MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday July 2
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 slate was simple for me in the sense that I simply zeroed in on a Cubs/Twins game stack, ate the chalk and moved on with my day. The Cubs bats started out how and while my Jon Lester crusade continues in earnest, the Cubs bullpen bailed me out big time but letting the low(er) owned Twins side of this game pile up runs in the later innings and give me a solid MLB DFS day. Sometimes my friends, you take it any ways the DFS Gods are willing to give it to you!
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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:
At first glance when you open up this slate you are going to notice we have a top-heavy pitching slate with arms like Max Scherzer, Madison Bumgarner, Corey Kluber and Robbie Ray all taking the mound with Ray being the cheapest on FantasyDraft at $19.4K so be prepared to invest if you are paying up for a stud arm. The question is – are these the match-ups we want to pay the premium price for these arms today?
Scherzer is obviously an elite play on any slate but I am not sure I want to pay $25.8K for him against a loaded Boston Red Sox line-up in hot and humid temperatures in Washington. Madison Bumgarner for $21.9K seems like a nice discount until you realize this is a game in Coors Field and even though Ray looked solid against the Marlins, are we ready to pay full price for him when he has only thrown 82 pitches off the DL?
That leads us to Kluber versus KC as arguably the safest SP1 on the board against the Royals who not only have the lowest run projection on the slate but for a team that doesn’t K often, it is worth noting they have a top 5 K rate in baseball over the last two weeks at just over 25%. Having Lucas Duda (43%) and Hunter Dozier (36%) alongside Salvador Perez (30%) gives you some significant K upside in a prime bounce back spot for Kluber if you want to go this route in your roster build.
With so many shiny names at the top of the pricing spectrum tonight it may be easy to over-look a really nice middle to value tier of pitching which to me starts with Alex Wood ($16.8K) at home against the Pirates. Pittsburgh is struggling offensively right now, with the lowest wRC+ of any team in the NL (and second to last behind the Royals in baseball) over the last two weeks while sporting a 23% K rate which is a 3% jump over their season long numbers.
The knock on Wood (ha, get it?) is always his lack of depth and pitch count but after throwing 92 and 93 pitches in his last two outings, it seems like that risk is factored into this price point at home against the Pirates today. Over his last two outings against the Cubs and Mets, Wood has a 25% K rate, a 1.9% walk rate and a 10.8% swinging strike rate putting up 23 fantasy points in each outing. I know I am cherry picking stats here but if you compare those two outings at 23 FPPG to someone like Mad Max who over his last four outings has averaged 23.7 fantasy points per game, it is fair to wonder if Wood is under-priced relative to his upside here in this spot.
The one play that jumped out to me immedietly on this slate was Luis Castillo ($11.3K), the second cheapest arm on this slate who gets a home match-up against the Chicago White Sox. Castillo is one of the most bizarre cases in DFS this season as last year this was a high upside K arm we went out of our way to roster and now hes battling with Wei-Yen Chen for the lowest priced arm on a slate.
Castillo has seen his K rate drop from 27% last year to 22% this year while his hard contact rate has gone from 29% to 36% but interestingly enough his swinging strike rate has actually increased from 12 to 13% year over year. With Castillo having nearly the same walk rate as 2017, this is not looking to be a control issue, just that major league hitters seem to be squaring up his pitches more than last year with harder contact but this is where the match-up comes into play today.
The White Sox have a 25% K rate against RHP this season, 5th highest in baseball and have a similar mark over the last 14 days and we know Castillo has the K upside to capitalize on this spot as evidenced by his 10 K outing a few games ago against the Cardinals. Castillo has put up 17 or more fantasy points in 7 of his 17 outings this season, over 40% of his trips to the mound, so the upside is clearly attainable for the Reds right-hander in the right match-ups and it would be tough to argue that there is a better K spot in baseball this year that the White Sox.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
With a game in Coors Field and five teams with 5+ run projections on the slate, we will certainly have multiple paths to chase offense here tonight with the hot and humid temperatures across many of the stadiums in baseball so get ready to see some crooked numbers on the scoreboard tonight.
The Yankees have the highest run total on the board with a home match-up against Anibal Sanchez who despite his success is still giving up a .200 ISO and 32% HC rate to left-handed batters this season. In 2017, Sanchez gave up a .200+ ISO to hitters from both sides of the plate with a 37% HC rate and in Yankee Stadium with 90-95 degree temperatures, there is no wonder Vegas is projecting big things for the Bombers tonight with a run total that is nearly a half a run higher than their season average.
Didi Gregorious ($8.1K) with his .261 ISO against RHP this season against a pitcher who has struggled with lefties with the short porch at home seems like the lock play of the day, especially at this price point. Didi has hit 12 of his 15 HR’s this season at home with 10 of those 12 coming against RHP while sporting a .324 ISO and 43% HC against righties in the Bronx this season – he is my favorite play from this game by far.
The Yankee stack is interesting here as you do not have a single player over $10K on FantasyDraft with Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Judge both sitting in the mid $9K range while guys like Brett Gardner are only $7.2K which makes this about as cost-effective of a Yankee stack as you will see all season considering it is Anibal Sanchez in Yankee Stadium. Lastly, do not overlook Aaron Hicks who has hit 5 HR’s in his last 10 games and at only $8.2K is another under-priced high upside bat in what Vegas is telling you to load up on.
Not only do we get the Yankees and Coors Field but we also get the Reds in Great American Ballpark against James Shields – but, is Shields really “as bad” as we think? The reality is, Shields has given up 3 or fewer ER in 7 of his last 8 outings so maybe he is not as bad as we all think but as Matt Rogers pointed out to me this Reds offense is on fire right now, with 86 runs over the last two weeks which is the most in baseball.
As much as I like Scooter Gennett, I am not paying $10K for a guy with 1 HR over the last two weeks so would rather take the savings here and mini-stack guys like Eugenio Suarez ($9.5K) and Joey Votto ($8.6K) as well as Scott Schebler ($8.4K) to get my Reds exposure. Suarez has a team leading .269 ISO against RHP this season and with another “obvious” third baseman on this slate in Coors Field, I always love the idea of using Suarez as a high dollar pivot at a fraction of the ownership.
This Reds spot is one that will really be interesting to see how the field treats as you have the most prolific run scoring offense in baseball over the last two weeks against a pitcher that most consider a gas can but the recent performance has actually been quite good so I wonder if people will blindly stack here just seeing Shields as the opposing pitcher. Keep an eye on the buzz here today – if this becomes too chalky of a spot, I could certainly see fading them for other high dollar bats as we have way too many alternatives to simply eat the chalk here in my opinion.
If you are looking for a lower owned pivot stack, the Nationals against Rick Porcello really caught my eye. On the season, Porcell is giving up a .187 ISO, 42% FB rate and 39% HC rate to lefties and will have to take on a loaded Nationals line-up with Harper, Soto, Eaton and Murphy all batting from the right side of the platoon split against Porcello and around a red-hot Anthony Rendon. Both Bryce Harper and Juan Soto have .230+ ISO marks against RHP this season and even though Daniel Murphy has struggled out of the gate, this is a player with a .230 ISO and 35% HC rate against RHP last season and with only a 4.3 run total, my guess is this red-hot stack goes a bit over-looked on this slate.
Lastly, we have Nolan Arenado ($11K) versus a lefty in Coors. This is the one-off play to put into your line-ups – I do not care that it is Bumgarner on the other side – I am not fading a hitter with a .587 ISO against lefties at home this season with a 48% hard contact rate. Considering Bumgarner’s name value, and the fact he just shut down this Rockies team in San Francisco, I do wonder if this ia a chance to get the Rockies stack in Coors at lower ownership than normal and you can pair Arenado with someone like Trevor Story ($9.7K) and get two players with .300+ ISO’s against LHP this season.
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: Alex Wood ($16.8K)
SP: Luis Castillo ($11.3K)
IF: Nolan Arenado ($11K)
IF: Joey Votto ($8.6K)
IF: Eugenio Suarez ($9.5K)
OF: Aaron Hicks ($8.2K)
OF: Brett Gardner ($7.2K)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($9.7K)
UTIL: Aaron Judge ($9.6K)
UTIL: Didi Gregorious ($8.1K)
Slate Overview: As much as I like Kluber as my SP1, I really think paying down on this slate for Wood/Castillo is a viable strategy and boy oh boy – look at the bats you can get! There are a TON of great offenses on this slate to attack with the Yankees, Reds, Indians and Giants/Rockies all viable stacking options here tonight. This is a great day to listen to the buzz around the industry as with so many viable stacks I am not sure I am willing to go all-in on one stack if they become the chalk. Good luck all and enjoy this Monday MLB DFS slate!
Next: DFS MLB Game by Game Breakdowns
Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests across FantasyDraft, FanDuel, DraftKings and DRAFT tonight and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!