MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday June 11

Welcome to the Monday 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.

Sunday’s MLB DFS strategy was to pay up for both top arms in Corey Kluber and James Paxton, fade Coors and pick off some solid punt bats. Paxton/Kluber were the 2nd and 3rd overall point scorers and interestingly enough the top 4 bats were all punt/value plays under $8K, so the strategy in theory worked. Unfortunately for me the chalk value bats were not ones I had in my line-up as Curtis Granderson and Yuli Guriel each had monster games at high ownership which in many cases was the key to cashing on this slate. No time to tilt though – we are back at it on Monday.

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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.

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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:

I love slates like this – LOVE THEM. We get 8 games to choose from tonight with no weather issues, no game total over 9 and only 2 arms in the top 30 of K rate in baseball this season – so what that means to me is there is no obvious play and you get the opportunity to dig a bit deeper in your research as a result.

We get three high-priced arms to choose from tonight with Patrick Corbin, Madison Bumgarner and Carlos Carrasco all on the mound, with Corbin being the only one pitching at home on this slate. Of the three, Carlos Carrasco ($20.8K) is the biggest money line favorite at -190 and will take on the biggest strikeout opponent in the White Sox who strike out at a 24% rate against RHP this season versus the Pirates and Marlins who strike out at only a 20% rate versus LHP so far this season. Carrasco is a pitcher who also tends to excel on the road, pitching to an ERA a full run lower on the road over the last two seasons and dominated this White Sox team in recent history, holding them to a .083 ISO, surrendering only 3 hits in 36 at bats to the current roster over the last two seasons.

Of the three top arms, I would side with paying up for Carrasco who has a slate leading 13% swinging strike rate and the highest upside due to his match-up with a strikeout heavy White Sox team who are striking out at the second highest rate in baseball over the last month of play behind the Phillies.

Jack Flaherty ($16.2K) at first glance feels like the obvious SP2 as a massive home favorite (-190) against a Padres team that strikes out at the third highest rate in baseball this season against RHP (25.7%). We have already seen the K upside with Flaherty when the opponent is right as he struck out 13 Phillies just a few starts back and my hope is that people will see underwhelming K outings against the Pirates and Marlins and write him off.

Flaherty much like Carrasco is on my radar because of the opponent more than anything else – I want arms with K upside against teams that strikeout at high rates and that is exactly what we have in both cases today. Over the last month, the White Sox and Padres strike out at the 2nd and 7th highest marks in all of baseball which gives us GPP upside but the fact that Vegas has each of these arms as the highest favorites and the opposition with two of the lowest run totals, means they will also likely be cash game darlings.

If you need a punt option, the one pitcher that stands out to me is Junior Guerra ($13.6K) who gets a boom or bust match-up against the Cubs at home in Milwaukee. Guerra has actually pitched quite well this season, putting up double-digit fantasy points in all but one of his 11 outings this season and has held opponents to 2 or fewer runs in 8 of his 11 starts in 2018.

Over his last four starts, Guerra has a 22:3 K:BB ratio with a 10.7% swinging strike rate and has been dominant against RHB this season with only a .080 ISO but the risk is that the Cubs can go VERY left-handed heavy and with Guerra’s double-digit walk rate against LHB this season there is certainly risk here. Guerra is a GPP only play for me but his salary savings allow you to get all the high-end bats you could possibly want in your MLB DFS builds.

MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:

If you are paying down for pitching tonight then there is one obvious stack to grab and that is the high-priced Cleveland Indians bats who get a tempting match-up against Lucas Giolito and the White Sox. Giolito is giving up a .220 ISO to left-handed batters this season and will have to face off with a lineup loaded with them as Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez, Michael Brantley and Yonder Alonso all have .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season and each have a 36% or higher hard contact rate. Giolito has a 16% BB rate compared to a 9% K rate this season against LHB so this is a spot where stacking the Indians makes a ton of sense but be careful playing them as one-offs as Giolito is just as likely to walk these pricey hitters and leave you with an underwhelming fantasy output.

The Cardinals bats come into this game red-hot and have perhaps the best hitting environment on the slate with 90 degree temperatures in St. Louis and the price points make them one of the best core stacks in any MLB DFS format today. All of Yadier Molina, Jose Martinez, Marcell Ozuna, Matt Carpenter and Dexter Fowler come into this game with 50% or higher hard contact rates over the last two weeks with Martinez, Ozuna and Carpenter having homered a combined 10 times between them over the last two weeks. The best part with stacking the Cardinals is the price point – Jose Martinez ($8.5K), Marcell Ozuna ($7.6K) and Matt Carpenter ($6.3K) – seriously $6.3K for Carpenter is stealing and he should be the highest owned player on this slate.

The Angels have only a 4.2 Vegas total and play in the last game of the night, so there is a likelihood they get over-looked on this slate and I think that could be a mistake. Yes, Wade LeBlanc has pitched well this season but I am not going to be scared off by a left-hander with an 18% K rate pitching against a right-handed heavy Angels line-up. Over the last two seasons – here are the ISO numbers for the top hitters in the Angels line-up against LHP:

Justin Upton: .309 ISO
Mike Trout: .246 ISO
Zack Cozart: .245 ISO
Ian Kinsler: .208 ISO

All four of these batters have a 36% or higher HC rate in the last two seasons so stacking them up here is a viable option. In the last two weeks Ian Kinsler ($7.3K) has blasted 6 HR’s while Justin Upton ($8.6K) has 4 of his own and each of these batters noted above has a 44% or higher HC rate in the last 14 days including a massive 70% rate for Mr. Upton.

If you are looking for a one-off play, let me recommend Jonathan Schoop ($6.3K) who gets to face a knuckleballer in Steven Wright. I am not a huge BvP guy as a standalone statistic but in certain cases it makes for a really interesting data point and seeing the BvP numbers for Schoop against Wright has me VERY intrigued. Over the last two seasons, Schoop has faced Wright 4 times and homered in 3 at bats – and before you scoff at small sample size, realize that Schoop as a .643 ISO against that pitch type since 2016. BvP can be misleading at times, but in this case it tells me Schoop sees the knuckleball really well and is able to square it up with power.

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!

More from FanSided

SP: Carlos Carrasco ($20.8K)

SP: Jack Flaherty ($16.2K)

IF: Matt Carpenter ($6.3K)

IF: Jose Martinez ($8.5K)

IF: Jonathan Schoop ($6.3K)

OF: Marcell Ozuna ($7.6K)

OF: Mike Trout ($11.8K)

OF: Justin Upton ($8.6K)

UTIL: Ian Kinsler ($7.3K)

UTIL: Zack Cozart ($6.6K)

Slate Overview: Without any truly must have arms and no eye-popping totals to speak of, this could be a slate where digging a bit deeper could pay big dividends. I think most will likely land on Carrasco/Flaherty on two pitcher sites and the Cardinals prices make them an ideal core stack but the Angels could be the kind of team that goes lower owned and helps differentiate you from the masses. Enjoy all the MLB DFS action today!

Next: DFS MLB Game by Game Breakdowns

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