FanDuel MLB Daily Lineups: Thursday May 31

Welcome to the FanDuel MLB Daily Lineups column for Thursday, May 31st 2018. We’re a fantasy baseball column focused on helping you build a DFS MLB optimal lineup for each slate.

We took some risky moves at the pitcher position for both the Early Only and Main FanDuel MLB slates. Unfortunately, we had mixed results. James Paxton was incredibly disappointing in a very good situation.

Max Scherzer was the clear winner of the Main slate. But Eduardo Rodriguez was a solid 45 FanDuel MLB point contributor. That was about what we were hoping for. So the Early Only was more successful.

On Thursday, we’re still going to consider some risky moves, but we think there are safer bets to land on for the Main slate. Before we jump into the Main slate, we do have some Early Only lineup thoughts.

There are only two games played in the Early Only FanDuel MLB slate. Assuming there is no weather impact to the Angels and Tigers game, the slate could actually work nicely. We love Daniel Mengden ($8,500) at the pitcher spot, with stacks of the Angels and Tigers on offense. You could even through in a few Oakland Athletics bats.

There are only nine games for the Main slate, and it’s harder than the Early Only for many reasons, some obvious. We have some lingering injuries to consider. But worse, there are weather-related impacts which caused us to pause while landing on our DFS MLB optimal lineups for the night.

Before we get there, a reminder to never take DFS MLB optimal lineups as ‘bible’ for your personal lineup each day. Use the suggestions as guidance. Also, make sure you follow final lineup thoughts throughout the day on our twitter account @FantasyCPR or me @mattymcmatt17 look for late breaking lineup news.

Weather Note: There is a large tropical system hanging over a good portion of the Eastern United States. Fortunately it’s not impacting too many games to make this slate too difficult to play. However, the Orioles and Yankees game is under threat of postponement. 

That realization this morning was very disappointing. Before looking at the weather report, we were very excited to find a way to afford to stack the Yankees bats against Andrew Cashner. However, living near the area, seeing the constant rain, and looking at the weather forecast, we highly recommend fading that game complete.

With weather-related considerations addressed, let’s get to the top pitching options…

FanDuel MLB: Top Pitcher Main Slate

Full disclosure before we get to our favorite pitcher pick of the night, we initially wanted to plug Jack Flaherty ($7,700) as our top pitcher pick of the night. With a 27.7% K-rate and 3.58 xFIP, Flaherty has some of the best metrics starting on the mound tonight, sitting among some pretty good starting pitchers.

We also think Flaherty could have solid success against the Pirates, in Saint Louis tonight. Even better, Jack’s salary is so cheap, he allows you to stack an expensive team like the Yankees against a horrendous Andrew Cashner, while still grabbing a potential 10+ strikeouts.

While Flaherty is still a great play tonight, especially for GPP, further investigation is pulling us away from the pick. With the weather-related concerns now being applied, we realize it’s not worth trying to stack the Yankees on offense. Also, there are better, cheaper, offensive stacks available.

Over the last couple of days, we’ve focused heavily on value at the pitcher pick with mixed results. As we mentioned earlier in the season, this can be a dangerous DFS MLB optimal lineups play. If your value pick doesn’t work at the pitcher position, it’s very hard to win cash games, and you’re only option is to have all of our offensive picks hit home runs and win a GPP, by pure luck.

There is a top pitcher on the mound tonight, similar to other top pitchers we’ve seen landing between 50 and 70 FanDuel MLB points over the last several days. However, Clayton Kershaw ($11,000) has struggled at times over the course of this season, and eventually landed on the Disabled List.

Fortunately for the Dodgers, as they’re heating up, Kershaw is now coming off the DL to face the Phillies in Los Angeles. Grabbing an arm who struggled before a DL stint can be risky. However, keep in mind that Kershaw still has the best xFIP, 2.94, of any pitcher on the mound tonight.

Also, Kershaw is still fanning hitters at a 26.5% rate, just above Sean Newcomb ($8,800) and below Jack Flaherty. The Phillies offense has been impressive this season, but the vast majority of their success has been at home.

The Phillies have one of the highest K-rates in baseball, and when facing lefties away from Philly, their wRC+ plummets to 64, third worst in baseball. So, we’ve landed on the great southpaw in blue for our top pitching pick for the Main slate tonight.

FanDuel MLB: Top Hitting Stacks Main Slate

Tonight’s pitching match ups presents a plethora of offensive stacking options. As mentioned previously, if the weather were better, we’d be all over the Yankees against Cashner in Baltimore tonight. There were even pitcher pick scenarios allowing you to afford their top four bats.

However, with that game faded, we need to consider other options. The odd conclusion we landed on was the best best appear to be one of the cheapest. The Indians are a solid consideration with hot bats swinging against Jake Odorizzi and his 1.82 home runs per nine innings. But keep in mind, Odorizzi is having a great month, and his metrics are rapidly coming up for air.

Another decent consideration is the expensive, but super productive, Astros against Drew Pomeranz and the Red Sox. Drew hasn’t pitched much this season, so we have a limited population of data, but he’s giving up 1.63 home runs per nine, so far, and has one of the worst xFIPs (5.13) starting on the mound tonight. They’re a better expensive pivot from the Yankees than the Indians.

But we have Kershaw in our pitcher spot, making the Astros mostly unaffordable, unless you want to grab two to three value bats at the bottom of their lineup. Instead, we like the value the Padres bats bring against the Marlins in San Diego, along with the Mariners in Seattle against Mike Minor and the Rangers.

Minor has a somewhat decent xFIP, 4.41, considering his ridiculous 5.63 ERA. That’s mostly due to the modest 1.33 WHIP, and 20%+ K-rate. However, Mike also has a high 1.66 home runs per nine innings.

Meanwhile, several of the Mariners bats, like Jean Segura ($3,300) are swinging well. Segura, in fact, is not only averaging nearly 13 FanDuel MLB points-per-game this season, but has no less than 12.2 points in each of his last five games. We’ve been playing Segura almost daily, because he’s dirt-cheap right now.

The Padres are a harder sell. They’re playing in the pitcher-friendly PetCo Park, in San Diego. The Padres also have a low 89 wRC+ against left-handed pitchers. But at home in this scenario, they’re actually a top-twelve team, with a 104 wRC+. Also, Wei-Yin Chen has the worst pitching metrics of any starter on the mound tonight, including a 2.15 home run per nine rate. Sold!

FanDuel MLB: Summary and Example Lineup

Before we jump right into the re-cap. Another mini-stack or single play consideration should come from the Dodgers. With Aaron Nola on the mound for the Phillies, the struggling, but now heating up, Dodgers lineup will be heavily faded. With that in mind, a hot lefty bat like Max Muncy ($2,700) should be a low-owned, but high value, opportunity for your lineup.

So, while we initially fell in love with Jack Flaherty against the Pirates, we’re fading the idea and moving to the big money play on Clayton Kershaw. As we’ve seen for a good part of this season, the best pitchers typically win you money, with the right offensive stacks.

For the offensive side of the lineup, we’d consider the Astros as the best offensive stack with the biggest price tag. But we can’t afford them, so we’re going with the lower-owned Padres and Mariners instead, with a Dodger bat like Muncy to cap off the lineup.

With that summary in mind, here’s a look at a sample lineup for the MAIN FanDuel MLB slate on Thursday, May 31st:

FanDuel MLB Main Slate Sample Lineup:

P            Clayton Kershaw ($11,000)

C/1B     Eric Hosmer ($3,100)

2B          Jose Pirela ($2,700)

3B          Kyle Seager ($3,300)

SS          Jean Segura ($3,300)

OF          Travis Jankowski ($2,800)

OF          Mitch Haniger ($3,500)

OF          Franmil Reyes ($2,600)

UTIL       Max Muncy ($2,700)

Remaining Salary: $0

Note: This is a recommended lineup after discussing our top options for today. You should use this as a guide, and provide your own input when building FanDuel NHL lineups.  We are not telling you, or selling you, to use this lineup.

Next: MLB DFS Picks and Pivots

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