MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday June 19
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 Night’s MLB DFS slate was dominated by a pair of Mets in Coors Field as Brandon Nimmo was the slate leading scorer with a pair of HR’s and Jacob deGrom went 8 innings and struck out 7 while only giving up 1 ER. Overall, pitching was really the dominant force on this slate as four of the top five fantasy scoring players on the night were SP’s including deGrom, Nick Pivetta, Trevor Bauer and Trevor Williams.
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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.
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 put a picture of Chris Sale here because I wanted to show you the best pitcher on the slate tonight. I want you to take a good look, imagine having him or someone like Justin Verlander in your line-up and now….forget you ever saw it. Tonight is a night for bats – all the bats – and as such I am going dumpster diving for pitching and you my friends will be coming along for the ride. Hold your nose and let’s jump in kids.
Even with three stud arms above $20K in Sale, Verlander and Clevinger against a White Sox team he just dominated, I think there are enough intriguing mid-tier and punt arms that you have the ability to pay down in a significant way tonight at starting pitcher.
Let’s start at the bottom all the way at the bottom with Felix Pena ($8.4K) a 28-year-old journeyman that will take the ball tonight for the Angels against Arizona after being traded to Arizona from the Cubs in the offseason for cash considerations and a player to be named later. Oh yes, cash and the good ole PTBNL – yes, this is the guy I am leading with today. Pena is a converted starter turned reliever by the Cubs and then turned back to a starter by Arizona this year where he has started 9 games and logged 33 innings with his most recent outing being his longest and best – as he threw 6 innings of shutout ball with 3 K’s on 84 total pitches.
In the minor leagues as a starter, Pena had a 26% K rate at AA with the Cubs and has had a 27% K rate in AAA this year for Arizona and it is that strikeout upside that has me intrigued at this price point. Although Arizona (mostly Paul Goldschmidt) has been heating up, this is still a team with the 4th highest K rate on the season against RHP at 25% and they still rank in the top 10 in K rate over the last two weeks with a 23.6% mark.
There is obviously risk here with Pena as his 85 pitches last time out represents a season high and having a double-digit walk rate at AAA is not ideal for a guy who is already limited with the number of pitches he can throw. Pena is a fastball/slider arm with a mid 90’s heater and if you look at the Arizona hitters, it is really only Jake Lamb that profiles well against those pitch types so if Pena can work around Goldy/Lamb in the heart of this order and manage to limit the walks, there is some upside here with Pena at a price point that requires very little to pay it off.
Jason Hammel ($10.3K) will take on Texas in Kansas City tonight and while many may look at this as a spot to stack against Hammel, it is worth noting that the KC right-hander had his best game of the season against this Texas squad in Arlington where he struck out 10 batters in 5.1 innings of shutout ball. There is nothing in the overall body of work this season that would indicate that this is a repeatable outing for Hammel but much like the Pena call this is less about the pitcher and more about the opponent as the Rangers strike out at the third highest clip against RHP this season at 25.7%.
You do not need to look far for the proof of the Rangers K ability as Ian Kennedy struck out 8 hitters in this same exact spot last night for KC ( with 5 ER on 2 HR’s) so there is upside here if Hammel can keep the runs allowed to a minimum. It is worth noting that Hammel has limited teams to 3 or fewer ER in 8 of his 14 starts this season and unlike Kennedy, Hammel is much more adept at limiting the long ball as his .96 HR/9 rate on the season and even better .7 HR/9 rate at home supports.
There are a few other guys down in this range I wanted touch on quickly to give you a few other options if you do not like Hammel/Pena.
- Paul Blackburn ($10.1K) and Eric Lauer ($9.5K)– These two will go up against eachother in San Diego and the Padres and A’s tangle tonight and with the game being in PETCO, we get a great pitching enviornment to attack from either side.
- Blackburn has the much better run prevention spot against the Padres and we saw against the Royals (6 IP, 3K’s, 1 ER and 19 FD points) that he can be a serviceable option under the right conditions. The issue with Blackburn is you are going all in on run prevention only as this is an arm with a 9% K rate at the ML level – you are hoping for a Royals like outing if you go this route.
- Lauer has the tougher match-up against the A’s bats but he has a minor league track record of K rates in the low to mid 20% range and he has a 20% or higher K rate in four of his 10 starts this season so there is a bit more upside with Lauer from a K perspective when you consider the A’s strikeout at the 5th highest mark in baseball against LHP this season (25%).
- The weather for the Reds/Tigers may make this one a moot point but Sal Romano ($9.4K) as a home favorite against a weak Tigers team (that loses the DH) could be interesting. Romano has faced a ton of tough teams so his season long stats are not pretty – but look at the games where he has faced weak offenses Royals (8 IP, 1 ER, 2 K), Mets (6 IP, 1 ER, 7 Ks) and Marlins (5.1 IP, 1 ER and 2 K’s). The Tigers projected line-up has a 24% K rate versus RHP this season as with Victor Martinez likely out of the line-up and Miguel Cabrera on the D.L., you have a line-up that includes 5 of the 8 hitters with a 25% or higher K rate versus RHP this year.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Jason Vargas in Coors Field – I REPEAT – JASON VARGAS IN COORS FIELD. This is a threat level 8 code red MLB DFS situation people. If you were wondering why I wanted to go so cheap at starting pitching tonight, well the Rockies against Jason Vargas is about as good of a reason as I can give you.
From a slate overview perspective, this game in Coors has by far the highest game total at 11.5 with the Rockies projected to score over 6 runs and in fact the Indians are the only non-Coors team projected to score over 5 runs so this game on the surface seems to stand alone as the highest upside offensive spot to build around.
Vargas on the season is giving up a .200+ ISO to hitters from both sides of the plate and right-handed batters are torching him for a 36% HC rate. Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, Ian Desmond and DJ LeMahieu all get the platoon advantage here and the ISO numbers for this crew could spell disaster for Vargas as all four of these hitters have a .260+ ISO against LHP this season with all but LeMahieu actually putting up ISO marks over .300 with every single one of these guys having a 41% or higher HC rate. This is one of those Coors spots that I think you need to simply find a way to maximize your exposure and move on – fit in as many Rockies as you can and move on. I would not overlook Charlie Blackmon either in this spot because the Mets will likely need to lean on their right-handed heavy bullpen once Vargas is mercifully pulled from this game.
The Mets side of this game is equally as intriguing as the price points are generally much more affordable so a stack against German Marquez is certainly one we can run back with a Colorado stack. Marquez has been a mess at home this year, serving up 2.2 HR/9 at home with lefties sproting a 2.76 HR/9 mark against Marquez so I would have no issue going back to guys like Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto again tonight after their big games on Monday. Marquez has given up 2 HR’s in each of his last three outings with 15 ER in those three starts and with no Met costing more than $9.5K on FantasyDraft, this becomes a stack that is a tad more affordable with considerable upside.
My only concerns here are weather (there is rain projected which could cause a delay) and the ownership angle as after the Mets scored 12 runs on Monday, we could seem them become a tad bit too chalky. I was watching that game and it was 3-1 heading to the 7th inning before the Mets went off on the Rockies bullpen so there is always merit to playing the fade in large field tournaments but this is one of those rare Coors games where I think you need to make it the core part of your build.
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: Jason Hammel ($10.3K)
SP: Felix Pena ($8.4K)
IF: Nolan Arenado ($11.2K)
IF: Trevor Story ($10.8K)
IF: DJ LeMahieu ($9.2K)
OF: Charlie Blackmon ($10.7K)
OF: Ian Desmond ($9.2K)
OF: Mike Trout ($11.2K)
UTIL: Brandon Nimmo ($9.5K)
UTIL: Michael Conforto ($9.3K)
Slate Overview: Coors Field is not sneaky, it never is, but I will guarantee you will hear people today making the case to fade it because of ownership and I honestly think this is one of those spots where you go to the best spot, backed up by every conceivable metric and let others make the mistake and fade it. Stacking Coors is the easy part – finding the pitchers to make it work is where the challenge lies and that is where I would spend your time today digging in and seeing if any of the other punt arms offer you a better roster build. I am going all in on the bats today – stack Coors, throw the best hitter in baseball in Mike Trout in as a one-off and hope my pitchers can simply not be awful. Enjoy the slate and the inevitable Jason Vargas 8 IP, 10K shutout that makes DFS Twitter explode – you know its coming!
Next: DFS MLB Game by Game Breakdowns
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.