MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday June 30
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 was simply all about the offense with the biggest nights coming from the Washington Nationals bats as they exploded for 17 runs as Juan Soto (42), Trea Turner (35), Anthony Rendon (32) and Bryce Harper (28) were among the scoring leaders on the night – basically if you stacked the Nats big bats you had yourself a night. It is funny to step back and think that on a slate that started with deGrom, Bauer and Cole – the top scoring arms at the end of night were Tyler Anderon, Marco Gonzales, Rich Hill and Yovani Gallardo – gotta love MLB DFS sometimes.
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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 – Early Slate Overview:
We have six games on the FantasyDraft Early Slate which starts off at 4PM EST and all but one game (Nationals/Phillies) starts by 4:10PM EST so we should have all the information we need well before lock in this one when setting our line-ups.
The issue I see with this slate at first glance is that I am finding it difficult to find any realistic pivot options off the top arms available in Jacob deGrom ($26.5K) and Justin Verlander ($25.7K) and on two pitcher sites like FantasyDraft, rostering both means I have just under $6K per batter remaining to fill out my line-up. The question then becomes are you willing to stack up nothing but value bats or drop down to a buffet of horrendous pitching choices.
deGrom and Verlander are so head and shoulders above the rest of the options that fading them seems like you are playing catch-up before the slate even begins as you get two arms with 31% K rates going against the Rays and Marlins in two elite pitching environments and the pivot options are literally nothing more than dart throws.
Tyler Skaggs is the logical pivot but with a 38% HC rate to right-handed batters this season, facing a right-handed heavy Orioles team in 95 degree temperatures in Camden Yards feels like a total overpay at $21.5K on FantasyDraft. In fact, if you end up going with a deGrom/Verlander duo, the Orioles right-handed value might be the way to make it work as you can stack up guys like Jonathan Schoop ($6.6K) and Tim Anderson ($6K) who have .180+ ISO’s against LHP over the last two seasons.
Vincent Velasquez is your next step down but do you really want to go this route against the Nationals after they put up 17 last night? Velasquez has a .256 ISO against LHB this season and will face a parade of left-handed power in 90+ degree weather in Citizen’s Bank Park. Now you are starting to see why just sucking it up for deGrom and JV is looking like the way to go.
In this game, I actually think the Phillies could provide some interesting value against RHP Jeremy Hellickson who is coming off the DL to make this start as guys like Scott Kingery ($6K) and Nick Williams ($6.7K) who has a .221 ISO against RHP will give you some decent value with pop in an elite hitting environment.
Last, keep an eye on the Brewers line-up today as this could be the key spot to open up value with Lorenzo Cain on the DL and both Christian Yelich and Ryan Braun now nursing injuries which could mean we get a OF with Keon Broxton and Hernan Perez who are both priced in the mid $6K range and you can pair them with bargain plays like Manny Pina and Orlando Arcia under $6K each for a bottom of the order stack for a Brewers team with a healthy 4.7 run projection against Tyler Mahle and the Reds.
To be completely honest, I am not sure at first glance if this is a slate I will go really heavy on and may skip it entirely unless we get the value needed to make locking in deGrom AND Verlander a real possibility. Now, it is a slate of day games after night games and with three of the games having 90-95 degree temperatures, this would seem like a day the regulars get a rest for many of the teams which COULD make it a viable build.
For the sake of discussion, I made a sample line-up for this slate just to see what it would look like:
SP: Jacob DeGrom
SP: Justin Verlander
IF: Jonathan Schoop
IF: Tim Beckham
IF: Manny Pina
OF: Hernan Perez
OF: Keon Broxton
OF: Chris Davis
UTIL: Orlando Arcia
UTIL: Pedro Severino
Yeah it doesn’t look any better on paper than it did on my FantasyDraft screen but this is the reality of the slate. I do not feel comfortable dropping down to Skaggs/Velasquez and the punt options have more risk than I believe they have upside (Chacin/Mahle in GAB, Andrew Cashner against the Angels, Pablo Lopez as a mediocre K arm making his ML debut or Edwin Jackson/Adam Plutko in an Indians/A’s match-up). Seriously – do you want to roster any of those guys?
As of now, I will likely sit the early slate out unless I see the value open up to make deGrom and Verlander work. I know readers come here for my advice on the best plays but sometimes I have to step back and be honest when I don’t like the context of the slate and this is one of those where maybe you take the afternoon off on two pitcher sites.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Overview:
The first and most important decision on the main slate is what are you doing with Chris Sale ($24.9K) against the Yankees. Sale is the obvious #1 on this slate and he has already put up a 6 inning, 8 K, 1 ER gem against this Yankee team earlier this season so even against a great line-up, he still has the most upside of any arm on this slate. It isn’t close – you play him if you want, hes the best play on the board.
If you want to use him I am clearly not going to argue with you, but I think fading him is interesting here and I do not mean you simply go elsewhere – I actually think you fully leverage the play and take Yankees power bats against him. On a seven game slate, I cannot see a scenario where Sale is not the highest owned arm once we hit lock so rather than just “fading and hoping for the best”, I think you double down and take the discounted Yankee power bats like Aaron Judge ($8.9K) and Giancarlo Stanton ($8.8K) and look to maximize your leverage against the field.
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On the flip side of this game, Sonny Gray at home is a disaster as his 7+ ERA, 5+ xFIP and nearly 2 HR/9 rate would substantiate. The Red Sox stack is firmly in play here as the top 5 projected hitters all have .230+ ISO’s against RHP this season with my personal favorites being the top 4 stack of Mookie Betts, Andrew Benintendi, J.D. Martinez and Mitch Moreland and you simply game stack this spot and hope it shoots out and you get the leverage over the field that built around Sale and would not be able to afford these bats.
If you want to lock in Chris Sale as your SP1, you are going to need a more cost-effective stack and I think the obvious route is using the Rangers bats who have a slate leading 5.2 run total. Carlos Rodon is a solid pitcher but this Rangers stack is loaded with power bats and outside of Shin-Soo Choo, not a single one costs more than $8.1K so you can lock in Sale and the Rangers and simply move on. Let me be clear, this has every but the makings of the cash game strategy and chalk route which is why I led this section with the GPP leverage play idea but I expect everyone will see how you can go Chris Sale as your SP1 with the Rangers stack including Robinson Chirinos ($6.3K), Adrian Beltre ($7.3K), Jurickson Profar ($7.7K), Joey Gallo ($7.6K) and Elvis Andrus ($7.6K).
If you chose to go this route, Felix Hernadez ($16.3K) seems like the best route for an SP2 choice to pair with Sale as a massive -210 home favorite against the Royals. The Royals have a 3.36 run projection which is second lowest on the entire day and Felix is showing that he can limit HC at home (31%) with a 22% K rate so he checks the boxes for a solid/safe SP2 pairing with the sheer upside of Sale.
This is a much more interesting slate to me as I think the Sale/Felix/Rangers build is the way to go in cash but in large field GPP’s fading Sale and leveraging it with the Yankees power bats could be an interesting way to get a leg up on the field. Enjoy the slates today and we will see you back here on Sunday!
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!