MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday April 29
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 MLB DFS early slate was dominated by offenses as the Mariners put up 12 runs against Carlos Carrasco and the Indians while the Dodgers dropped 15 runs on the Giants which forced Pablo Sandoval on to the mound for San Francisco – which tells you really all you need to know about that game. The Main Slate was much more pitcher focused as four of the top six scorers on the night were starting pitchers – some we expected in Lance McCullers, Masahiro Tanaka and Joey Lucchesi but I can tell you without a doubt I would never have guys Royals left-hander Eric Skoglund would have been the slates highest scorer with 7 innings, 9 K’s, 2 hits and 1 ER allowed.
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 loaded pitching slate for this 12 game Sunday Main Slate as we have four arms going today with 30% plus K rates already this season, so to say there is upside available may be an understatement.
Gerrit Cole ($24.6K) is the most expensive option on this slate and for good reasons as his 38% K rate puts him tied for the top spot in baseball so far this season with Max Scherzer of the Nationals. Cole’s production so far this season makes him seem well worth the price as he has 24+ fantasy points on FantasyDraft in every single start so far this season with 2 ER or less in every outing and double-digit K’s in three of his five performances thus far. As a -220 home favorite, Cole looks like the cash game SP1 to pay up for today and even though the match-up with Oakland is not the easiest spot (22.9% K rate this season versus RHP which is 14th in MLB), we did just see Lance McCullers breeze through this line-up with 7K’s of his own last night.
Jose Berrios ($23.3K) sits just a touch below Cole in terms of price with Robbie Ray ($20.5K) not far behind and both pitchers have flashed their high strikeout ability this season as they have a 30% and 36% K rate respectively which puts them both in the top 10 so far this season. Berrios gets a Reds team that does not strike out much versus RHP (21%, 20th in MLB against RHP) while Ray gets a Nationals team we just went after on Saturday with LHP Patrick Corbin that strike out at the 11th highest mark against LHP, 24.8%.
I very much look at these two arms in the same way today as both pitchers have elite K stuff and the ability to dominate but they also have much more inconsistency than someone like Cole this year which feels crazy to type after years of seeing Cole tease us with the Pirates but here we are. Berrios and Ray are both viable tournament pivots, arms I would be happy to utilize in any format but if I am paying up, then I think I would just go all the way up to Cole on this slate.
J.A. Happ ($17.5K) feels like hard to avoid SP2 chalk here and the thought of Happ as chalk makes me want to withdraw my entries already but the match-up and price make this an exceptional play today against the Rangers. Happ right now has a 33.6% K rate, top 5 in all of baseball with his numbers really escalating against LHB as he has a 37% K rate with a .067 ISO allowed. This Rangers team without Adrian Beltre and Elvis Andrus in the line-up is extremely left-handed heavy and the right-handed bats that remain are strikeout prone and frankly not all that scary.
The projected line-up for the Rangers has four left-handed batters in it and the right-handed hitters have a 24% K rate against LHP the last two seasons with only a .150 ISO. There is a reason Happ is a massive -210 favorite here and with a game log flashing 8-10 K’s per game this season, this feels like the obvious SP2 play that I am going to have a hard time talking myself out of.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
I am not sure when this happened but at some point over the last two weeks the White Sox became my favorite team to stack. This was not planned or expected and every time I think I will move away from them, their opposing pitcher is announced and it’s another horrendous option I want to attack from all angles and here I am figuring out ways to stack 1-6 in the Chicago line-up.
Yes I know the Cy Young contender Eric Skoglund managed to shut them down last night but I simply do not care – the Royals are pitching Ian Kennedy today – a pitcher with a slate leading 41% hard contact rate the last two seasons who has a 46% fly ball rate while giving up .200+ ISO’s to hitters from both sides of the plate and surrendered a 2.24 HR/9 rate to lefties last year with a 1.8 HR/9 rate to right-handed hitters.
Kennedy is bad and you know what is great about him? He has no real platoon splits meaning he’s equally bad to hitters from both sides of the plate which is the perfect recipe for a stack on stack on stack .
If you play for the White Sox and are in the line-up today after a doubleheader yesterday than I want in. I will need to wait to see the line-up because I am worried we get a super watered down line-up after many of the regulars played both games yesterday but 1-6 in this White Sox line-up are all in play for me today. Yoan Moncada, Jose Abreu and Matt Davidson are the top-tier plays but we can use guys like Yolmer Sanchez, Nicky Delmonico and Wellington Castillo to round out our stack all in this $6K price range which allows us to easily pay up for two SP’s while still getting in a stack we feel has upside.
The Blue Jays have the highest team total on the slate at 5.13 at the time of this writing and with LHP Martin Perez on the mound that should not really shock anyone. My gut initially was to fade this spot but then I clicked on the prices – Justin Smoak ($6.6K) is simply priced WAY too cheap in this spot and his pricing alone gives me interest in a cheap stack here or simply use him as a one-off. Perez so far this season has given up 16 ER in 13 IP against RHP with a 2.7 HR/9 rate and 52% hard contact – no really those are not typos.
The right-handed batters are all in play here with Smoak and Steve Pearce ($6.5K) as my top two targets as both players have .200+ ISO’s against LHP the last two years and you can even add in Kevin Pillar ($6.3K) who has a .224 ISO against LHP during that time and is coming off a two homer game on Saturday. The Vegas total will push ownership their way so I understand the fade in GPP’s but this is more a price enforcement play on my part that also gets me two top arms in my roster build.
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!
More from FanSided
- Cardinals Rumors: Surprise extension, Dylan Carlson-Yankees link, Rays trade idea
- USWNT vs. Vietnam: Key takeaways before they take on the Dutch
- NFL rumors: 49ers trending toward contract drama with defensive star
- Steelers avoid any camp drama with latest roster move
- MLB Rumors: Potential Braves reunion, Lance Lynn no-trade clause and Orioles deadline intentions
SP: Gerrit Cole ($24.6K)
SP: J.A. Happ ($17.5K)
IF: Yoan Moncada ($9.5K)
IF: Matt Davidson ($7.6K)
IF: Jose Abreu ($8.2K)
OF: Nicky Delmonico ($6.5K)
OF: Jorge Soler ($6.7K)
OF: Kevin Pillar ($6.3K)
UTIL: Justin Smoak ($6.6K)
UTIL: Steve Pearce ($6.5K)
Slate Overview: To me this slate is all about locking in two top-tier arms as we simply have too many high K arms available to us to get cute on this slate. I am not interested in solid run prevention spots or hoping some punt play get me a “decent” quality start when I have four arms with 30% K rates so far this year. If you pass on these arms and they do what they have been doing, you better hope your bats go off because you will have a ton of catching up to do. With the White Sox and Blue Jays bats being as cost-effective as they are, I think you can easily stack against two of the worst pitchers on the slate in Kennedy and Perez and lock your two high-end arms and move on. Enjoy your Sunday all!
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!