MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday August 6
Welcome to the Monday 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.
Well my friends, it finally happened. A Jon Lester regression stack finally paid off! Since July 1st, Jon Lester is now sporting an ERA near 7 and if you stacked up the Padres yesterday you likely had yourself a nice day especially if you went all-in and used the fringe guys like Franmil Reyes and Freddy Galvis who both homered off the Cubs left-hander. Ironically, one of the reasons I loved the Padres stack is it allowed me to pair it with Aaron Nola who I, like many, perceived to be a slam dunk SP1, only to see him struggle against a pesky Marlins teams and fail to crack double-digit fantasy points. So is MLB DFS variance I suppose?
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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:
At first glance over this slate we have some big time run totals and elite arms and a few weather spots, most notably in Coors Field and in Chicago where the Yankees bats face Dylan Covey that we will have to factor into our decision-making when building rosters on this slate.
Trevor Bauer ($24.1K) is the top priced option on the slate, at home against the Twins in what would appear to be a slam dunk SP1 match-up but this is the same Twins team he just faced in Minnesota and went for only 14.85 fantasy points on the back of 6.1 IP, 2 ER and only 3 K’s. I love when a pitcher gets the same match-up again and lazy game log watchers will simply look at his last start and price point and go – eh, not worth it. I have no statistical data to back this up, but my guess is that the game log factor will diminish Bauer’s ownership at least somewhat today – be honest, you looked at his game log and saw the dud against this Twins team and had the same reaction right?
What really stands out to me about that game is that Bauer’s swinging strike rate at 7.8% was the lowest rate of any game this year and what really drove that is his O Swing % (swings outside the zone) was down to only 18%, by far his lowest of the year and significantly below his 31% mark on the season. It likely does not surprise you that Bauer used is curveball only 15% in that game which is roughly half his normal game usage so was this just a case where Bauer was out of whack and could not get the Twins to chase? He had one of the best pitcher’s umps, CB Bucknor, behind the plate in that game so you would have thought it was a smash spot!
The question really becomes what are you doing with him today? He faced the Twins one other time this season, striking out 11 with 3 ER which was good for 23 FPTS, solid but still likely not worth his price tag today. All these reasons I am giving you are what could keep his ownership down, but there is one big difference in today’s match-up – Bauer is at home where he has an ERA a half run lower and a K rate of 31.5% on the season, which is a slight bump to his road average in 2018.
Here are Bauer’s FantasyDraft points for his most recent home starts – 37, 21, 38, 33, 33 and 30. Now that is what we are talking about if we are going to pay this price today. If you read Picks and Pivots with any sort of regularity you know I rarely like to pay up for pitching but with the game log theory and some high offenses totals, including a game in Coors Field, I wonder if paying up for Bauer is actually a contrarian build – odd considering only Chris Sale and Max Scherzer have more K’s than him this year.
Now you may be thinking – I want the bats today so I do not want to invest in Bauer – what if I told you, you can get Bauer AND the bats? Interested?
Wei-Yin Chen ($8.3K) at home – it is a thing – the Marlins know it and that is why they pushed him back a day to pitch at home verses on the road in Philadelphia. Chen has a 2.18 ERA at home versus a 10+ ERA on the road, his K rate is 21.3% at home versus only 12.5% on the road, his HR/9 of only 0.6 is well below his road mark of 2.63 and he generates nearly 7% more ground balls at home this season.
Need more proof – here are his last four starts at home against the Braves, Phillies, Rays and Diamondbacks – 15, 24, 22 and 18 FantasyDraft points. Does this feel like a guy who should be priced THIS low?
Listen, Chen alone does not win you a slate but his massive point per dollar production allows you to get you the guys that could, including paying up for Trevor Bauer AND still having all the bats you could want.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
Not only do we have a game in Coors Field with an 11 run total but we get another hot day in Arlington with two hittable lefties in Wade LeBlanc and Martin Perez and a 10.5 run total of their own between the Rangers and Mariners so you better believe we have offense today.
With a Bauer/Chen combo, the ultimate high/low build on a two pitcher site, you have nearly $8.5K per batter and if you look at this Texas/Mariners game you will see that essentially the entire player pool from this game sits exactly in this price range. Giddy up.
The Mariners are the team I have the most interest in stacking today as they face LHP Martin Perez and his 5.44 xFIP, 44% HC rate and .220 ISO marks against hitters from both sides of the plate. Basically if you play for the Mariners today – I have interest.
Nelson Cruz ($9.8K) will likely be one of the more popular plays considering he is facing a lefty where he has a .378 ISO mark this season and with the run total as high as it is, you almost have to include him in any stack you make here – it is tough to imagine this stack going off without Cruz being a major part of it.
Perez is basically a sinker ball pitcher, throwing it 46% of the time versus RHB and a whopping 63% against LHB which should set up nicely for Kyle Seager (7.2K) who has a .350 ISO against that pitch type versus LHP this season while his teammate Ryon Healy ($7.7K) has a .350 mark of his own from the right side.
On the Rangers side, Wade LeBlanc relies on three main pitches – a change-up, sinker and cuttter and depending on the pitch type, different Rangers will jump off the page. Robinson Chirinos ($8K) has a .364 ISO versus the change, a pitch LeBlanc throws 37% of the time versus RHB and Joey Gallo ($9.2K) has a .300 ISO against a sinker that LeBlanc uses as his primary weapon against lefties (33% of the time).
It seems odd to me on a slate where the Cleveland Indians are home that they have the 7th highest run total (only 4.69) which is actually a half a run lower than their season average which is giving a TON of respect to Kyle Gibson. Now Gibson has pitched against this Indians team three times this season – giving up only 6 runs in just under 19 innings of work – and it is that exact game log “suppression” and the low-ish run total that has me intrigued by the Indians as a GPP stack. The top 5 in this Indians line-up all have a .190 or higher ISO mark against RHP on the season and if this team is going to be over-looked on a slate with Coors and a hot game in Arlington, I love the idea of using them as a secondary stack with say, the Mariners, to build your teams around tonight.
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: Trevor Bauer ($24.1K)
SP: Wei-Yin Chen ($8.3K)
IF: Ryon Healy ($7.7K)
IF: Robinson Chirinos ($8K)
IF: Joey Gallo ($9.2K)
OF: Nelson Cruz ($9.8K)
OF: Mitch Haniger ($9.2K)
OF: Jose Ramirez ($10.1K)
UTIL: Kyle Seager ($7.2K)
UTIL: Cameron Maybin ($6.4K)
Slate Overview: With the price point on Chen as an SP2 and the Mariners (outside of really Cruz/Haniger) being relatively cost-effective it does not look tough at first glance to build a team with Trevor Bauer and a mix of the Mariners, Rangers and Indians offenses. Yes, I know I have ignored Coors – go there if you want as well – I think what this sample shows you is that a Bauer/Chen duo really allows you significant flexibility to build around the offenses you want today.
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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!