MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday August 17
Welcome to the Friday 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.
Thursday’s MLB DFS slate was a roll of the dice for me and boy did it back fire – I think transparency is important so it is worth a look back at this dumpster fire. My going in position on this slate was that there was no single pitcher worth rostering if they would be popular and I also felt like the raw points would be low enough that there was not a single arm ( let alone two) that were capable of winning you this slate.
Clay Buchholz is basically the perfect example of how this strategy backfired for me – as this was an arm that was 47% owned in the $25 FantasyDraft Home Run tournament – seriously, Clay Buchholz was nearly 50% owned in a GPP. That fact alone was enough for me to fade and yet when the dust settled, it was the Arizona right-hander as the top raw points scorer of the night with a 9 inning, 6K complete game that racked up 33.75 FPTS.
My perspective was – basically find an arm that I could stomach at low ownership and that led me to Francisco Liriano at 2% owned in the same GPP. The logic here was far less about the pitcher and more about the offense, targeting a Twins team that struggles mightily against LHP and has a massive K rate against southpaws – that was it, that was the logic – play against the team instead of picking the actual pitcher.
The fact that he was 2% versus a 50% owned Buchholz played out exactly as I would have hoped ownership wise but obviously the fade blew up in spectacular fashion as Buchholz was dominant and Liriano was well, Liriano. Always worth a good look back at how these decisions play out – honestly, even with the results I am not sure if the situation presented itself again I could talk myself into playing a chalk Clay Buchholz. Maybe next time though I will just play Jon Lester since he continues to torment my dreams with his wizardry while laughing at advanced metrics and regression – nah, you know I cannot do ever roster my arch-nemesis.
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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:
When I opened up this slate, I have to admit that I was a bit floored at the initial Vegas data staring back at me for the top two arms – Max Scherzer and Carlos Carrasco – as how often do we have two pitchers on the same slate installed as massive -380 favorites?
Mad Max is the cash game SP1 lock and I would argue he is a tough fade even in GPP’s considering this is a home start against a Marlins team that is projected to score only 2 runs which is by far the lowest on the slate. Scherzer’s price tag at $24.7K is tough to swallow and there are some weather concerns here with PM thunderstorms expected but it is hard to argue there is a better arm/match-up combination on this slate. Scherzer has a 35% K rate on the season and will face a Marlins team he just went off on for 11K’s in 8 shutout innings on his way to 44 fantasy points – I normally am fine paying down at pitching on two pitcher sites but this one is tough to fade.
As much as I beat the drum for regression with Jon Lester, I feel the same way about the positive regression (or progression as some call it) when it comes to Robbie Ray ($14.6K) who has an ERA of 4.78 which is a full run higher than his xFIP and SIERA. Ray has a 31% K rate on the year but his BABIP of .331 (well over the .290 league average) when combined with his lofty hard contact rates and ISO numbers to RHB makes him a dangerous boom or bust option.
In fact, if I told you there was a fly-ball pitcher giving up a .211 ISO and 44% HC rate to right-handed batters and would likely face a line-up full of them – wouldn’t we consider stack the opposition? The Ray question is interesting tonight as there is certainly upside with his K ability and there is no better park to pitch in that Petco and Vegas seems to agree as the Padres have the third lowest run total on the board. The price point however is just incredibly cheap for a pitcher the caliber of Ray and the fact you can pair him with someone like Mad Max and still have $7.6K per batter is a high upside roster build route.
Slightly below Ray is Sean Newcomb ($13.8K) who will get the Rockies on the road in Atlanta and we just saw Julio Teheran strike out 7 Rockies last night in 7 innings of 2 run ball. We all know the deal by now, the Rockies are a totally different offense outside of Coors where they see their K rate spike to 25% which is 6th highest in baseball in 2018. Newcomb is a high ground ball arm with a 26% K rate to LHB (Blackmon, Dahl and Cargo) and has limited RHB to a .102 ISO on the season so this looks to be a solid spot for the Braves left-hander.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots
It is not very often we have two teams outside of Coors Field with 6+ run totals but tonight the Nationals (against Dan Straily) and the Indians (against David Hess) both find themselves with lofty totals – the only issue is, if you want Mad Max, these offenses are simply priced out of your range.
Now if you want to go with a Ray/Newcomb combination as an example, than these stacks are where I would go – prioritizing the Indians first against a pitcher in David Hess who is a fly ball pitcher giving up a .230+ ISO to hitters from both sides of the plate. The usual suspects are where you start – Jose Ramirez, Francisco Lindor, Michael Brantley and Yonder Alonso – as with a run total nearing 7 and considering this Baltimore team just gave up 20+ runs to the Mets – the decisions to stack Indians or go with Mad Max will be a tough one.
If you want to go high/low at pitcher tonight with Max/Ray or Max/Newcomb, you are going to need a stack in the mid-range to make it work – and I am sorry, how in the world can I ignore the Dodgers (yes I know – every time) at this deflated price points? I know the offense has been cold but this is an offense that we know will go lower owned in the late game in Seattle and there is no hitter priced over $9K on the entire team!
The Dodgers will face off with LHP Wade LeBlanc and we all know the drill by now – this Dodgers line-up is loaded with lefty mashers, in fact the projected line-up has a .210 ISO against LHP since 2017. Go right down the line and you will see a 1-6 all with .200 ISO marks against southpaws since 2017 – Brian Dozier, Manny Machado, Justin Turner, Enrique Hernandez, Chris Taylor and Matt Kemp. Heck even punt catcher Austin Barnes ($5.5K) has a .155 ISO against lefties!
I know I beat this team to death but there is no stack in my opinion with the upside top to bottom that this team has and the advanced metrics support it – the reality is that the results haven’t been there and that is why you can continue to get the Dodgers stack at lower ownership every single slate.
I know LeBlanc has been solid this year but this is also a pitcher with an xFIP and SIERA near 5 so the regression potential is there and you only need to lack back three starts ago against Houston where they tattooed him for 10 hits, 3 HR’s and 7 ER in only 4.1 innings of work so understand that the stack can work with the right offense. By the way – that came against a Houston offense that was without Correa, Springer and Altuve.
As a one-off play, and if you need a catcher on sites like FanDuel or DraftKings, I love Tyler Flowers tonight against LHP Kyle Freeland. On the season, Freeland throws a fastball 40% of the time against RHB and Flowers who has a .300 ISO against LHP in total this year, also happens to have a .529 ISO against the FB from lefties.
Also – one thing I noticed tonight on FantasyDraft is that Shohei Ohtani is only $7.6K which is actually a price decrease from yesterday and I wonder if that is due to the fact LHP Mike Minor was originally supposed to start here. With Minor Minor scratched due to back stiffness and RHP Drew Hutchinson now starting who over the last two years has given up a .184 ISO to LHB and .295 ISO to RHB so any “discount” off the chalk stack from Thursday in the same advantageous hitting environment is something we can/should exploit here.
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: Max Scherzer ($24.7K)
SP: Robbie Ray ($14.6K)
IF: Justin Turner ($8.4K)
IF: Manny Machado ($9.3K)
IF: Brian Dozier ($8K)
OF: Matt Kemp ($7.5K)
OF: Chris Taylor ($7.7K)
OF: Shohei Ohtani ($7.7K)
UTIL: Austin Barnes ($5.5K)
UTIL: Tyler Flowers ($6.4K)
Slate Overview: I can understand if you are sick of the Dodgers stack and you want to mock my insanity for constantly going back to this team but step back and think about this roster build for a moment. This is a slate where my goal is to go high/low at pitching with Max and Ray or Max and Newcomb as examples, I think there is entirely too much K upside across the pitching options to get cute and I am leaning towards investing in arms rather than paying up for the big bats like Cleveland. Now with that context – find me a 1-6 stack that costs you around $7.5K per player with the metrics/upside of the Dodgers – I honestly can’t find it. Guys, I wanted to find a Dodgers pivot mostly so I can break the cycle here, but I am really struggling to see one at this price point that has more upside than they do. One more time – with feeling – Let’s Go Dodgers.
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