MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday August 5
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.
For the second straight night I have done a great job of finding a low-owned late night stack with the A’s and Mariners as both team stacks came in at single digits and they proceeded to score a total of ONE run in those two nights so yeah, that is how my MLB DFS weekend has started off. Hey, at least I had Corey Kluber and Jose Berrios last night – but I did not have any Arizona, Philadelphia or Milwaukee stacks which were the key bats to build around.
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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 – Main Slate Pitching:
There is one arm and one arm only that stands out at the top and that is Aaron Nola ($23.8K) at home against the Marlins as by far the clear-cut ace on this slate, priced $5K higher than any other arm on FantasyDraft. Nola is a -240 favorite, the Marlins have a slate low 2.6 run total and basically he is the lock and load SP1 in cash games and likely the highest raw point performer on the entire slate.
At home this season, Nola has been absolutely filthy with a 1.99 ERA and a 29% K rate which is 6% higher than his road mark in 2018. Nola has faced the Marlins twice in Miami this year with a solid outing his last time (6 innings, 5K and 2 ER for 16 FP) and a stellar outing earlier this season where he went 7.1 shutout innings with 7 K and 31 FPTS. In order to pay off this price tag today you need the ceiling game and it is absolutely there in this spot against Miami if you are willing to pay the price tag.
The SP2 that stands out to me is once again Danny Duffy ($15.5K) who gets another shot at a Minnesota Twins team he just faced twice in July, pitching 13 innings, striking out 15 batters and allowing only 1 ER with 21 and 27 fantasy point performances. In his last five starts, Duffy has a 25% K rate and 11% swinging strike rate and at this price point, has the kind of K upside I simply love to target from my SP2.
The mid-range is actually quite strong today which at first glance is leading me away from Nola and putting me on builds with Duffy and another mid-range arm like Julio Teheran ($15.3K). Teheran’s metrics on the season are not great overall but they get much better away from Atlanta where he has an ERA of 3.14 (as compared to 5.86 at home), while his K rate increases 2-3% to 20% and his HR/9 drops. Listen, this play is not about the metrics – it is about the opponent, the New York Mets and Teheran’s history against this team.
Even with two of his three starts this year against the Mets being in Atlanta – here are his game logs:
- At home: 7 IP, 2 ER, 3 K and 12.95 FPTS
- At home: 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 K and 24.75 FPTS
- In NY: 7 IP, 0 ER, 6 K and 29.35 FPTS
Are you noticing a trend? Not only is this Mets team a complete shell of itself right now but Teheran has historically owned this team, especially in Citi Field where he had two nearly identical outings last year, going 6 innings in each of his two starts, allowing only 2 total ER in those outings. With Duffy and Teheran, you are getting two elite point per dollar arms and all the bats you could possibly want.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Waking up on Sunday mornings is not always easy with young kids – I want to sleep in, they want to play immediately, the dogs have to go out and I forgot to make coffee last night due to the few empty beers I left next to the couch. I soldiered on this morning, got myself some coffee and thought maybe I take the day off from MLB DFS and just enjoy a day off before the real world starts tomorrow – I opened up today’s slate just to see, saw 91 degrees at Wrigley Field with 14-15 MPH winds blowing out to LF and let’s see who is pitching…..OH. MY. GOD.
RED ALERT RED ALERT – IT IS JON LESTER DAY!
Who needs coffee now? How much of my bankroll can I play without having to eat PB&J for the next month? Oh who cares, it is Jon Lester regression day and it has literally worked every time we have played it (except basically 95% of the time it has not but who needs facts).
By now you all know my love/hate relationship with Mr. Lester who has something like a 0.01 ERA despite a 99.43 xFIP and SIERA and although every metric says regression, he laughs in my face and steals my bankroll every five days – rinse and repeat. There are some really interesting cheap bats in the heart of this Padres order today that I love in Christian Villaneuva ($7.7K) and his .422 ISO against LHP this season and you can pair him with guys like Manuel Margot ($7.5K) and Hunter Renfroe ($7.3K) who has a similarly massive .309 ISO against LHP the last two seasons.
The beauty of this Padres stack is that it is priced so low it really allows you the flexibility to do anything you want – if you want Nola, this is your path, if you want all the big bats – same thing applies. There is not a single bat here over $8K so you can make this stack work around almost any build and you know I will be.
The Cubs on the other side of this game will get LHP Joey Lucchesi in the same elite hitting environment and it is hard to pass on the duo of Javier Baez ($11.1K) and Willson Contreras ($9.3K) who have .272 and .240 ISO marks against LHP over the last two seasons. I do wonder if the pricing on these bats will keep their ownership in check or if the “Wind Blowing Out at Wrigley” narrative will carry them to high ownership levels.
I have faded the Rangers bats the last three nights and it finally worked out on Saturday but today I think is a day we jump back as many may move to the Wrigley bats since they got burned last night. No duo in baseball is hotter right now than Rougned Odor ($10.7K) and Joey Gallo ($8.7K) and the beauty of dropping down at SP tonight is you can afford these bats AND to stack up the Wrigley games where those who pay up for Nola will have to sit this one out.
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: Danny Duffy ($15.5K)
SP: Julio Teheran ($15.3K)
IF: Christian Guzman ($7.7K)
IF: Ronald Guzman ($7.2K)
IF: Javier Baez ($11.1K)
OF: Manuel Margot ($7.5K)
OF: Hunter Renfroe ($7.3K)
OF: Willson Contreras ($9.3K)
UTIL: Rougned Odor ($10.4K)
UTIL: Joey Gallo ($8.7K)
Slate Overview: Stack Wrigley, get the Odor/Gallo duo and lock in two solid high upside mid-tier arms in Duffy and Teheran. All this really means to me is I am fading Nola and knowing how pesky the Marlins can be, this may not be a bad idea. I am excited for Jon Lester regression day part 100, knowing that the previous 99 times I have been burned – but today is the day…..right?
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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!