MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday July 5

Welcome to the Thursday 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.

I hope you all had a great 4th of July and were able to “enjoy” that 1-0 slugfest in Coors Field last night that left us with Tyler Anderson as the highest scoring player on the Main Slate just as we all predicted! Looking at the results in hindsight, it was interesting to see how a Trevor Bauer/Tyler Anderson combination with an Astros and Cardinals stack was actually the winning build. Scores were predictably low scoring on the night and because of the popularity of the Rockies in cash games (and Marcus Stroman for that matter), it was one of the lowest cash line nights I can recall of any slate in recent memory – oh well on to the next one.

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:

Justin Verlander and a bunch of awful options. On to the hitters.

It is not often I simply default to the one ace on a slate, in fact I rarely like to pay up for pitching on FantasyDraft but this slate is just brutal to sort through as we have Justin Verlander ($25.4K) at the top and then a bunch of names on a dart board to choose from.

Verlander is coming off back to back sub par starts, giving up 9 total runs to the Rays and Jays and has only one game with double-digit strikeouts in his last eleven starts so it may seem aggressive to pay this price for Verlander today but as a -300 favorite against the K heavy White Sox, this is about the perfect match-up for the Astros right-hander. The White Sox have the highest K rate in baseball this season at 25.4% and a top 5 K rate against RHP at 25% so the upside here is massive for Verlander and frankly he is the only arm I think you can make a strong case for rostering on this slate.

Move past Verlander and your next top option is  Johnny Cueto fresh off the DL on an innings limit, after throwing only 4 innings in his last rehab start for $22.9K on FantasyDraft – no thanks. If you opt to move down even further you are in the lion’s den of Jeremy Hellickson and Jaime Barria, pitchers with terrifying 20% K rates on the year who just scream ceiling. No really, these are the top three arms after Verlander which really just strengthens the case for Mr. Kate Upton today.

This looks like a slate where I may pick my SP2 based on how much money I have left once I get Verlander and the bats I want – its legit that bad – and the fact I am considering Yovani Gallardo ($11.2K) as an SP2, tells you everything you need to know.

The Tigers actually have the third highest projected run total as of this writing, but with Leonys Martin on the DL, this is a right-handed heavy line-up that I feel like we can attack. Over the last two seasons there is only one player, Nike Goodrum, with a .200 or higher ISO against RHP and in fact the Tigers projected line-up has a .154 ISO mark against righties the last two seasons so there is a legit lack of pop in this line-up. Now add-on that this line-up has a K rate of 24% against RHP, and that includes Victor Martinez at only 13%, meaning that 7 of the 9 projected batters have a 22% K rate or higher against righties since 2017.

Over the last two weeks, the Tigers have the lowest wOBA (.266) and wRC on the entire slate and second to only the Royals in all of baseball so going with Gallardo is way more about the ineptitude of the Detroit offense in recent games and far less about his actual skill set. If you want to anchor to one positive for the Rangers right-hander, it is that he is coming off a 7.1 inning, 7 K, 25.5 fantasy point “gem” versus the White Sox where he gave up 3 ER and honestly, that is the kind of outing you would sign up for right now from him or any other SP2 on this slate.

If you want a pure dart throw, Twins SP, Aaron Slegers ($10.8K) against the Orioles is viable on this slate because well, hes cheap and hes a pitcher and we are required to roster two of them.

Slegers is a big dude – 6 foot 10 and 245 pounds but honestly there is nothing in his numbers that suggests he has dominant stuff with a K rate under 20% at every level he has pitched thus far. He has gone 5-6 innings in each of his last five starts at AAA, throwing roughly 90 pitches per outing with his last start being his best of the year where he struck out 8 batters but he did still give up 4 ER.

Slegers does not have overpowering stuff but has limited HR’s (under .7 HR/9 in 2017) while generating nearly 50% ground balls however in 2018 his HR/9 has jumped to 1.29 HR/9 while his GB rate has dropped 43%.

Slegers started three games for the Twins last year late in the season and pitched one game in long relief this season – notching 9-13 fantasy points in three of those four extended outings. That is really what you are looking for here – give me 10-13 fantasy points and just simply do not hurt me. Yep, that is where we are at here today.

If I had to guess, I assume guys like Luke Weaver and Max Fried will be the chalky SP2 options on this slate and in my opinion one of the best ways to differentiate on slates like this is simply avoid the popular SP2 options when the opportunity cost for missing is SO LOW. As I write this article at 6AM EST, I am not thrilled about the idea of rostering any of these SP2’s but FantasyDraft demands that I have two pitchers so this becomes a hold your noise and hope they don’t pull a Marcus Stroman kind of night!

MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:

With so many awful pitching options the offense is surely plentiful tonight right Brian? Eh, not so much my friends. The Astros and ice-cold Nationals are the top two projected scoring teams at over 5 runs each but if we want to pay up for Verlander, we are going to need value stacks and this is where the Minnesota Twins come into play for me against RHP Andrew Cashner.

Cashner on the season is giving up a massive .237 ISO to left-handed batters with a 1.7 HR/9 rate to lefties and will have to navigate through a Twins line-up loaded with left-handed hitters. In fact, this Twins line-up has 5 lefties in this projected line-up with a .180 or higher ISO against RHP since 2017 which includes the high-end batters like Eddie Rosario ($9.7K) and Eduardo Escobar ($8K) but it also includes some elite bargain bin hitters like Logan Morrison ($6.7K), Max Kepler ($6.7K) and Jake Cave ($6K) which is how this stack works in context with a Verlander based roster.

The other bat here to focus on is Jorge Polanco ($5.8K) who has been re-instated from the suspended list and should be in the #5 spot in this Twins line-up against today after going 2-3 with 2 singles and a SB on July 4th which just so happens to be a day before his birthday, which wait for it – means we have BIRTHDAY NARRATIVE today! Polanco celebrates his 25th birthday today and profiles extremely well against Cashner, who throws his sinker over 51% of the time which is a pitch that Polanco has a .170 ISO and 35.4% hard contact rate since 2016. Lock him in.

The beauty of stacking the Twins with Verlander is that you can use the salary savings to pay up for two big bats as one-offs with Mike Trout ($10.9K) and Paul Goldschmidt ($9.4K) being my favorite plays on this slate. Trout faces off with LHP Marco Gonzales today which means we can target Trout and his .340 ISO against LHP but that is not nearly as good as Goldschmidt and his .373 ISO against LHP which puts him in play against LHP Eric Lauer. Lauer relies on a low 90’s fastball nearly 60% of the time this season and Goldy has absurd numbers against that pitch type – a .466 ISO and 57% hard contact rate, which makes him one of, if not the best, play on the entire slate.

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: Justin Verlander ($25.4K)

SP: Yovani Gallardo ($11.2K)

IF: Eduardo Escobar ($8K)

IF: Logan Morrison ($6.7K)

IF: Jorge Polanco ($5.8K)

OF: Eddie Rosario ($9.7K)

OF: Max Kepler ($6.7K)

OF: Jake Cave ($6K)

UTIL: Mike Trout ($10.9K)

UTIL: Paul Goldschmidt ($9.4K)

Slate Overview: Once you overlay some batters alongside Justin Verlander you can feel a bit better about your roster build here if you just pretend that Yovani Gallardo is not in it. My goal today is to start with Verlander and build in the bats I want and then work backwards for my SP2 with one I can tolerate as I do not think there is any must have option for a second pitcher and I will likely focus more on game theory in my selection by avoiding the “chalk” that I am not overly in love with. Enjoy today and we will see you back here tomorrow.

Next: DFS MLB Game by Game Breakdowns

Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests across FantasyDraft, FanDuel, DraftKings and DRAFT and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!