MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday May 25
Welcome to the Friday 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.
Thursday’s MLB DFS split four game slates ended up being pretty interesting slates to play even with the limited options. On the early slate, Dylan Bundy was the chalk pitcher but this was a spot where fading the chalk left you completely out in the cold as Bundy dominated with 14 K’s and a slate leading 46 fantasy points, which was 20 more than the next closest player on the slate. On the Main Slate it was the total opposite as the chalk pitcher in Rick Porcello got rocked by the Rays right off the bat and if you pivoted to arms like Blake Snell or Danny Duffy, you were in a significantly advantageous position.
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
What a slate we have here tonight as we get a ton of elite arms to choose from, high-end hitting environments and warm temperatures across the US which should coincide nicely with offenses across the board starting to heat up.
We start at the top with the best arm on the slate in Max Scherzer ($27.2K) who has a major league leading 41% K rate on the season and will now get the best possible match-up in baseball with a weak hitting Marlins team in a massive ballpark in Miami. Mad Max is the best play on the board – it is not even really close – but MLB DFS is not always about just taking the best player as we need to understand slate context and tonight with a ton of viable pitching pivots and a plethora of elite hitting spots, I am not sure if paying up for Max is a route I will end up going.
There is a loaded second tier of elite arms with Corey Kluber, James Paxton, Luis Severino and Noah Syndergaard and a really interesting match-up between Patrick Corbin and Sean Manaea in Oakland where we get two pitchers are reduced price points both with significant K upside.
You may think we need to stop there but I think the low to mid-tier arms are incredibly strong on this slate and whether you choose to deploy them as SP2’s or live solely in this tier to pay up for bats, I think you have a few options to build around.
Ross Stripling ($14.5K) has now made three consecutive starts out of the Dodgers bullpen, ramping up his pitch count from 68 to 79 and to 96 in his last outing against the Nationals. In those three outings he has put up K rates of 29.4%, 31.8% and 40.9% and now he takes the mound as a massive -200 home favorite against the Padres, a team with the third highest K rate in all of baseball against RHP at 26.4%. Stripling is my favorite SP2 and honestly, I think you can make the case for him on one pitcher sites where you use him as the path to load up on bats.
Zach Eflin ($15.3K) is probably not an arm that will garner much discussion today but I have a good amount of interest him at first glance as he will take on Toronto in Philadelphia today. Eflin was an arm last year we would routinely pick on but in 2018 he has been a much better pitcher, specifically against RHB where he is sporting a .024 ISO and giving up a paltry 21.9% hard contact rate. What is really interesting is Eflin is a heavy slider pitcher, throwing it over 25% of the time this season which is generating a 27% Whiff % that he uses as his put away pitch off his fastball that sits between 94-95MPH.
Not only will Eflin face a right-handed heavy team today, but it is also one that will lose the DH in the National League park and one that struggles mightily against the slider. There is sneaky upside here with Eflin and although the ballpark scares me a bit, I am loving the potential K upside for GPP’s here tonight.
Reynaldo Lopez ($14.8K) is another arm in this mid-tier that I have interest in tonight against the Tigers either as a SP2 pivot or a cheap arm with upside to help you fit in the big bats. Lopez has flashed his upside in recent starts (and also his volatility) with two starts of 7+ innings, 6-8 K’s and 2 ER or less, putting up 21 and 35 fantasy points in the process but those were sandwiched with a blow-up outing against the Pirates where he gave up 6 ER in 2 IP. The interesting aspect for Lopez is that where he gets hurt is with left-handed batters, as he is giving up a .228 ISO and has only a 13% K rate but against right-handed teams he is sporting a .131 ISO and a 21% K rate. Tonight Lopez will take on a Tigers team with 6-7 right-handed bats in the projected line-up so assuming the line-up holds to a right-handed heavy Tigers build, I think Lopez could be a solid SP2 choice on this slate with upside.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Let’s start with the obvious – we have a Coors Field game and Sal Romano pitching for the Reds – yes, all the Rockies bats are in play tonight especially the left-handed hitters considering Romano has given up a .255 ISO to left-handed batters this year. The Rockies haven’t been on a slate at home in a while so maybe the ownership will be lower than it should but the fact they have a 6+ run total and the price points outside of Charlie Blackmon ($10.9K) and Nolan Arenado ($11.1K) are reasonable which will likely make them a popular option tonight anyways.
As much as we can make the case for Coors, I think the Red Sox are the best stack on the board and an amazing pivot off the Rockies. First off we have 80+ degree temperatures with 10-15 MPH winds blowing out to RF and the Red Sox already lethal line-up will get their heart and soul back tonight with Dustin Pedroia ($7.2K) coming off the D.L. The Red Sox will face off with RHP Julio Teheran, a pitcher who is giving up a 34% hard contact rate, along with an 11% walk rate and is relying on a fastball that sits at 88-89 MPH nearly 40% of the time.
I talk about this a lot but if even when stacks are somewhat popular, one of the best ways to differentiate yourself is to go all-in on a stack, maxing out the allowable number of players from a team instead of just stacking the 2-3 studs that everyone else will have. I expect the ownership on a large slate with Coors available to suppress the ownership on the usual studs a little but let’s not pretend like Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez and Andrew Benintendi will be sneaky. I do think the way to really differentiate yourself on a site like FantasyDraft is to make use of all six spots you are allowed for one offense and expand the stack to include secondary pieces like Pedroia, Rafael Devers and Mitch Moreland.
Over the last two seasons, Teheran is giving up a .200 ISO and 37% hard contact rate to left-handed hitters while also walking them at a 13% rate and this in many ways mirrors how I felt about the Orioles yesterday against Lucas Giolito. Any time you get a high walk arm like this, I want to go all in on the stack instead of picking out 2-3 bats because you are hoping for the multiple baserunner innings where the control becomes an issue, we get multiple guys on base and then BOOM – the big home run to break open your stack. Rather than grab 1-2 pieces from the Red Sox tonight, I love the idea of getting 4-6 batters at the core of your build here tonight.
Outside of Coors and Fenway we get a warm weather game in Texas with Mike Minor and Eric Skoglund pitching – see I told you there was tons of offense and I have only touched on three games!
The majority of my interest here is with the right-handed Royals bats who will take on a pitcher in Minor who is surrendering a .259 ISO to right-handed batters this season with a 40% hard contact rate. If you look at the Royals line-up you have three bats in Whit Merrifield, Salvador Perez and Jorge Soler that are simply mashing LHP this season as each of them has a .230+ ISO and Merrifield and Soler have absurd 45% plus hard contact rates. The Royals trio is priced reasonably with all three of these bats sitting between $7.6K-$8K so they make for a great stack with a high-end arm or can be used as a secondary stack with either the Rockies or Red Sox.
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: Ross Stripling ($14.5K)
SP: Reynaldo Lopez ($14.8K)
IF: Whit Merrifield ($8K)
IF: Salvador Perez ($7.6K)
IF: Rafael Devers ($6.7K)
OF: Mookie Betts ($10.9K)
OF: J.D. Martinez ($9.8K)
OF: Andre Benintendi ($9.1K)
UTIL: Jorge Soler ($7.7K)
UTIL: Charlie Blackmon ($10.7K)
Slate Overview: Yes I know fading Mad Max is scary but I really believe there are viable pivots in this mid-range with upside that alow you to stack the bats that Scherzer owners will not be able to afford. I am a big believer in looking at slate context and that is why I lay out Picks and Pivots the way I do – sure I could just list Max Scherzer as the top play and be like every other article you read but in my mind I think an offense focused build with strong mid-tier arms gives you every bit the upside here tonight and if the Marlins can just be annoying/pesky and not strike out 20 times, well then it may just work out. Enjoy your Friday heading into a long weekend and seriously – enjoy this slate – it is awesome.
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!