MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday July 6
Welcome to the Friday 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.
Thursday’s MLB DFS slate was an ugly one as we had Justin Verlander and a whole lot of nothing at pitcher but the night actually ended up with some pretty strong SP2 performances as Luke Weaver, Marco Gonzales and Jhouyls Chacin all had over 25 fantasy points in what turned out to be a solid pitching night across the slate. Offensively, the Nationals and Marlins game stack was the way to go as these two teams combined for 26 runs and if paired with some Cardinals exposure (11 runs) you likely had yourself a monster night across the industry.
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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 – Main Slate Pitching:
After an ugly night of pitching on Thursday, we have a loaded slate with a handful of elite arms and a solid mid-tier crop of arms to choose from and put simply, finding pitching will not be a problem on this slate and it will be a decision more about which price point you intend to shop in.
Let’s start at the top with three elite arms that are all in fantastic match-ups tonight with Chris Sale ($27.4K) leading the charge against the Royals in Kansas City. Sale comes into this game with double-digit strikeouts in four of his last five games and has been absolutely on another level since his June 8th start against the White Sox as Sale is sporting a 41.5% K rate with a 17% swinging strike rate in his last five starts. On the surface, a match-up with the Royals may seem like a low K match-up but would it surprise you to know the Royals have the second highest K rate in baseball the last two weeks at 26.7%? The price tag is high, but this is a scary fade tonight with Sale’s recent form.
The reality is we have legit pivot options here with Jacob deGrom ($25K) and Lance McCullers ($23.3K) who get home match-ups with the Rays and White Sox, so for as great as Sale has been, I think you can make the case for either of these two as SP1 pivots. Whenever deGrom pitches at home he becomes an auto-play for me as his K rate spikes to 35% and considering he gets a Tampa Bay team with a 25%+ K rate in their projected line-up without the DH, this looks like an ideal spot to roll out deGrom. McCullers on the other hand gets everyone’s favorite DFS whipping boy, the Chicago White Sox who strike out at a 25% rate against RHP which is 5th in all of baseball this season.
For as good as McCullers and deGrom are and for as advantageous as their match-ups seem, it is tough to argue they are better plays than Sale so I would look at them as more of pivot plays than core pieces tonight.
Finding a cheap(er) SP2 is going to be critical on a slate with so many high dollar aces and this is where Lance Lynn ($13.1K) becomes a key puzzle piece in this slate against the Orioles. Lynn is one of the easiest arms to break down in DFS – you play him against right-handed teams and stack against him with lefties. Against RHB this season, Lynn has a 27.7% K rate compared to only a 14% rate against LHB and his ISO is materially lower at .124 versus .177 which further strengthens his splits. In 2018, Lynn has limited right-handed batters to a .79 HR/9 and has a 3.75 xFIP against RHB so when you match that up a date against the Orioles who will likely only have one lefty (Chris Davis), this is legit the perfect match-up to roll out Lynn.
If you want a riskier option, Sonny Gray ($13.8K) in Toronto is an interesting GPP play as your SP2. Gray is a similar pitcher to Lynn in that he has some extreme splits we can attack in DFS – he is AWFUL at home yet becomes a completely different pitcher on the road. At home, Gray as an ERA over 8 with a 14% K rate but on the road that K rate jumps significantly to 24% and his ERA and xFIP drop down to the mid 3’s. Gray will take on a Blue Jays team he dominated the last time he was in Toronto, throwing 8 innings, striking out 8 and racking up 31 fantasy points.
In his last four road outings, Gray has put up 17, 20, 25 and 31 fantasy points, with a swinging strike rate of 10% or higher in every game with a 26% or higher K rate in every single outing. The upside is there for Gray and those who simply look at the overall numbers with Gray may overlook him due to his home struggles that have skewed his numbers.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
When I first opened this slate, my initial reaction after seeing the pitching choices was that I would need to find value bats and stacks to fit in the Sale/deGrom/McCullers trio at the top which right away meant the high dollar investments needed for the Indians bats would likely be something I needed to dismiss. Take it a step further and look at the match-up against Paul Blackburn who just faced this Indians squad in Chicago and pitched 6 shutout innings against them and you will likely feel good about just moving on from this stack and simply pay up for pitching and find a mid-tier stack to build around.
But, won’t everyone come to that same conclusion? With so much salary invested in the SP1’s here tonight and the game log watchers seeing that this game literally just happened, could we see the Indians stack go virtually un-owned tonight at home? For as good as Blackburn was last time out, he has also been prone to blow ups with 8 ER in only 1.1 inning of work against the Astros and 6 ER in 5 IP against the White Sox and we know that Indians are a much better team offensively at home, scoring over 6 runs per game which is first in baseball but they drop to only 4 RPG when playing on the road.
This Indians team has some scary metrics atop the line-up with their first four hitters all sporting .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season and as a whole, this line-up has a 41% HC rate against RHP this season so this is a spot where a full on stack is certainly in play today. It all starts at the top with Francisco Lindor ($11.1K) and Jose Ramirez ($10.6K) who have .300 and .348 ISO numbers against RHP this season and you can expand this to a 5 man stack with Yonder Alonso, Edwin Encarnacion and Michael Brantley, rounding out an expensive five man stack were every single batter has a 43% or higher HC rate at home this season.
If you are going the Sale/deGrom/McCullers route, the Indians stack are a nice thing to look at but the reality is, you cannot afford it, so I would focus on the Tigers and Rangers game where Bartolo Colon and Jordan Zimmermann take the mound in what should be a high scoring game environment. Over the last two seasons, these two pitchers are giving up a .200+ ISO to hitters from both sides of the plate with 38%-39% hard contact rates so game stacking this spot with a high-end SP1 seems like the best route when you consider most of these bats are in the $7-$8K price range. My favorite bats are on the Rangers side with Joey Gallo, Adrian Beltre and Rougned Odor all priced in the $7.5K range with all three having .190 ISO and 38% HC rates or higher since 2017 against RHP.
Last but not least – it is Bryce Harper ($9.6K) bobble head night and he faces Dan Straily, a pitcher who is giving up 45% HC and a .215 ISO to left-handed batters this season. If you believe in narratives, this is quite the spot to jump on!
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: Sonny Gray ($13.8K)
SP: Lance Lynn ($13.1K)
IF: Francisco Lindor ($11.1K)
IF: Edwin Encarnacion ($8.7K)
IF: Yonder Alonso ($9.4K)
OF: Bryce Harper ($9.6K)
OF: Michael Brantley ($9K)
OF: Jose Ramirez ($10.6K)
UTIL: Joey Gallo ($7.4K)
UTIL: Adrian Beltre ($7.3K)
Slate Overview: I am not going to lie, not typing in Sale, deGrom or McCullers in either pitcher slot is terrifying and counting on Sonny Gray may seem borderline insane but there is merit to this thought process. My guess is everyone goes high/low at starting pitcher and uses mid-priced stacks like the Rangers/Tigers game to make the build work. My gut instinct is that the high-priced stacks like the Astros, Red Sox and Indians go as “un-owned” as they can possibly ever be with the focus in other spots so this could be a great multi-entry GPP night to kick off your weekend. Enjoy the slate all – we will see you back here on Saturday!
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!