MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday August 4
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.
Friday Night’s MLB DFS slate looked like a promising one and I was all set with a Nationals stack until about 10 minutes before lock when we got news the Nationals game would be postponed which meant a last minute roster overhaul. Ultimately this slate was all about pitching as six of the top seven fantasy scorers on the night were arms with Justin Verlander leading all scorers with a 14K, 7.2 inning, 44 fantasy point gem against a potent Dodgers line-up.
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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:
Normally when I open up an MLB DFS slate I will look over the pitching options with a quick glance to see if any mid-tier or value arms jump out before looking at any of the studs and the reason I do this is because I do not want to simply default to high-end pitching at first glance before seeing if we have better point per dollar plays that allow me to pay up for big bats. I looked today I promise – but there is just nothing I like in the mid-tier and the value is simply awful so this looks like a slate where I will likely pay up for both arms on Saturday Night.
Jose Berrios ($21.3K) at this point in the season for anyone who has read Picks and Pivots should know that I have a very simple flow chart with him – if he is pitching at home, he is likely in my line-up and if he is on the road, I will normally pass. Well today my friends not only is Berrios at home but he is also facing the Kansas City Royals and there is a reason the Twins ace is a massive -240 favorite while KC has the third lowest run projection on the board.
Now there are weather concerns here we have to watch and as always I recommend following @DFSMLBWeather on Twitter for the latest news as we approach lock tonight.
2 games to watch for rain issues: BOS and MIN. Neither is a ppd threat. Very heavy rain could cause flash flooding in Massachusetts during the afternoon hours but should be in the process of leaving ~ scheduled 1st pitch. Scattered tstorms will pop near MIN
— Mark Paquette; DFS meteorologist (@DFSMLBWeather) August 4, 2018
Assuming the weather holds, Berrios is my lock and load SP1 tonight as this is a pitcher with an ERA a run and a half lower at home with a K rate that is 10% higher, at 29.9% in Minnesota verses on the road in 2018. Berrios has faced KC at home already recently, back on July 8th when KC still had Mike Moustakas and cruised through 7 innings, with 8 K’s, 0 walks and only 1 ER for 29 fantasy points.
I know Corey Kluber ($19.4K) has not been the same dominant arm we have grown accustomed to in recent years but Kluber at home as a -240 favorite against a potential Mike Trout-less Angels team feels like a price enforcement play where I will gladly lock him in as my SP2 behind Berrios. We have not seen a double-digit strikeout game from Kluber since May and in fact we have seen him get lit up by the Yankees and Cardinals in recent outings but you are not paying 2017 Kluber prices anymore and in this spot and now that he is under $20K on FantasyDraft, I think you can safely jump back on.
Kluber has actually been much better at home this year as well with a 2.24 ERA and a K rate at 26.2% which is over 3% higher than his mark on the road and over his last 7 starts is still sporting a 13.4% swinging strike rate. In his recent starts you are seeing Kluber rely far less on his fastball which has seen a tick down in velocity compared to 2017 and instead he is relying more on his change-up, primarily to lefties which is generating a 24% swinging strike rate. With lefties like Kole Calhoun and Shohei Ohtani at the top of the line-up, this approach could be a key to navigating through the most dangerous bats in this line-up and if Mike Trout remains sidelined, it only serves to boost the appeal of Kluber tonight.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Hitting:
While the idea of paying up for two of the top arms on this slate in Jose Berrios AND Corey Kluber may seem like we will be scraping the bargain bin, the fact is we will have $7.4K per batter to fill out our roster and frankly that is more than enough to build a solid roster on this slate. There are two teams in particular that have run totals just under 5 that are loaded with players in this price range and I think mixing and matching them tonight is the way to go – using Seattle Mariners and Baltimore Orioles batters around your Berrios/Kluber combination.
The Orioles will likely be the more popular target in a game in Arlington with a slate high 10.5 total, high 90’s temperatures and LHP Mike Minor on the mound – but with no player over $8K on FantasyDraft, this feels like one of the more cost-effective stacks of the night. On the season, Minor is giving up a .238 ISO and 41.2% hard contact rate to right-handed batters which is important considering the Orioles will likely roll out 8 RHB with Chris Davis being the lone lefty in the Baltimore line-up. Against RHB this season, Minor throws his 92 MPH fastball nearly 50% of the time and this is a pitch with a .371 ISO so loading up on the Orioles right-handed batters here feels like a great move.
Danny Valencia ($7.4K) is my favorite play from Baltimore with a .213 ISO against LHP this season and his 37% HC rate and fly ball tendencies match up perfectly with a fly ball pitcher like Minor. In smaller sample sizes this season both Tim Beckham and Jonathan Villar have smashed lefties with .188 and .240 ISO marks respectively and as the 1-2 punch at the top of this order makes for a nice mini-stack with Valencia hitting in the heart of the order behind them.
Although the numbers have not been there this season, the other big bats in this line-up – Adam Jones, Trey Mancini and Mark Trumbo have historically mashed fastballs in this velocity with Trumbo standing out with a .339 ISO mark since 2016 but it has been Mancini in 2018 with a near .350 ISO mark against the pitch so if Minor throws him a fastball, it could mean big trouble real quick. The beauty of this stack or any iteration of it, is all the players are priced in this same mid $7K range so mixing and matching as needed makes them one of the more flexible stacks on this slate.
The Mariners being the late night game will likely keep their ownership at significantly lower levels than the Orioles and you could argue pretty easily this is the more talented line-up to pick batters from although the ballpark in Seattle is certainly not what the Orioles have in Arlington. With a 7.5 game total (due to James Paxton pitching), I think the Mariners will get over-looked tonight but it is worth noting that they have a 4.8 run projection which is essentially equal to th Orioles at 4.88 who I suspect will be much higher.
The masses will likely look at Mike Minor as one of the worst arms on the board but consider for a second that Blue Jays right-hander Marco Estrada has a higher xFIP at 5.42 and is giving up over a .200 ISO to hitters from both sides of the plate this season. Estrada is an extreme fly ball pitcher, giving up over 50% fly balls to hitters from both sides of the plate and his 1.5+ HR/9 rate in the last two seasons speaks to the upside if we want to go home run hunting with the Mariners bats.
Unlike the Orioles the prices are a bit more spread out but this is still a stack with no hitter over $9K and Nelson Cruz ($8.7K) as the cornerstone part of any Mariners stack with his .255 ISO against RHP this season but if you look at the 4-8 stack, the Mariners are loaded with bats that can do damage. Mitch Haniger, Kyle Seager, Mike Zunino and Ryon Healy all have .190 or higher ISO marks against RHP this season with each of them having a fly ball rate of 41% or higher which again matches up perfectly with Estrada’s profile.
The last team you could use as a pivot here tonight, one that I used without success last night, is the Oakland A’s who have a similar run projection to the Orioles and Mariners at 4.9 but as we saw last night, this stack was single digit owned (Khris Davis was my highest owned A at 9%) so I love the idea of stacking up the late games to make your line-ups a bit different tonight.
Oakland is going against RHP Jordan Zimmerman, another fly ball pitcher with a .218 ISO to left-handed hitters this season and with his reliance on his fastball nearly 45% of the time against lefties (with a .319 ISO), this sets up for Matt Olson to be maybe my favorite one-off home run target tonight. On the season, Olson has a .323 ISO against the fastball and against the 91 MPH velocity that Zimmerman throws it, Olson has an absurd .600 ISO with an average distance traveled of 394 feet. Bombs away buddy.
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: Jose Berrios ($21.3K)
SP: Corey Kluber ($19.4K)
IF: Jonathan Villar ($7.8K)
IF: Tim Beckham ($7.6K)
IF: Danny Valencia ($7.4K)
OF: Nelson Cruz ($8.7K)
OF: Jacoby Jones ($5.6K)
OF: Mitch Haniger ($8K)
UTIL: Kyle Seager ($7.5K)
UTIL: Mike Zunino ($6.6K)
Slate Overview: I love this slate already – that’s always a fun sign at 6AM EST when you can dive in and find multiple paths you already like. The one constant assuming weather holds is that Berrios/Kluber will be at the top of the builds and it really then comes down to how I make the Orioles/Mariners/A’s work within my builds using a cheap punt lead-off man like Jacoby Jones at $5.6K to make it all tie together. I am sure there will be a lot of tinkering and hopefully no 6:45PM EST PPD announcements to sort through – enjoy the day all!
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