MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday May 12
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 Night’s MLB DFS slate was predictably all about pitching as we had Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Chris Sale all at the top of the pricing tier and when the dust settled it was Sale and Scherzer who owned the night as the top two fantasy scorers on the night as they each racked up double-digit strikeouts. Offensively we finally got our first Coors Field night as the Brewers and Rockies combined for 21 total runs in a DFS friendly slugfest that helped drive much of the cash line when paired with the top arms on the evening.
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 – Early Slate Pitching Overview:
The Early Slate pitching is pretty clear with only one high-priced arm at the top – Stephen Strasburg ($26.6K) – who gets a road start against a high strikeout Arizona team. The last time we had Strasburg on a short(er) slate like this as the lone ace against the Padres he was 75% owned in GPP play and only put up a 7 inning 5 K performance so there is absolutely merit to the fade if we think a similar ownership level will be attained this afternoon. At first glance with other “name” arms like Chris Archer, Jon Lester, Mike Clevinger, David Price and even Jakob Junis, I actually think the ownership will be largely spread out even though I assume Strasburg being the top owned is a slam dunk.
Arizona strikes out at a 25% clip against RHP this season which is 6th most in baseball (interesting to note that his last opponent, the Padres, strike out at a 26.8% mark which is second highest in MLB) so there is obviously high strikeout upside in this spot but as he proved last time out, Strasburg is not the lock and load ace regardless of price. Strasburg has also matched up once already this season with Arizona (in Washington), striking out 7 while giving up 5 ER so there are other “red flags” to note when paying this freight for him today.
If you want to drop down there are two arms – Mike Clevinger ($17.9K) and Jon Lester ($16.7K) who both take the mound as massive -200 home favorites against the Royals and White Sox.
Clevinger has some serious PvB success against this Royals team as he has struck out 24 of 74 batters (32%) with only a .230 batting average and is coming off his best start of the year where he struck out 10 Yankees in Yankee Stadium, his highest K output of the season. Clevinger has faced this KC team already once this season in a similar spot at home, where he gave up 10 hits (only 1 run) and was limited to 4 K’s and this Royals team strikes out at the lowest rate against RHP in all of baseball at 15.9% so there is risk in paying up for him in this spot and expecting the same output as his last game against New York.
Lester will be pitching at home verses the White Sox with 50 degree temperatures and the wind blowing in so in theory this should be a nice spot for him against a White Sox team that strikes out at a league leading 28% rate against left-handed pitching. Lester has failed to strike out more than 7 batters in any start this year and has only an 18.2% K rate so although the match-up is good, there is capped upside based off Lester’s skillset so far this season.
If you want a pure punt play (and you know I love me a punt play as my SP2) then look no further than David Hess ($8K) who gets the start for Baltimore at home against the Rays. Hess, a right-handed pitcher, has a 24.6% K rate through 25 innings of work in AAA this season and will take on a Rays projected line-up with a paltry .130 ISO against RHP this season. To me this price point is well worth the risk when you consider the opponent and the solid strikeout stuff Hess has flashed so far in the minor this season.
As I step back and look at the pitching on this slate there are red flags for all the top end arms and the more I play around with roster construction the less I find myself willing to pay over $26K for Strasburg who in my opinion is not on par with the arms that should be priced at this range. When you consider that he will be the “chalk” SP1 on this slate, I have no issue fading him and hoping he puts up another mediocre outing like he did against San Diego and we can load up on bats in a roster build that Strasburg owners cannot afford.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Although all the focus in Arizona will be on Stephen Strasburg, my focus on the early slate will be on the Nationals bats who get a nice match-up against RHP Troy Scribner who will be called up from AAA to make this start. Scribner’s minor league profile shows an arm with mediocre strikeout ability (high teens, low 20% range), who has given up a ton of HR’s (2 HR/9 rate) over his last two seasons and his 10% plus walk rate in the minor leagues is really what stands out to me in that we could get a ton of base runners for an all out Nationals stack!
Bryce Harper ($11.1K) and Matt Adamas ($10K) are big time investments (that Strasburg owners will not be able to afford) and with ISO’s of .349 and .296 against RHP respectively, this looks like a powerful mini-stack that could be a GPP difference maker against a mediocre minor league arm. With Scribner’s high walk rate, I would not overlook Trea Turner ($9.1K) as part of this stack as his ability to get on base and wreak havoc on the base paths adds significantly to his ceiling in this spot.
The Red Sox have the highest implied team total on the slate as of this writing against a pitcher in Marco Estrada whose 5+ ERA on the season is just the tip if the iceberg on one of the most exploitable pitchers going today. Estrada is a massive fly ball pitcher (53% plus to hitters from both sides of the plate) who has given up a .224 ISO to LHB and .284 ISO to RHB so you can make the case that any and all Red Sox hitters are in play as a stack here today.
Hanley Ramirez ($7.3K) looks like the BvP play of the day as he has flat-out owned Estrada in his career going 10 for 29 against him and can be added to a stack with the more expensive pieces like Mookie Betts ($10.8K) and J.D. Martinez ($9.8K) who have .300+ ISO’s against RHP so far this season.
Lastly, the Mariners get a great match-up against the Tigers and LHP Matt Boyd and the price points are such where they can be stacked easily with any SP option you choose. My two favorites here are Mitch Haniger ($8.5K) and Nelson Cruz ($8.1K) who both have .200+ ISO’s against LHP over the last two seasons and can be used as one-off plays or part of a mini-stack here on this slate.
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!
SP: Jon Lester ($16.7K)
SP: David Hess ($8K)
IF: Matt Admas ($10K)
IF: Trea Turner ($9.4K)
IF: Hanley Ramirez ($7.3K)
OF: Mookie Betts ($10.8K)
OF: J.D. Martinez ($9.8K)
OF: Bryce Harper ($11.1K)
UTIL: Nelson Cruz ($8.1K)
UTIL: Mitch Haniger ($8.5K)
Slate Overview: The more I look at this Early Slate the less I am interested in paying up for Stephen Strasburg at $26K when the reality is that he very rarely shown this season that he a player that will set the cash line on his own – more often failing to reach expectations than putting up a performance you simply have to have in order to cash. Instead I like the idea of paying down to Clevinger/Lester and even all the way down to David Hess which would allow you to load up on all the bats you could possibly want – putting together a roster build that Strasburg owners will simply not be able to replicate.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Overview:
I want to like this Main Slate – I really do – but here is the problem, we are going to have significant weather issues in some of the most critical spots of the night (Mets/Philly, SF/Pitt and Coors Field) which could make this slate a complete stay away if the weather does not clear. Assuming there was no weather issues, I would load up on Noah Syndergaard in Philadelphia but heavy rain is expected there all night which leaves me searching for pitching on this slate and I am simply not paying $25k+ for Charlie Morton.
Assuming the Mets are rained out, I would look to punt at SP with arms like Mike Soroka ($14.6k) who is a -122 favorite pitching against the Marlins in Miami. Soroka has had mixed results over his first two outings in the bigs but remember this is an arm with a 27% plus K rate at AAA prior to his promotion and the run prevention should be there against a Marlins team projected for only 3.8 runs on this slate. I actually like the idea of going double punt with Soroka and Ross Stripling ($8K) who is a -180 home favorite against a Reds team with the second lowest run total on the Main Slate. Stripling pitched 4 shutout innings against the Padres in his last start after moving out of the bullpen and threw 68 pitches in that outing so we should feel comfortable with an uptick in pitches and workload in this spot.
Listen – do I feel great about these arms? No of course not, but if Thor is out of play I am just not interested in an over-priced Charlie Morton or chalk Michael Wacha against the Padres – the pitching is awful on this slate so focus on your batters and work in the pitchers you feel have the least chance of hurting you.
Offensively this slate is simple for me – if Thor is off the board then I will have all the salary I want to stack up Coors Field and the 11+ run total. There are rain concerns here as well so keep this in mind before you simply set your line-ups and move on with your night but assuming this game plays you can stack it up each and every way possible.
The one team I would look to build around to avoid weather concerns is in Atlanta as they take on LHP Jarlin Garcia who finally saw the regression hit him in his last start where he gave up 7 ER to the Cubs in Wrigley. Garcia is a low strikeout arm who had an unsustainable LOB rate and it finally came back to bite him as you cannot have a double-digit walk rate and expect to navigate through it unscathed at the MLB level. I would not hesitate to stack up the Braves here with Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna Jr. from the right side and would add in the lefty/lefty match-up with Freddie Freeman as well.
Until I get a better idea of the weather I am going to take a wait and see approach on this slate and react to it when we get clarity – keep an eye on my Twitter feed @2LockSports as I will do my best to keep you posted on the weather as we get closer to lock. Enjoy your day!
Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.