MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday April 25

Welcome to the Wednesday’s 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.

Raise your hand if you thought the top three MLB DFS fantasy performers on Tuesday would be Andrelton Simmons, Kyle Freeland and JA Happ? Now put your hand down you dirty liar – nobody could have seen that coming! Simmons and the Angels were in a 8-7 shootout in a game that featured two elite arms in Ohtani and Morton while Freeland pitches in this place called Coors Field all while Mr. Happ was busy shutting down one of the best offenses in baseball, racking up 10 K’s against the Red Sox.

Personally I stuck with my core from yesterday and used a Maeda/Velazquez pairing while stacking up Coors and the Dodgers. The funny thing is, it was my one-off play, Yoenis Cespedes at 1% ownership, who probably made the biggest difference as his three run home run off chalk Luke Weaver was probably one of the biggest reasons I pushed above the cash line. If you followed me on Twitter @2LockSports, I came to the Cespedes conclusion yesterday later afternoon based off two reasons – first, Weaver had given up high hard contact and HR/9 rates to right-handed batters in his career and secondly there was simply nobody talking about the Mets offense around the industry while everyone seemed to think Weaver was this sure-fire safe SP2 so I made a leverage move and it paid off. Good learning experience for sure as sometimes simply fading the chalky play you disagree with is not enough – go ahead and double down and use guys against him to maximize your leverage.

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.

If you are looking to try out a new DFS site, head on over to FantasyDraft and enter my referral code for 10% rake back on your entries.

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:

Welcome to a split slate Wednesday in MLB DFS where we have six early games to choose from kicking off at 2:10PM EST and carrying us through the 6:40PM EST Braves/Reds game which pretty much takes us right into the main slate so this should be a fun day of DFS.

In theory we have two aces to choose from on this slate with Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander but in my mind the decision to use Mad Max is an absolute no-brainer over Verlander. With Verlander facing the Angels I am just going to continue to avoid taking pitchers against elite offenses – there is simply too much risk involved when I have viable pivots like Scherzer who gets to face a significantly weaker line-up in the San Francisco Giants.

Scherzer takes the hill today with a monster 37.6% K rate and will face a Giants team with a 25% K rate versus RHP this season which is the 7th highest mark in all of baseball this season. The Giants have the lowest implied total and this game takes place in AT&T Park in a massively friendly pitcher’s environment, which essentially checks all the boxes and makes paying up for Max as your SP1 stop number one in your roster build.

Finding your SP2 on this slate is a significantly harder task as we can quickly start to cross off options:

• Nick Tropeano – facing Houston – not playing pitcher’s against elite offenses
• James Shields – if you need me to explain this you must be new to MLB DFS
• Tyson Ross – a pitcher with a 6 ERA in Coors Field
• Jeff Samardzija – Pitching against my SP1
• Lance Lynn – facing the Yankees in Yankee Stadium – no thanks.
• Brandon Finnegan – the pitcher with the highest SIERA/ERA on the entire slate

So really this leaves me with four options I am willing to consider – Jon Gray pitching in Coors versus San Diego (but I do not feel great about that), Sonny Gray at home versus Minnesota, Felix Hernandez against the White Sox and Mitt Wisler versus the Reds in Great American Ball Park.

Gray and King Felix will likely garner ownership due to the name recognition but keep in mind that these are pitchers nearly identical 17% K rates this season so the upside is not nearly what you may think it is by just clicking on the name on the back of their jersey. Of the two, I would lean slightly more towards Gray as the underlying metrics are much more promising as I would rather anchor myself to his high ground ball rate (52.5%) and his ability to limit hard contact (28%) but considering this is a pitcher who has failed to make it more than 4 innings in 3 of his 4 starts and has given up 11 ER in his last two starts there may be too much risk in locking him in.

It may seem crazy that Matt Wisler is the last man standing but I used him as my SP2 his last start against the Mets where he went 7 IP, gave up 1 ER and struck out 8 batters and now gets one of the worst teams in baseball this season, the Reds, who have the second lowest ISO of any team in baseball against RHP this season. Now listen, I do not think we can expect Wisler to keep this 34% K rate up he displayed against the Mets especially when you consider he had not been above 20% at any point in his ML experience prior but there are signs that he could have turned a bit of a corner. Digging into his pitch types, he relied on his slider over 37% of the time against the Mets while completely abandoning his change-up which was a pitch he threw nearly 10% of the time earlier in his career. Wisler has always had exceptional control so we know he will pound the strike zone and limit his walks and I think it is worth rolling the dice at his punt price point to see if his new-found strikeout stuff is for real.

UPDATE: Now that pricing is out on FantasyDraft – I have to say, paying only $200 more the K upside of Jon Gray over Wisler is very intriguing. Gray is a massive favorite(-162) and it is very telling that the Padres have a lower team total than the Reds when you consider this game is in Coors Field. I get that Gray gave up 7 ER last game versus the Padres in Coors but the underlying metrics scream positive regression as he gave up only a 22% HC rate in that game and had a .500 BABIP. At only $12.6K on FantasyDraft, Gray has the most K upside of any of these low dollar punts and the Padres will be without Eric Hosmer which increases their K upside. There is risk here for sure – but I am willing to absorb that risk when you balance out the K upside.

MLB DFS – Early Slate Hitting:

With Coors Field, the Yankee bats and James Shields all on the mound on this early slate we are going to have plenty of options to look when building our line-ups today as the Rockies, Padres, Yankees and Mariners all have projected run totals of 4.8-4.9 or higher as of this writing.

James Shields continues to be a stack against option every time he is on the mound as he has already surrendered 16 runs in 23 IP and has a walk rate (11%) higher than his K rate (10%). Interestingly enough he has only given up 1 HR this season but last year he gave up 2.82 HR/9 to left-handed bats and 1.44 HR/9 to right-handers so it would be a pretty good assumption that the regression will rear its ugly head any day now. Oh by the way, looking at the weather – it looks like sustained 15-18MPH winds blowing out to right-field which should totally help Shields avoid disaster today. Yikes.

I think you can make the case for a 1-6 stack here today with Dee Gordon, Jean Segura, Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz, Kyle Seager and Mitch Haniger and after scuffling the last two nights (5 runs combined) they could be a bit over-looked with everyone rushing to stack up Coors again or pivot to the Yankee bats. I know it is a small sample size (48 at bats) but Haniger has an insane .408 ISO against RHP so far this season while Cruz/Seager are both sporting .250+ marks  – there is simply a ton of power in this line-up and any/all combinations of this stack are in play for me on the early slate. All of these bats sit in the $7-$8K price tier so it is very easy to stack 5-6 of these bats with Max as your SP1 and I intend to do so in all my line-ups today.

The Coors bats are always in play but I am not sure I want to pick on the talent of Jon Gray or the extreme ground ball tendencies of Tyson Ross who has a 55% GB rate and has limited his HR/9 rate to 0.55 to this point in his career. If I am paying up for big bats today I think I would prefer to focus on the Yankees, specifically the left-handed bats versus Lance Lynn who has given up a .218 ISO and .353 wOBA to LHB over the last two seasons while his K rate drops to 15% which is nearly identical to his 14% walk rate. Brett Gardner, Didi Gregorious and Aaron Hicks would be my favorite targets here to attack the platoon splits of Lynn and would likely avoid the RHB (as scary as that sounds) as Lynn has always been able to limit hard contact to righties.

On most days the Atlanta Braves would likely fly under the radar but with the news that Ronald Acuna is being called up, they should have the spotlight of MLB on them this afternoon against the Reds. Brandon Finnegan may actually be the worst arm on this entire slate as his 6+ SIERA/ERA suggest and with right-handed hitters sporting a 35% hard contact rate and 1.55 HR/9 against the LHP, the Braves stack could be a great way to differentiate your line-up today. Over the last two seasons, Kurt Suzuki ($4.9K is a steal) has a .364 ISO against LHP while Ozzie Albies has a .338 ISO so stacking them and including someone like Freddie Freeman, who could get over-looked with other big name bats and his L/L match-up, makes for an interesting contrarian stack in the “late afternoon hammer.” Assuming Acuna is in the line-up (and my guess is he will be), at $6.3K he makes for an amazing one-off play in any format.

NOTE – Normally I put together a sample line-up but I am writing this article early and the pricing on FantasyDraft has not yet been released.

MLB DFS – Main Slate Overview:

We might as well name the Main Slate – the Clayton Kershaw slate as the Dodgers left-hander gets a home start against the Miami Marlins, stepping to the mound as an insane -380 favorite while Miami is implied to score 1.89 runs. Those numbers are simply out of this world – I cannot recall any Vegas lines/totals even remotely close to that in recent memory but this is what happens when a future HOF arm tangles against the worst team in baseball. Rather than list off a bunch of fancy metrics – let’s just all agree you do whatever it takes to lock in Kershaw on this Main Slate and move on. Good? Good.

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Finding an SP2 to pair with Kershaw and still get any sort of decent offense is going to be tricky especially with so many of the better options being priced into the higher tiers like Zack Greinke, Jake Arrieta and Eduardo Rodriguez. Rodriguez is the arm I am looking towards the most early on as his early season 30% K rate combined with the fact he dominated this Toronto team last year (2 starts and 8K’s in each outing) make him a high upside GPP option. The Blue Jays will go right-handed heavy to try to get the platoon advantage here which could limit the K upside for Rodriguez (21% K rate versus RHB this season) but as a GPP play, there is still considerable profit potential for E-Rod in this spot.

Offensively, the best place on paper tonight is in Texas tonight as the Rangers have the highest implied total (5.34) which is even higher than the early slate Coors game. Kendall Graveman has given up 25 ER and 7 HR’s in 22 IP so far this season so to say this is a good stacking spot would be an understatement and hitters from both sides of the plate can be used here as Graveman is giving up .250 ISO’s to hitters from both sides of the plate so far this season. The Rangers bats are relatively cheap across the industry so they make a solid pairing with a Kershaw based line-up here tonight with Joey Gallo being the big bat worth spending up for.

If you need a pivot stack, the Dodgers will likely get completely ignored again tonight and they shouldn’t considering their match-up against RHP Trevor Richards who has given up 14 ER in 19 innings of work with a 40% hard contact rate to hitters from both sides of the plate. Against a left-handed heavy team with Corey Seager, Cody Bellinger, Joc Pederson and Yasmani Grandal all hitting in the heart of the order, my hope is the recent cold streak for this Dodgers line-up keeps the ownership down and allows us to attack one of the worst pitchers on the slate.

UPDATE: With the pricing out for the FantasyDraft Main Slate and taking a sping around the industry I have a few thoughts. First, the Blue Jays line-up is out and it is 9 right-handed bats which is not shocking and introduces risk if you are paying up for Eduardo Rodriguez. If you want Kershaw and still want bats, there is merit to dropping down to Jhoulys Chacin ($9.6K)  against the Royals in hopes he can replicate his strong 6 inning outing versus the Marlins where he got 23 FP on the back of 5K’s and 0 ER. You are essentially banking on the same thing here tonight -few K’s and some run prevention against the Royals.

Personally I am starting to think fading the Rangers is a good idea – the pricing works almost too easily with Kershaw leading me to think this is the obvious build and outside of a Gallo one-off I am probably moving away completely. The pivot stack that will probably go un-owned is the Mets against RHP Michael Wacha. Wacha has given up 10 ER in 21 innings so far with a 43% hard contact rate to LH and 39% to RH and the price points on guys like Yoenis Cespedes ($7.7K), Michael Conforto ($8.8K) and Jay Bruce ($7K) is reasonable enough that you can easily stack them with Kershaw and the Dodgers bats tonight.

Next: DraftKings MLB Picks

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