MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday July 21
Welcome to the Saturday 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 love MLB DFS, I really do. Playing, writing and interacting with readers each day on Twitter is what makes this so much fun for me and I have to say, watching Jon Lester, my arch-nemesis, get lit up on a slate we couldn’t attack him was the definition of DFS tilt and I enjoyed how many people felt the same way. The good thing is the tilt didn’t end there, I felt really good about my teams until Robbie Ray starting pitching and then it was bombs away for the Rockies – a rude welcome back to my bankroll after the All-Star Break.
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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:
We have a three game early slate today on FantasyDraft but I am going to focus my attention on the Main Slate which starts at 7PM EST and includes 11 games. One piece of house keeping – I will be on vacation for the next few weeks and will do my best to get Picks and Pivots out each day (as family time allows) but if not – one of our many other Fantasy Baseball Experts can get you set for each day’s MLB DFS slate!
First off – there are some potential weather concerns in three games right away with Boston/Detroit, Atlanta/Washington and San Diego/Philadelphia looking like risky places to use pitchers which stinks because Vincent Velasquez ($15K) at home versus the Padres looked to be a great SP2 play tonight. There is 100% chance of rain through 10PM in Philly tonight so my going in position today is to just cross these three games off my player pool and move on.
We have a trio of aces at the top tonight with Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner all sitting above $20K on FantasyDraft and the question will be do you need to pay up for one of these three tonight. I must say, my gut reaction was initially no, but I am finding in my preliminary builds that I have the salary to get up to Bumgarner at only $21.2K and considering the salary savings off Verlander and Bumgarner, I have no issue “settling” for MadBum as my SP1.
Bumgarner looks to be rounding into form with 35, 29 and 22 fantasy points in three of his last four non-Coors Field outings. Since June 21, a start against the Padres, Bumgarner has a 24.2% K rate and a 10% swinging strike rate and will take on the same Oakland team he just faced his last start before the break when he put up 6 innings, 5 K’s and 1 ER on his way to 22 FP.
What really stands out to me is how Bumgarner is generating only 29% hard contact, just 8% higher than his soft contact rate which is a fantastic ratio showing that opposing batters are simply not getting good wood on the ball. We have a pitcher’s ballpark in Oakland with temperatures in the high 60’s so this seems like a safe spot to use the Giants left-hander who seems priced fairly on this weak pitching slate.
Lance Lynn ($14.4K) is rarely an arm you go out of your way to roster but he looks like a really nice “safe” option against the Royals tonight. The book on Lynn for DFS is simple – you play him versus right-handed heavy line-ups and avoid him against lefty heavy teams. Tonight, Lynn will take on a Royals team with only three lefty bats – Moustakas, Duda and Gordon – in the projected line-up which plays perfectly into his splits.
On the season, Lynn has a 27% K rate versus RH with only a .120 ISO and less than 9% hard to soft contact ratio as compared to a 13% K rate, .184 ISO and 29% hard to soft contact ratio. Lynn has also faced this KC team twice recently going 5-6 innings with 5-6 K’s and 2-3 ER allowed for totals of 16 and 18 fantasy points which is exactly what you want for the price point today from an SP2.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
My guess is the Indians versus Bartolo Colon will be the default stack today with 100+ degree temperatures on the docket and I certainly cannot argue with the sentiment but I am not sure I want to pay the prices for the Indians stud bats tonight against a pitcher like Colon who has only given up 2-3 ER in seven of his last eight starts especially when you consider this is the likely chalk stack.
The pitcher I most want to pick on tonight is Dylan Covey who over his last five starts has given up 26 runs in 20 innings with a massive 46.8% hard contact rate. During that time frame, Covey has a 9.4% K rate with a 6.7% swinging strike rate with a bloated 14.2% BB rate which when you step back and summarize – no strikeout ability, walking everyone and giving up insanely high hard contact – smells like stack spot to me. The three guys I want here from Seattle are Nelson Cruz ($8.2K), Mitch Haniger ($8.1K) and Kyle Seager ($6.3K), a relatively cheap heart of the order stack for a team with a 5.5 run total, second highest on the slate. All three of these hitters have .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season with 36% or higher HC rates and when you consider their point per dollar upside, I think you can use them as a pivot off the Indians or as a secondary stack with the Indians if you are paying down for pitching.
Let’s see – we have a slate, the Dodgers are on it and here I am wanting to stack them. The Brewers are going to throw Chase Anderson who based off every metric imaginable screams regression as his ERA is a full run lower than his SIERA and xFIP but this is nothing new for Anderson who had a 2.74 ERA despite a 4.33 xFIP last season. Anderson is actually a reverse splits pitcher, giving up .188 ISO to RHB te last two seasons which is substantially higher than his .127 mark versus lefties.
Right-handed hitters this season have a 1.95 HR/9 mark against Anderson and .227 ISO mark with a 35% hard contact rate so I am going right back to Manny Machado ($9.7K) and would not shy away from Matt Kemp ($7.5K) as most people will likely ignore him in the righty-righty match-up. Anderson versus RHB this season relies heavily on his fastball, 46% of the time, and is giving up a .38O to RHB on that pitch which when you overlay it with Machado and Kemp who have .357 and .257 ISO marks against that pitch would seem to match-up quite well in this spot.
My guess is most will look to the lefties here and although the splits for Anderson are stronger against LHB, this Dodgers line-up is not your normal left-handed offense. Anderson like most RHP, relies heavily on his change-up to get lefties out, throwing it 26% of the time with a paltry .063 ISO but there are two hitters in this line-up that have great numbers versus the change in Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy who have .205 and .275 ISO marks against the pitch this season.
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: Madison Bumgarner ($21.2K)
SP: Lance Lynn ($14.4K)
IF: Yoan Moncada ($7.2K)
IF: Manny Machado ($9.7K)
IF: Cody Bellinger ($8K)
OF: Max Muncy ($9.4K)
OF: Matt Kemp ($7.5K)
OF: Nelson Cruz ($8.2K)
UTIL: Mitch Haniger ($8.1K)
UTIL: Kyle Seager ($6.3K)
Slate Overview: I have to be honest, I do not like the mid-tier arms much today so I am finding myself going high low with Bumgarner and Lynn and using the salary “savings” to stack up the Mariners who seem insanely under-priced relative to the Indians who have a similar run projection. Keep an eye on the weather today – I am off to enjoy my vacation and will do my best to keep Picks and Pivots rolling while I am away!
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!