MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday April 22
Welcome to the Sunday 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.
Saturday’s split slate MLB DFS was relatively uneventful during the day but at night we got some incredible individual performances including a two home run night from Josh Reddick as the top scoring hitter as the Astros blew out the White Sox 10-1. The biggest story on either slate was Sean Manaea who threw the first no-hitter of the season with a dominant 10K outing versus the Red Sox. Listen, any no-hitter is an amazing accomplishment but when you consider the red-hot line-up he shut down, that is really something to hang your hat on and if you were one of the 1% who took the shot on him in GPP’s last night then you are feeling prettttty prettttty good right about now.
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
Welcome to a Sunday Funday in MLB DFS where we have a solid 11 game slate with only one game (Mets/Braves) looking like a serious weather risk. We have three stud arms at the top today in a clear tier of their own with Corey Kluber ($25.1K), Luis Severino ($22.4K) and Lance McCullers Jr. ($21.4K) as the only pitchers priced above $20K and interesting enough there is no pitcher in the player pool even priced above $17K with the exception of these three.
Kluber has the highest K rate of any arm on the slate at 30.3% so far this season and the Orioles do strike out at the third highest mark (26.7%) of any team in baseball against RHP so there is a reason he is a -215 road favorite but I am not sure I am willing to pay this hefty price tag for him against a dangerous Orioles offense in a hitters ballpark with 60+ degree temperatures in Baltimore.
McCullers bounced back in a big way after a tough start in Minnesota with 11K’s versus the Mariners which was his second double-digit K game of this young season. The White Sox strike out at the 10th highest clip versus RHP this season (24.7%) and McCullers is putting up an insane 37% K rate so far this year so as the lowest priced of the three arms and a -185 road favorite, I could make the case he is the best point per dollar play of the three. What really stands out to me about this last performance is that he changed his pitch mix significantly with the highest percentage of change-ups (15%) of any start this season which is used to navigate his way through the Mariners line-up the third time through.
Severino is the largest favorite at home with a -240 Vegas mark and with a K rate of 30.1% this season which is every bit on par with Mr. Kluber, this is a great spot for him as well against a Blue Jay team he already dominated this year. Severino went 5 innings and struck out 7 in that game relying heavily on his slider (48%) in that game which is by far the most he has thrown that pitch in any of his four starts as the Blue Jays struggle with that pitch consistently over the last two years.
This looks like a day where we are going to want to go high/low on two pitcher sites with a ton of elite hitters available and great hitting environments in Coors Field and Yankee stadium so we will need to dig through the SP2 bin as well on this slate.
Francisco Liriano ($13.9K) is a terrifying name to type in DFS due to his volatility but today as a -154 home favorite against a weak Kansas City team, this is a really nice GPP spot for the left-hander. The Royals strike out at a 25% clip against LHP this season (12th in MLB) and with their two most dangerous hitters being on the left side of the plate in Moustakas/Duda, we could see Liriano replicate his Opening Day start where he went 6.2 IP, struck out 3 and grabbed 19 fantasy points. In fact, Liriano has allowed 2 runs or fewer in all three starts thus far in 2018 – but if you have played DFS for any amount of time you know just when we think we can trust Liriano he drops a 10 ER in 1.2 IP kind of gem on us. GPP only but the price is intriguing as an SP2.
Junior Guerra ($12.7K) is the fourth largest favorite on the board at -175 as he gets the Marlins in Milwaukee and is my favorite value SP2 play today. Guerra is sporting a 26% K rate so far this season, striking out 7 and 4 batters in his first two starts while only giving up 1 ER and will take on a Miami projected line-up with a .120 ISO and .290 wOBA which makes Guerra a great run prevention play with upside for much more at this price point.
My take on this slate is to pick one arm from the top-tier and then use Liriano/Guerra as your SP2 to free up salary for some of the elite bats I think we simply have to find room for on this slate!
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Another day and another slate with Coors Field and a 10.5 run total so let’s start here. First and foremost the Cubs are throwing Jose Quintana, a left-handed pitcher in Coors Field so Nolan Arenado ($10.5K) becomes lock city for me as the top overall hitter on the board. Over the last two years, Arenado has an absurd .395 ISO and .525 wOBA versus LHP and so far this year Quintana has given up 10 ER and 8 walkers to RHB in only 11 innings of work – this is player #1 into our lineups and a key reason we want to go high-low with our pitching choices.
On the Cubs side of this game, they will face off with RHP German Marquez who actually has reverse splits tendencies as evidenced by his 1.93 HR/9 mark at home in his career against RHB (compared to only .82 HR/9 to LHB) and he has given up a nearly 40% hard contact rate to boot which puts all the Cubs righties in play for me including Kris Bryant ($10.9K) at the top. If Albert Almora ($6.7K) continues to get the lead-off assignment for this Cubs team his price tag is a free square on FantasyDraft and will be in every line-up I build once again as he has put up 36 fantasy points over his last two games in Coors Field.
There are so many great one-off plays today I want to have exposure to including Giancarlo Stanton ($9.5K) at home versus LHP Jaime Garcia. Stanton over the last two years has a .451 ISO versus LHP and has absolutely owned Garcia in his career, going 7 for 12 with 3 HR’s.
Speaking of one-offs – its Nelson Cruz ($8.1K) versus a lefty day and not just any lefty – Martin Perez, a pitcher he has gone 7 for 22 against with 3 HR’s. Perez has always been a frustrating pitcher to stack against as he tends to wriggle out of trouble with his high ground ball rate but his luck may be running out as he has surrendered 15 ER over his last 5 innings/2 starts to the Angels and Rays. In those two games he has put up a 15% walk rate which his higher than his strikeout rate in those games and has given up over 50% hard contact so the Mariners stack is firmly in play today. All the right-handed bats are in play here including Jean Segura and Mitch Haniger and do not forget it is Dee Gordon’s birthday (NARRATIVE ALERT). Also, do not overlook the BvP success that Kyle Seager has had against Perez in his career – going 16 for 44 with 4 HR’s.
MLB DFS Sample Line-Up and Slate Overview:
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: Lance McCullers ($21.4K)
SP: Junior Guerra ($12.7K)
IF: Nolan Arenado ($10.5K)
IF: Kris Bryant ($10.9K)
IF: Jean Segura ($6.8K)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($9.5K)
OF: Nelson Cruz ($8.1K)
OF: Mitch Haniger ($7.6K)
UTIL: Mike Zunino ($6.7K)
UTIL: Nick Williams ($5.8K)
Slate Overview: With so many elite hitting spots and a clear trio of aces to choose from, my goal on this slate will be to get one high-end K arm and as many of the top bats as possible. The path to do this at first glance is to drop down for your SP2 and use the Mariners under-priced stack to build around the big bats of Arenado, Bryant and Stanton. Remember on Sunday’s we get some funky rosters with day game after night game rosters so keep an eye out for some sneaky value as rosters are announced to fill out your roster. Also – do not fade the narratives – ever 🙂
Next: DraftKings EuroLeague DFS Picks
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!