MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday July 26

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.

Wednesday’s MLB DFS Main Slate was dominated by the Angels as Mike Trout launched two home runs against a 40% plus owned James Shields in tournaments (what a world) and Tyler Skaggs delivered 6 innings, 1 ER and 9 K’s as the highest scoring pitcher on the evening.

I did notice this morning that even though the Red Sox game got PPD against the Orioles, that the 3 HR’s by Mookie Betts, JD Martinez and Andrew Benintendi were being counted towards players scores even though the game was postponed. FantasyDraft has responded to my tweet clarifying the rules so figured it was important to share with others.

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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.

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:

My initial reaction when looking at the pitching on this slate was how Sonny Gray stood out as a great play at home versus Kansas City, and then I realized playing Sonny Gray at home as chalk was terrifying and I went to get more coffee – there has to be more right? The reality is, the pitching on this slate is underwhelming and there are so many high-end bats I want to prioritize which is leading me to pay down as far as I can so I can stack up the big bats I covet.

Wade Miley ($13.2K) has made two starts since coming off the D.L. with an oblique injury and has gone 5 and 6 innings while throwing 83 and 95 pitches against the Dodgers and Pirates, giving up only 2 ER over those two starts. Miley is an elite ground ball arm, sporting a 50% or higher GB rate in each of the last two seasons and has put up a 62% GB rate over his last two starts with only an 18% FB rate which should play perfectly into his match-up tonight in San Francisco in one of the best pitchers parks in all of baseball.

Miley relies heavily on his sinker, throwing it nearly 35% of the time against RHB which is important when you consider he will likely face 8 RHB with Brandon Crawford as the sole lefty in the Giants line-up with Brandon Belt banged up. Looking through the Giants projected line-up, outside of Nick Hundley, this is a pitch type the majority of the Giants team hits quite weakly and this San Francisco team has scored the fewest runs of any team on the slate over the last two weeks, making an already great run prevention spot even better.

Steven Matz ($12.7K) seems to be my defacto SP2 every time he takes the mound as his price relative to his performance just never seems to adjust. Outside of a start in Coors Field and a beat down in Yankee Stadium – take a stroll through his recent outings – he has gone at least 6 innings in 6 of his last 7 outings with double-digit fantasy points in every single game with 17 or more FPTS in 5 of those 7 non Coors/Yankee outings.

Today Matz will take on a Pirates team in PNC Park that he faced in New York back on June 26th where he went 7 innings, struck out 7, walked none and gave up 3 ER on his way to 19.55 fantasy points which would be more than enough within the context of this slate.

On the other side of this game, Nick Kingham ($17.6K) is in an interesting high K spot against the Mets who will be without Yoenis Cespedes for the rest of the season which means we are back to a line-up that is essentially Brandon Nimmo, Michael Conforto and Asdrubal Cabrera. Kingham has a 28.5% K rate against RHB this year and the Mets will likely have 4-5 RHB in their line-up tonight which makes Kingham a nice high K target on a slate that frankly lacks many such options.

MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:

As you may have expected, with so many mediocre pitching options this is looking like a slate to load up on bats with teams like the Yankees, Rangers, A’s and Red Sox all sporting 5.5 or higher run totals.

The Yankees have a massive 6.2 run total at home tonight against Jakob Junis who is giving up a .247 ISO and .41% hard contact rate against RHB this season. Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are the obvious top plays here and arguably two of the top overall bats on the slate with Judge specifically being my favorite target. Junis throws his slider 38% of the time against RHB with a 91 MPH being utilized 33% of the time and these are two pitch types that Judge destroys with a .190 ISO against the slider and a .545 ISO against fastballs of that velocity!

The Red Sox are scheduled to take on RHP Kyle Gibson but be aware that Gibson is being actively shopped with heavy interest from the Brewers so this could be a potential late scratch situation tonight for the Twins right-hander. Gibson has given up a .177 ISO to RHB the last two seasons with a 37% HC rate and the duo of Mookie Betts and JD Martinez has owned Mr. Gibson, going 15 for 39 with 5 HR’s against the Twins arm.

One more night of crazy hot temperatures in Texas and it is Big Sexy night! Bartolo Colon is giving up a .211 ISO to LHB and .250 ISO to RHB with 37% or higher HC rates to hitters from both sides. Khris Davis might be in fade at your own risk territory for the duration of this series and with a .302 ISO versus RHB this season, this looks like a spot you need to go right back to him. Jed Lowrie (.199 ISO) and Matt Olson (.325) are both great additions to this Oakland stack at mid $8K price points as we get another night of 100 degree temperatures in Arlington and an 11.5 game total that we will want to have some exposure to.

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: Wade Miley ($13.2K)

SP: Steven Matz ($12.7K)

IF: Jed Lowrie ($8.6K)

IF: Matt Olson ($8K)

IF: Adrian Beltre ($6.4K)

OF: Aaron Judge ($10K)

OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($9.2K)

OF: Khris Davis ($10.4K)

UTIL: J.D. Martinez ($10.2K)

UTIL: Mookie Betts ($11.1K)

Slate Overview: ALL THE BATS. Basically that is how I am approaching this slate tonight – I am looking to pay down at pitcher, find guys that I think can get me 15-20 FPTS and load up on the big bats that I believe will win you this slate. Enjoy your Thursday all- see you back here on Friday!

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