MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday July 8
Welcome to the Sunday 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.
We had some massive individidual performances last night in MLB DFS with Mark Reynolds putting up 2 HR and 10 RBI’s while Wil Myers blastes not one, not two, but three home runs and frankly if you did not have either of these players on a short four game slate, you likely were on the outside looking in when it came to the cash line.
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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:
When I first opened this slate, what really jumped out to me is how mediocre the pitching feels and how FantasyDraft is asking me to pay a premium for low K arms with limited ceilings. When the top arms on a slate are Rick Porcello, Shane Bieber, Jon Lester and Dallas Keuchel, well this is a slate where pitching is simply not a priority for me.
Jake Odorizzi ($14.7K) is the kind of pitcher that stands out to me on a a slate like this as I can get a -175 home favorite in a match-up that perfectly suits his splits. Odorizzi has limited RHB to a .156 ISO this season with a 26.4% K rate and will take on an Orioles team that is almost entirely right-handed heavy. Odorizzi also faced this Baltimore team earlier this season in Camden Yards, striking out 7 in 6 shutout innings for 25 fantasy points which would be an exceptional return on his salary if he was able to replicate it today.
Looking at Odorizzi led me to look at his opponent Alex Cobb ($8.4K) who is perhaps the most boom or bust option on this slate as he has put up quality starts in five of his last ten outings but has also had three negative fantasy point outings in those starts so the range of outcome is well – perfectly suited for GPP’s.
As a member of the Rays in 2017, Cobb faced this Minnesota team twice and logged the following outings:
- 5 IP, 6 K’s 1 ER
- 5.2 IP, 7 K’s and 1 ER
Cobb has a 6.5 ERA this year but it is worth nothing that his xFIP of 4.64 and 4.62 SIERA suggest some bad luck and are much more in line with the pitcher we saw in 2017. Basically everything else is the same with Cobb has he maintains a 50% GB rate and gives up roughly 35% HC but his BABIP is sky high this year at .341 which is a massive uptick over his .282 mark last season and .294 career mark.
Listen, I am not saying Cobb is a good play, I also do not think he is as bad as his metrics show and when you consider he is the cheapest option on the board behing guys like Chris Flexen, Brett Anderson and Lucas Giolito, this could be an interesting GPP dart and leverage play over a guy like Odorizzi who will likely be popular.
Nathan Eovaldi ($15.4K) gets the DFS prime spot of a meeting with the Mets who outside of a Jose Bautista grand slam have been held to 1 run scored in the other 17 innings of baseball against the Rays. Eovaldi is actually a -126 road favorite which speaks to the state of the Mets right now and the ract Chris Flexen is pitching for New York, who is flat out awful and if you need value bats, I could see using a Rays stack here today.
Eovaldi has gone 6+ innings in each of his last four starts with his last two starts against the Nationals and Marlins really standing out as he has logged a 14.5% swinging strike rate and 29.8% K rate which was driven by a 9 K gem against the Nationals.
Here is my take – identify a few arms you can stomach using today and then park that list to the side. Go build the line-up you want and then work backwards with a few cheap arms that allow you to get all the offense you want – it is going to be a day driven by bats and I simply have no interest in overpaying for mediocre arms on this slate.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
All the offense today – ALL OF IT! This slate is set up to be dominated by the bats and my goal is to get as much exposure as I can to the top offenses on the board as my roster build will allow. We have five teams with 5+ run projections and with so many awful arms that should not be surprising so let’s start with some high dollar stacks to build around with the Red Sox and Indians.
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The Red Sox face-off with Jakob Junis who is giving up a a .249 ISO and 42.6% HC rate to right-handed batters and a .203 ISO and 40.3% HC rate to left-handed batters. This would seem like an ideal spot to roll out the 1-2 punch of Mookie Betts and J.D. Martinez who have .317 and .343 ISO marks against RHP this season and can be paired with someone like Mitch Moreland who has a .251 ISO mark of his own for a “salary saving” option in the mid $8K range.
The Indians get LHP Brett Anderson, a soft tossing lefty who is giving up a .280 ISO to RHB this season with an 11% K rate, I see no way this pitch to contact southpaw survives against the Indians at home. Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez each have a .200+ ISO against LHP this season and combined with Edwin Encarnacion, you have three hitters with 40% or higher HC rates against LHP this season. Brandon Guyer ($5.9K) in the #5 hole today is also a huge salary saver if you need to pay down within this stack.
I love the idea of pairing these two three-man stacks today and chasing the massive upside but that leaves two more batters and ladies and gents……it is my favorite day…..it is a Jon Lester start! If you have read Picks and Pivots at all this season you know I am have been (poorly) attacking the regression of Mr. Lester and I simply cannot break brand today – one of these days it will pay off right?
We all know the story at this point with Lester – he is giving up a ton of hard contact but his BABIP is insanely low and his xFIP and SIERA scream this is a below average pitcher with metrics that simply do not support his sparking ERA. Adam Duvall and Eugenio Suarez are both mashing LHP this season with .225+ ISO marks so one more time I will go back to this well and attack Lester today.
Enjoy the day all! We will see you back here on Monday.
Next: DFS MLB Game by Game Breakdowns
Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests today and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and analysis!