MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday May 15
Welcome to the Tuesday 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.
Monday’s MLB DFS slate went exactly as we predicted as Andrew Heaney mowed down 10 Astros as the top arm on the night, Mike Fiers out-dueled the can’t miss Carlos Carrasco and Niko Goodrum smacked two home runs as the top bat of the night reminding us how beautifully unpredictable fantasy baseball can be on any given night.
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 Pitcher Overview:
Looking over this slate at first glance we have to be wary of weather/rain on the East Coast tonight which could put the Mets/Jays, Phillies/Orioles, Red Sox/A’s and Yankees/Nationals at risk so keep an eye on the weather when factoring in your player pool throughout the day.
Gerrit Cole ($26.4K) is the clear top dog on this slate as his 41% k rate leads all of baseball and has proven seemingly time and time again he is worth whatever price tag is assigned to him. Cole has already faced this Angels team once this season and struck out 8 batters while giving up 2 ER so the track record for another successful outing is right there in the game logs. The one “issue” I have with Cole is that his strikeout upside this season has really been weighted heavily on left-handed bats (49% versus 34% versus RHB) and the Angels will likely roll out 7-8 right-handed bats tonight with a projected line-up that only strikes out 16% of the time against RHP this season.
Noah Syndergaard ($21.2K) has not pitched since May 5th due to a rain out over the weekend with the Phillies that pushed him back to tonight’s interleague game with the Blue Jays. Thor’s K rate of 27% this year is right in line with previous years and although he has had two double-digit strikeout games this season it feels like we haven’t yet had that dominant outing where Syndergaard just rolls through the opposition but I think tonight could be the spot against a Toronto team that loses the DH heading to Citi Field.
The Blue Jays have a 24.4% K rate against RHP this season which is 7th highest in baseball and with the pitcher forced to bat tonight, I would ramp up the potential upside here for Syndergaard. Thor is a -175 home favorite and the Jays have the lowest team total on the slate which makes him a logical pivot off Cole who has the K upside to match any arm going this evening.
Scrolling through the pricing on this slate it seems crazy that someone with the raw talent of Jose Berrios ($14.9K) is as far down as he is but after four straight starts where he has given up 4-5 runs per night and has only 4 strikeouts in his last three starts combined there is obvious cause for concern. Looking at his starts the velocity of every one of his pitches is in line with last year so there does not seem to be an injury issue or mechanical change and it could be as simple as three of his last four starts were on the road where he has fared significantly worse in his career.
In 2017, Berrios had a 2.41 ERA at home compared to a 5.17 ERA on the road and his strikeout rate at home of 25.8% was materially higher than his road woes of 20.1%. In 2018 we are seeing much of the same story has Berrios has a 3.74 ERA at home versus 5.18 on the road and his K rate of 27.1% is over 10% higher than his paltry 16% road rate. Could Berrios be one of those DFS guys that we simply have to play the splits on? Tonight as a home favorite against a Cardinals team with a 24% K rate on the road this season and a projected line-up that sports a 23% K rate, I am willing to roll the dice as my SP2 on this slate and pair him with either Cole or Thor at the top.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
No team on the slate has a higher implied run total than the Boston Red Sox who are set at a 5.2 run total at home against Daniel Mengden and the A’s which will likely make them a popular target on this slate. Mengden last season gave up a .217 ISO to left-handed hitters but this year it has been the right-handed bats that have given him trouble with a .247 ISO and 40%+ hard contact. Either side of the platoon is in play for Boston as Mengden is a low K arm (16%) who is giving up 39% hard contact on this season so stacking around Boston is certainly in play tonight but the pricing on guys like J.D. Martinez ($10.1K) and Mookie Betts ($11.9K) is tough to fit in with the high-end arms we want which may mean dropping down to plays like Mitch Moreland ($8.5K) who has a .313 ISO against RHP this season.
My favorite game stack on this slate at first glance is Texas and Seattle as we get a pitching match-up between Mike Minor and Mike Leake, two pitchers with 5 xFIP’s are both giving up 40% hard contact on the season. Minor, a left-handed pitcher, is giving up a .267 ISO to right-handed batters this season with a 1.67 HR/9 rate and will face a Mariners line-up that is LOADED with right-handed power bats.
Mitch Haniger, Nelson Cruz and Ryon Healy all have .230+ ISO’s this season against left-handed pitching with Healy sporting a team leading .348 ISO while Haniger, Cruz and Mike Zunino all have 45% hard contact rates against southpaws. The price points for these four batters are all in the $7-$8K range on FantasyDraft which makes them an ideal stack if you are looking to pay for pitching while still targeting high upside power bats.
The Rangers on the other side of this game will likely be down Adrian Beltre who looks like he is headed back to the D.L. which means the stacking options become a bit more difficult and really keeps my focus on the trio of Joey Gallo, Nomar Mazara and Shin-soo Choo as both Mazara and Choo have .200 ISO’s against RHP the last two seasons while Gallo is sporting a team leading .330 ISO mark.
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: Noah Syndergaard ($21.2K)
SP: Jose Berrios ($14.9K)
IF: Mitch Moreland ($8.5K)
IF: Joey Gallo ($7.4K)
IF: Ryon Healy ($7.2K)
OF: Nelson Cruz ($8.5K)
OF: Mitch Haniger (7.5K)
OF: Nomar Mazara ($8.1K)
UTIL: Shin-soo Choo ($6.6K)
UTIL: J.D. Martinez ($10.1K)
Slate Overview: At first glance this seems like a great slate to go high/low with our pitching as I certainly want to nab one of the high K elite arms like Cole/Thor and utilize Berrios as my cost saving SP2 in a spot where I believe he has significant upside relative to his price. The Mariners/Rangers game stack core is cost-effective and not only allows you to pay up at your SP1 but it also gives you the ability to lock in two high-priced Red Sox bats as an example. This looks like a really fun slate tonight but keep an eye on weather as we get closer to lock for issues up and down the East Coast.
Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis all season long.