MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday July 20
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.
The All-Star Break is now behind us and we can get back to a second half of MLB DFS action each and every day until the postseason begins – thank goodness. I will say, with the daily grind of playing and writing about MLB DFS since the first days of April, it was nice to get forced into a few days off to clear your head and reset heading into the dog days of summer. Hopefully you got a few days away and are ready for the stretch run – let’s get into it!
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.
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:
Welcome back baseball – we get a really nice Friday slate to jump back into and I must say, I was thrilled to see FantasyDraft get the pricing up for this slate early so that we could start to dig in and build some rosters. At first blush, this first start out of the All-Star Break is very much like the Opening Day MLB DFS slates in that we get a ton of aces all pitching the first game which means a few things: 1) There is big time opportunity cost for getting cute and missing at SP on slates like this and 2) Be prepared for some days ahead with ugly pitching options.
I never thought we would see a slate where Trevor Bauer ($26.7K) is priced over $7K more than any other arm on this slate but his early season performance certainly warrants the steep asking price. The pricing on this slate though is leading me to pivot down to arms under $20K who have upside at what may end up being better point per dollar value.- Stephen Strasburg, Noah Syndergaard, Robbie Ray, Dallas Keuchel and David Price.
Of this group, Robbie Ray ($17.2K) is the arm that intrigues me the most as we can target a pitcher with elite metrics including a 34.5% K rate on the season and a 13.5% swinging strike rate. Now Ray may not qualify among league leaders with only 48 IP this season, but if you look at SP’s with at least 40 innings of work this year, Ray’s 34.5% K rate ranks 4th in baseball behind only Chris Sale, Gerrit Cole and Max Scherzer – pretty good company when you consider he is priced as the 6th most expensive arm on this slate. Ray will take on a Rockies team in Arizona that he has faced twice this season, striking out 8 batters in each match-up including his last one in Coors Field. Ray has thrown more than 94 pitches in each off his last three starts since coming off the D.L. and with the All-Star Break for added rest, this could be a great buy low opportunity for the Arizona left-hander tonight with massive K upside.
Speaking of K upside, Dylan Bundy ($15.8K) will take the bump for the Orioles after trading away Manny Machado, and although the win equity may be hard to come by, it is hard to argue that there is some significant K upside in this match-up against Toronto. Bundy has a 25.7% K rate on the season with a swinging strike rate of 13.3% and will face a Blue Jays team he dominated earlier in 2018. In his only start against Toronto back in April, Bundy went 7 innings, striking out 10 batters on his way to 28 fantasy points. One of the reasons this match-up suits Bundy so well is that he can attack a Toronto team that struggles to hit the slider with a slider that he uses nearly 40% of the time against RHB with a massive 31% swinging strike rate.
With Josh Donaldson, Troy Tulowitzki, Kevin Pillar and now Lourdes Gurriel Jr. on the D.L. for Toronto this line-up is going to be banged up and although we have some dangerous LHB in Justin Smoak, Yangervis Solarte and Curtis Granderson, if we get an otherwise right-handed heavy line-up for Toronto, this could be a double-digit strikeout ceiling game like we saw from Mr. Bundy earlier this season.
After two dominant outings before the All-Star Break, I am not sure what Danny Duffy ($11.8K) has to do to get some pricing love, but if we need K upside at a bargain price, I am not sure you will find a better option than the Royals left-hander against Minnesota. In his two starts prior to the break, Duffy went 13 shutout innings against the White Sox and this same Twins team with 17 K’s and 27 and 32 fantasy points which makes him a point per dollar steal on this slate. This is not a simple game log watching spot either – the fastball velocity for Duffy is back to a spot we haven’t seen this season with a 94.5 average fastball velocity against Chicago and 95 MPH against the Twins – the highest back to back start velocity of any pair of games this season for a guy who was only hitting 91 to start the year.
It’s funny for a slate with Trevor Bauer, Tyler Skaggs, Stephen Strasburg and Noah Syndergaard – I am finding myself looking further down as there are three arms in Ray, Bundy and Duffy who have the kind of K upside I am looking for as signficantly cheaper price points and allow me to build around all the bats I could possibly want.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Even with so many good arms on the slate, there are a couple of really terrible arms to pick on as well and one of the benefits of stepping down a tad at pitcher is you will have the ability to attack some of the top hitting teams in baseball on this first slate back.
After a solid start to the season, LHP Matt Boyd has seen regression hit hard with 5+ runs allowed in four of his last five starts and now he has to navigate the heart of the Boston Red Sox line-up. Boyd is a fly ball pitcher giving up a 36% HC rate to RHB this season and over his last five starts he has seen his HC spike to 40% with a near 2.5 HR/9 mark. The usual suspects are the top plays here with Mookie Betts, J.D. Martinez and Steve Pearce being the key trip to build around with Pearce at $7.3K likely a cash game staple for many at that price point.
LHP Martin Perez is arguably the worst arm on this slate and the lefty will be tasked with taking on the Indians with 100 degree+ temperatures in Arlington. The trio of Francisco Lindor, Jose Ramirez and Edwin Encarnacion is my preferred stack as each batter has a 42% or higher HC rate against LHP this season against a pitcher in Perez who has given up multiple HR’s in 3 of the 6 games he has started this season. In 23 innings versus right-handed batters this season, Perez has given up 7 HR and 22 runs (2.74 HR/9) with a 47.3% HC rate and an elevated 11% walk rate so you can see why stacking up the Indians feels like a good use of your salary today.
When we initially published this article we thought Chase Anderson would be starting for the Brewers but it turns out it will be LHP Wade Miley and he gets the unenviable task of taking on Manny Machado and a loaded Dodgers line-up. This will be an interesting spot to see how the industry reacts as I could see the shiny new LA line-up being one everyone cannot wait to roster, especially when you consider they do not have a single bat over $10K which allows you a cheaper stack alternative to the pricey Red Sox or Indians mentioned.
Miley’s stats this year are frankly quite bizarre as how often do you see someone giving up a 64% hard contact rate to RHB with only a .050 ISO? The sample size is small so looking back at 2017 gives us a better indication of a pitcher with a 33% HC rate and .193 ISO to RHB with a 1.7 HR/9 rate. The Dodgers have been a team that has struggled with left-handed pitching but getting a guy like Machado who has a .251 ISO and 42% HC rate against lefties the last two seasons in the heart of the order changes things entirely.
It will be interesting to see what Dodgers line-up we get tonight and thankfully with the game being in Milwaukee at 8PM EST, Dave Roberts should be able to get this line-up out before lock. Chris Taylor, Enrique Hernandez, Matt Kemp and Machado all have ISO marks of .215 or higher versus LHP this season and Max Muncy makes for an interesting L/L addition with his .357 ISO versus southpaws this season.
The best part of this stack in my opinion is the pricing as only Machado at $9.8K is really a significant investment as you can get Taylor ($8K), Hernandez ($6.9K) and Kemp ($7.5K) for really fair pricing which makes them a great secondary stack to put around the big Red Sox and Indians bats tonight. If the prices on this stack stay this way in the second half of the year, the stack I already loved more than any other through the first few month will likely be a prominent piece of Picks and Pivots until the postseason begins.
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: Robbie Ray ($17.2K)
SP: Danny Duffy ($11.8K)
IF: Manny Machado ($9.8K)
IF: Chris Taylor ($8K)
IF: Enrique Hernandez ($6.9K)
OF: Matt Kemp ($7.5K)
OF: Mookie Betts ($11.4K)
OF: Steve Pearce ($7.3K)
UTIL: J.D. Martinez ($9.9K)
UTIL: Jose Ramirez ($10.2K)
Slate Overview: We have tons of elite arms with a trio of arms in particular that seem under-priced relative to their K upside and they allow you to stack up the Red Sox, Indians and Dodgers bats in a variety of different ways as I am finding as I start to build rosters. It is great to have baseball back and hopefully we can start this second half off with a bang – time to fire up those line-ups my friends, MLB DFS is back!
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!