is that the popular build will be to go with one of the two big arms and then drop down to the mid-tier with their second SP, perhaps a high K upside arm like Dylan Bundy ($16.1K) who is using his slider as his primary weapon and seeing big time results. Bundy has struck out 7 and 8 batters in his first two games including an impressive performance in Houston and will take on a Blue Jays team that has struggled against the slider this season in starts against slider heavy arms like Luis Severino and Masahiro Tanaka.
I will be honest – my gut instinct was to go with Thor and Bundy and move on to my offense as the high/low strategy on two SP sites just tends to be a default setting for MLB DFS players which brings me back to the idea of paying all the way up for both Thor and Max tonight as a contrarian route.
Now let me be clear – I am not saying Syndergaard or Scherzer will be low owned – I expect they will both be very heavily owned but in the large majority of rosters will be paired with a cheaper option as their SP2. So on another night where cold temperatures will dominate the slate and we have two power arms with the highest K upside on the slate can we really click in both guys and feel good about the line-up we build in a roster construction that will be quite different from the rest of the field.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Now before I start getting Twitter comments/questions asking – don’t you like the bats in Coors or Mike Trout or Bryce Harper tonight – yes of course they are all fine but in the context of a slate where I am toying with the notion of paying up for both Max and Thor tonight, those guys are simply not in my player pool as we have only $6.8K per batter to build around tonight.
Step back and look at what Vegas is telling us tonight, only one team, the Rockies, has a projected run total of 5+ runs tonight and only two others (Astros and Nationals) have implied totals of 4.5 so the expectation more broadly is that run production will be low across the league tonight.
The Mets and Nationals are coming off an extra inning game in DC on Sunday Night Baseball (where my Mets completed a SWEEP of the Nats – take that Matt Rogers) so there is always the potential here for some bench guys to get a start which could put someone like Matt Adams ($5.9K) in play for the Nats against Julio Teheran but my interest is much more on the Mets side of the game in Miami against Jose Urena.
Urena from a metrics perspective is exactly the kind of guy we want to attack as he is a low K arm (15%) with control issues especially against LHB (10% BB rate) and his SIERA of 5.14 would suggest some regression is coming compared to his 3.8 ERA.
Urena in his career has always struggled with left-handed bats as he has surrendered a 1.44 HR/9 rate to LHB with a 33% hard contact rate and the Mets are a line-up that could offer up some nice power upside with their reasonably priced left-handed hitters. Michael Conforto ($7.3K) and Jay Bruce ($7.2K) are the clear top two targets here with the platoon advantage and the power upside to take Urena deep.
Urena pitched well against the Mets last year with a 2.25 ERA over 3 starts but the metrics look like there may have been some significant luck involved as his sub .250 BABIP combined with his 5+ SIERA in every single start suggest that regression will come. Now Urena has shown flashes of being able to shut teams down so rather than pick one or two guys from the Mets I would rather stack this team up in hopes that you get a Urena blow up outing where the walks are elevated and the hard contact falls for base hits. The nice thing about the Mets from a stack perspective is that the only high-priced bat is Yoenis Cespedes and with the late night last night and travel to Miami I do wonder if we could see someone like Brandon Nimmo find his way into the line-up as the Mets look to load up on left-handed bats tonight. The Mets line-up will be one to watch in my opinion as if they load up on lefties with Conforto, Bruce and even Asdrubal Cabrera ($6.7K) could help you build a nice inexpensive stack for a team with the 7th highest projected Vegas total on the slate.
The best pure hitting environment tonight looks to be in Texas as we have 60+ degree temperatures with 10+MPH winds blowing out to RF so the Rangers and Angels look like an ideal spot to build around tonight especially in the context of this slate as both teams have a plethora of cheap bats we can pick an choose from. Over the course of his career, Doug Fister has been tough on RHB but against lefties he has surrendered over an HR/9 with a 31% HC rate so I would look to target guys like Kole Calhoun ($6.5K) or Luis Valbuena ($6.3K) to take advantage of the platoon splits. Also keep an eye on Ryan Schimpf ($5K) who drew the start at 3B for the Angels on Sunday and homered as he could continue to see time with Ian Kinsler on the DL.
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: Max Scherzer ($24.7K)
SP: Noah Syndergaard ($24.1K)
IF: Luis Valbuena ($6.3K)
IF: Ryan Schimpf ($5K)
IF: Asdrubal Cabrera ($6.7K)
OF: Kole Calhoun ($6.5K)
OF: Michael Conforto ($7.3K)
OF: Jay Bruce ($7.2K)
Util: Todd Frazier ($6.3K)
Util: Nomar Mazara ($5.8K)
Slate Overview: Going into this slate write-up my goal was really to find a way where I could build around BOTH Scherzer and Syndergaard today with the context of the slate being that we only had a handful (2-3) spots where we had even remotely favorable hitting conditions. The game in Texas has the best weather and the wind blowing out so I love the idea of going with the Angels bats who just continue to be ignored (outside of Mike Trout) every single night. The Mets outside of Yoenis Cespedes are cheap across the board and with this game being in Miami, protected from any cold weather against a low K, high walk arm with regression screaming from the metrics, I like the idea of stacking the Amazins here as a path to rostering both big name pitchers.
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.