MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday May 19

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’s MLB DFS slate for me was centered around Jacob deGrom and boy did he deliver with a dominating 7 inning, 13 strikeout performance as the top fantasy performer of the night but honestly that is where the good news ended for me as the offenses I was building around (Yankees, A’s, Jays) all decided hitting the baseball was not something they wanted to do on Friday evening. Instead it was some lower owned stacks like the Cardinals and Rangers that dropped 12 runs each and Mookie Betts continued doing his thing with another home run as the highest owned bat of the top performing hitters.

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 Starting Pitching:

FantasyDraft has a five game early slate today which includes the two 4PM EST games (Rockies/Giants and Indians/Astros) which sets up nicely for a mini-slate here with a ton of viable pitching options and roster build routes. Please note – this slate on FantasyDraft excludes the Nationals/Dodgers 2PM EST make-up game which is similar to how DraftKings is handling today but FanDuel for example is including that game while excluding the two 4PM EST games – pay attention to your site rules today as the games included will make this slate quite different depending on the platform you play.

Starting at the top on FantasyDraft is Corey Kluber ($23.1K) who is a really interesting case today after a string of mediocre starts where he has surrendered 3 ER in four of his last five games and has struck out 6 or fewer batters in four of those five outings. Now take that recent performance and overlay it with the fact he has to pitch on the road against the Astros and is it possible we see the best arm on the slate get less ownership than he deserves?

Normally I do not make a point of picking on elite offenses like the Astros and initially I was not looking to force Kluber in but I think you will find as we go through this slate, the bats and SP2 options are underpriced which amazingly leave you with the ability to fit Kluber in without much issue. More on that in a bit.

Jon Gray ($14.8K) is by far my favorite arm on this slate from a point per dollar perspective and could argue even from a raw points perspective as he has every bit the K upside of someone like Kluber with the far better match-up against the Giants in San Francisco. Gray has a slate leading 26% K rate on the season and has racked up 8+ K’s in three of his last four starts and will take on a Giants team that strikes out at the 5th highest mark in baseball against RHP this season at 25.1%.

When you factor in the opponent and ballpark, Gray is a slam dunk choice for me on this slate and his price on FantasyDraft is one of the reasons I think you can find a way to fit in Kluber along side him as your SP2.

MLB DFS – Top Hitting on Early Slate:

Although the Oakland – Toronto game stack let me down on Friday Night, I am going right back to it here on this early slate with Sam Gaviglio taking on Sean Manaea and when you start clicking on the price points for the top bats in this game, you will get an idea od why paying up for Kluber is a much less difficult decision.

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Gaviglio is arguably the worst arm on this early slate as he has low K ability in the mid-teens and is givng up a .230+ ISO to hitters from both sides of the plate over the last two seasons. Gaviglio is a sinker ball pitcher, throwing it over 55% of the time and the A’s offense profiles exceptionally well against this pitch type. Since 2016, four of the A’s best hitters have .200+ ISO’s against this pitch, all sporting 33% or higher hard contact rates so stacking up Matt Joyce ($6.5K), Matt Olson ($6.6K), Matt Chapman ($6.6K) and Khris Davis ($8.9K) is not only a potent stack but one that is overwhelmingly too cheap in my opinion.

On the Blue Jays side of this game, my hope is we get Teoscar Hernandez ($7.7K) back in the line-up as you can build a pretty nice right-handed stack against Manaea, a pitcher who has given up 3-4 runs in each of his past three games and more troubling is that he has surrendered 40%+ hard contact now in three of his last four games. Hernandez, Josh Donaldson ($8.2K) and Justin Smoak ($6.7K) make for an ideal mini-stack here of the right-handed power bats for Toronto as this trio is all sporting a .200+ ISO against LHP over the last two years with a 33% or higher hard contact rate.

The way this slate is setting up, it looks relatively simple to me as I will game stack the under-priced A’s and Jays in the highest total on the early slate and still have enough salary to grab the two best K arms on the slate in Gray and Kluber. Could this end up being chalky? Sure but it doesn’t mean it is the wrong build and although there are viable pivots with the Cubs offense, I am simply playing the match-ups I like the best and will let ownership fall where it may on this slate.

MLB DFS – Main Slate Pitching:

Aces. Everywhere. Rain. Everywhere.

That is basically the run down of this Main Slate pitching as we get Max Scherzer, Luis Severino, James Paxton and Patrick Corbin on the slate but we also have major rain concerns that could impact the start time in DC with potential PPD threats in New York, Kansas City, Boston and Pittsburgh. This is going to be chaos.

In Kansas City for example the forecast calls for severe storms with damaging winds and hail – you want to risk it with Severino tonight?  My initial take as I write this early Saturday morning is to go with the arms that have no weather risk and that actually leaves me with some pretty nice options with James Paxton and Sean Newcomb at the top with Newcomb at $22K being the arm I have the most interest in as a cash game/tournament anchor. Newcomb is a -175 home favorite taking on a Marlins team he just faced, striking out 6 batters over 6 innings while only allowing a single hit.

However the more I look at this slate the more I am intrigued by a strong mid-tier that is headlined by Andrew Heaney ($17.6K) who is coming off a 10 strikeout performance against the Astros and is now sporting an elite 28% K rate on the season. Heaney is a solid -175 home favorite and gets to take on a Rays team with one of the lowest projected run totals on the slate so there is merit to dropping down in both cash games and GPP’s to someone like Heaney who gets to pitch in a great pitcher’s park, against a bad offense with the K upside to match any of the big guys on this slate.

The Twins and Brewers game is a great spot to look for pitching with two dynamic young arms in Fernando Romero and Freddy Peralta. Peralta was simply out of this world in his MLB debut in Coors Field where he struck out 13 Rockies but do not overlook Romero who has now put together three starts at the big league level pitching 21 innings, giving up only 1 ER and striking out 20 batters. Both arms here are priced in a similar $16-$17K range so you can mix and match either arm, but I give the slight edge to Peralta here as this is an electric arm with a bit of an unconventional delivery that is going to draw a ton of swings and misses his first few times through the big leagues until MLB teams can get some tape on him to make him adjust.

One item to note that a friend of mine pointed out in an MLB DFS chat yesterday is that the Rays will “start” Sergio Romo for 1-2 innings today and then bring in Ryan Yarbrough ($9.4K) for his 5-6 innings of work. Since Yarbrough is not listed as the starter, many will likely overlook this but if you need a GPP YOLO, I like the nuance here of using the Rays “starter” in Yarbrough.

MLB DFS – Main Slate Hitting:

The first thing I did when I saw Jose Urena pitching in Atlanta was lock in Freddie Freeman and Ozzie Albies as we get a pitcher in Urena who struggled with LH power (36% HC rate the last two seasons) against two left-handed power bats in warm temperatures in one of the best parks for left-handed power. A full Braves stack is certainly in play here against Urena as they have one of the highest team totals on the board but prioritizing Freeman and Albies who both have .215+ ISO’s against RHP this season is the first stop in my roster build.

From a stack perspective today, the Texas Rangers against Lucas Giolito is by far my favorite spot on the board as Giolito’s metrics tis season are literally a stackers dream. Not only does the right-hander give up a .203 ISO and 34% HC rate to left-handed hitters but he also has a massive 21.5% walk rate which is “offset” by his 11% K rate. So to summarize – expect a ton of base runners and a whole lot of hard contact for this Texas squad today.

The key three bats are the obvious first stop here with Joey Gallo ($8.4K), Nomar Mazara ($8.4K) and Shin-soo Choo ($6.9K) but because of Giolito’s walk issues, I would not hesitate to expand the stack with secondary pieces like Delino Deshields Jr. ($6.8K) and Jurickson Profar ($6.5K) and stack the top five batters in this Texas order. My guess is that the trio of Gallo, Mazara, Choo will be popular (and for good reason) so expanding the stack and going 5-6 deep here, gives you the ability to differentiate your build but also take advantage of the sheer volume of base runners that Giolito is allowing and hope that the Rangers put up big time crooked numbers before making their way to an awful White Sox bullpen!

Good luck today all!

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