MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday July 3

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’s MLB DFS slate was in a word – wild. On a slate with Max Scherzer, Corey Kluber, Robbie Ray and Madison Bumgarner – here were the top three scoring arms on the night – Carlos Martinez, Wei-Yin Chen and Luis Castillo. You simply have to love when the two cheapest arms on a slate outscored some of the best arms in baseball.

The big stack that dominated the night was the Dodgers as they dropped 17 runs on the Pirates with Matt Kemp, Cody Bellinger and Yasiel Puig all landing in the top 10 of fantasy point producers. Personally, although I did not have any Dodgers bats, my build of Alex Wood and Luis Castillo with a Yankee/Nationals stack included HR’s from Aaron Judge, Bryce Harper and Daniel Murphy who was 3% owned in GPP’s, to help propel me over the cash line on this night.

We have some BIG news at Fantasy CPR as we are now looking for PAID writers to join our team to write about fantasy sports. Seasonal or DFS, any sport you want – get your voice heard and get paid for talking fantasy sports. Apply today HERE!

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.

If you are looking to try out a new DFS site, head on over to FantasyDraft and enter my referral code for 10% rake back on your entries.

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 I opened this slate I noticed a few things – we have some big totals including a game in Coors Field and 7 teams overall with 5+ run projections while also having some big time arms available to us. I wonder how much recency bias will play a factor into tonight’s ownership with the big arms falling flat last night and the punt plays being the way to go – will we see that trend carryover tonight?

I want to like the top end pitching tonight for that every reason, I think people will be gun-shy, but I am REALLY struggling to convince myself to allocate the salary to these arms at the top. Do I really want to pay $23K for Clayton Kershaw when he has not yet thrown more than 70 pitches since coming off the D.L? Is Zack Greinke worth pivoting down to when you consider he is sporting only a 24% K rate and has not struck out more than 7 batters in his last seven starts? Should we take additional savings to Zach Eflin who has a great match-up against a right-handed heavy Orioles team with a similar 24.5% K rate to Greinke since May 1?

All of the top arms are fine but that’s kind of the problem – do I want to pay up for fine on THIS slate? I preach this every single time I write Picks and Pivots but slate context is huge and on a night where it appears offenses will rule the day, I just cannot justify paying premiums for arms that don’t have the K upside to win me a slate. Now, this could be what everyone else sees which makes paying up for arms contrarian but outside of game theory/large field GPP play, I think this is a route I will avoid tonight.

So if we aren’t paying up then where do we go? Sean Newcomb in Yankee Stadium? Dallas Keuchel against Texas with a 10.5 run total? You start to see pretty quickly how ugly this slate gets for pitching which is leading me right past the mid-tier and into Punt Town USA – where Picks and Pivots seems to end up regularly when talking pitchers.

The Oakland – San Diego game between Chris Bassit and Clayton Richard looks to be an interesting spot for cheap arms tonight with Chris Bassit ($12.8K) being the arm I have the most interest in. Bassit by all accounts is a mediocre K arm with a 22% K rate at AAA and an 18% mark in the majors in a small sample size over four starts this season but he gets to take on a San Diego team that has the second highest K rate in baseball this year against RHP at 25.8%.

Bassit is a solid -145 home favorite and the Padres have the fourth lowest run projection on the slate so for those that like Vegas data, there is some “safety” in what the data is telling us. Bassit has been hit or miss through four starts with two starts of 6-7 IP, 5-6 K’s and 22-23 fantasy points sandwiched between two starts with single digit fantasy points but this is life with a punt pitcher.

At this price point on FantasyDraft, I am simply looking to get my pitcher to 20 fantasy points and considering he has done this already against KC and Detroit (but faltered against the White Sox and Angels), I have confidence that this match-up against San Diego has a similar ceiling to the Royals and Tigers games where he delivered strong value.

If you want to pivot up to Clayton Richard ($13.7K) here I could see the case if Bassit becomes the popular SP2 which is certainly possible considering the Vegas data as people will flock to favorites with low opposing run totals every time. The reality is, Richard is a great play here too – with 18+ fantasy points in five straight outings before a rough performance in Texas last start out (which should not be a shock).

The A’s are a dangerous line-up but they also strike out a ton as evidenced by there 24% K rate against LHP this season which is 6th most in baseball. Richard has 16 or more fantasy points in 9 of his 17 outings this season with a high water mark of 34 fantasy points in a 10K outing versus the Cardinals so there is potential upside with Richard as a leverage play off what I would expect to be a more popular Bassit on the other side.

Ryan Yarbrough ($12.2K) rarely gets the starting designation for the Rays but Tampa Bay has opted to go traditional today against the Marlins and start Yarbrough after his last “start” where he went 6.1 IP, striking out 4 Astros, allowing 1 ER and totaling 15 fantasy points.

The Rays lefty actually has some strong K ability with a 21% K rate this season and we have seen him rack up 28%-32% K rate marks in recent “starts” against Baltimore, Oakland and the Yankees – with his two best outings coming against the O’s and A’s where he struck out struck out 17 batters in only 12.2 IP with 20 and 25 fantasy points in this games.

The Marlins are striking out at a 25.7% clip the last two weeks which is fourth most in baseball so we can attack another high K team with a punt pitcher who has a demonstrated track record of getting to that “20 point threshold” that would allow us to pay up for all the bats we could possibly want tonight.

MLB DFS – Main Slate Hitting:

Let’s just start off with the chalk spot – Coors Field – where we have a 12 run total and two RHP in Chris Stratton and Antonio Senzatela on the mound. After a night where Coors generated seemingly little buzz, I expect tonight to be the night the Rockies are super chalk as Stratton is a pitcher with a 17%K rate and 43.6% hard contact rate on the season – I am not sure honestly you need to dig much deeper, there is a reason Colorado’s run total is at 6.2 as I write this.

The big three bats in the middle of this line-up, Nolan Arenado ($10.9K), Charlie Blackmon ($10.2K) and Carlos Gonzalez ($8.5K) all have ISO marks of .200+ against RHP this season and make for the best three-man stack on the board today. The Giants side even with a 5.8 run total will be far less owned against Senzatela who even with a 52% GB rate the last two seasons has still managed a near .200 ISO against left-handed batters. Brandon Belt ($10.3K) is the top play here with a .260 ISO against RHP since 2017 with a 43% HC rate and the dude absolutely rakes in Coors Field with 10 HR’s in only 49 career games with a .586 SLG percentage.

The Giants and Rockies are the obvious stack and I am fine eating the chalk and finding a way to be a bit different with the rest of my roster. The Phillies are a stack that will likely get over-looked when compared to the high totals of the Yankees, Coors and Astros but with a 5 run total of their own against RHP Alex Cobb who is arguably one of the worst pitchers on the slate.

So far this season, Cobb is giving up a .243 ISO to RHB and a .231 ISO to LHB with a 1.6 HR/9 mark to hitters from both sides of the plate and now we get him in Citizens Bank Park with hot and humid conditions – this could be an amazing spot to differentiate yourself from the herd.

I want to target the heart of the Phillies order here with Rhys Hoskins ($10K), Carlos Santana ($9K) and Nick Williams ($6.3K) who all have .210+ ISO marks against RHP this season and you can expand that to Odubel Herrera ($8.9K) with a .186 ISO mark in 2018. Cobb throws his fastball of 92 MPH nearly 56% of the time  – and here are the ISO marks for the four mentioned above against that pitch – .414, .339, .400 and .258 – so yeah this team profiled quite well against Mr. Cobb. When you look at ballpark ratings, CBP is actually comparable for RH power to Coors Field and is second only to Yankee Stadium for left-handed power so with all the focus being on those spots tonight – this Phillies team could be the low owned secondary stack in your line-up that separates you from the rest of the field.

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

• Cardinals Rumors: Surprise extension, Dylan Carlson-Yankees link, Rays trade idea
• USWNT vs. Vietnam: Key takeaways before they take on the Dutch
• NFL rumors: 49ers trending toward contract drama with defensive star
• Steelers avoid any camp drama with latest roster move
• MLB Rumors: Potential Braves reunion, Lance Lynn no-trade clause and Orioles deadline intentions

SP: Chris Bassit ($12.8K)

SP: Ryan Yarbrough ($12.2K)

IF: Brandon Belt ($10.3K)

IF: Brandon Crawford ($9.7K)

IF: Nolan Arenado ($10.9K)

OF: Charlie Blackmon ($10.2K)

OF: Carlos Gonzalez ($8.5K)

OF: Rhys Hoskins ($10K)

UTIL: Carlos Santan ($9K)

UTIL: Nick Williams ($6.3K)

Slate Overview: The question on tonight’s slate is are you going offense or paying up for pitching and frankly, I think going all-in on bats is the right approach. If you go this route with a core around the Rockies and Giants, then find ways to be different with your secondary stack. My gut is that the Phillies will be under-owned especially when you see their price points are nearly identical to the Coors bats but you could make a similar case for the Yankees or Astros in that regard when it comes to pricing. Good luck all and enjoy this Tuesday MLB DFS slate.

Next: DFS MLB Game by Game Breakdowns

Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!