MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday, September 5
Welcome to the Wednesday 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.
Looking back on Tuesday’s MLB DFS slate, it was pitching that ruled the night as four of the top six scores on the night came from starting pitching with Robbie Ray, Mike Clevinger, Justin Verlander and Jake Arrieta all put up 28+ fantasy points, while guys like German Marquez and Joe Musgrove were not far behind with 27 fantasy points of their own. Offensively we had multiple teams put up double-digit runs as the Dodgers, Brewers and Cardinals all dropped 11 runs which when combined with the multiple top-end pitching performances, meant this was a night the cash line pushed incredibly high no matter which contests you played in.
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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 looking through the pitching options on this slate, my initial reaction was that the pitchers felt over-priced for a group of arms with tough match-ups and in some cases, I question the point per dollar upside when you are consider I need to pay near $20K for guys like Jameson Taillon or Tyler Glasnow.
Luis Severino ($23.3K) is certainly not an arm without upside but the match-up against the Oakland A’s is one that at first glance, I am hesitant to attack but on a slate without any clear top-tier arms, Severino may be a wise use of our salary cap.
After a series of tough starts in July where Severino failed to notch double-digit fantasy points in four straight outings, his recent run against weaker offenses like the White Sox, Jays, Orioles and Tigers have seemingly snapped him back into his elite form. Over his last give games, Severino has gone for 22-25 fantasy points in four outings, sporting a 34.2% K rate and 13.8% swinging strike rate.
Severino’s upside comes from his slider, a pitch with a 15% swinging strike rate against LHB and a 20% rate versus RHB and it is one he relies on nearly 40% of the time. If you look up and down this line-up for Oakland, this is a pitch they struggle with, as every single projected starter outside of Jonathan Lucroy has a double-digit swinging strike rate against the slider in 2018 and Severino did have success against this team in his only other start against them in May where he struck out 7 A’s in Yankee Stadium, allowing only 1 ER on his way to 25 fantasy points.
In the mid-range, the one arm that stands out to me, and I imagine most, is Nick Pivetta ($16.1K) against the Marlins in Miami. From a pure metrics perspective, Pivetta has every thing we look for when selecting our MLB DFS pitcher as his 28.2% K rate on the season is just a tick behind the much more expensive Severino at 28.7%. Overall when looking at this slate Pivetta has the 4th highest K rate, 3rd highest swinging strike rate and will take on a Marlins team with one of the lowest team totals on the board.
Pivetta has faced Miami twice this season (both in Philadelphia), giving up only 2 ER in 11.2 innings, racking up 16 K’s and registering 21 and 32 fantasy points in those outings. Pivetta feels like the obvious play in this range and I could see many people using him as an SP1 and looking to load up on all the bats they can handle tonight.
Framber Valdez ($13.5K) is a cheap pitching option I have been watching over his first three starts who threw 89 pitches in his last start against the Angels, his most so far as a starter in 2018, and has now put up 12-16-18 fantasy points in his last three outings, with the previous two being his first starts, both against the Angels.
There are a few things that intrigue me about Valdez – first his minor league pedigree shows that this is an arm with K upside – sporting a 30% K rate in over 90 innings at AA this season however he did at times struggle with control with a 7-8% walk rate which has been his one issue so far at the ML level. Valdez has 7 walks so far in only 14 innings of work which equates to an over 12% walk rate so his mid 4 xFIP and SIERA seem to suggest some luck as compared to his sub 2 ERA.
One thing I did find interesting in reading through FanGraphs was that prior to his call-up, since July 10th, Valdez had a massive 43.2% K rate which was the highest K mark of any pitcher from July 10- August 10 at any minor league level. As a comparison, Michael Kopech during that same time frame had a K rate of “only” 33% so I think we need to consider the pure K upside that Valdez has flashed in the minors this season.
The match-up against the Twins is really what makes this a play to dig deeper into though as this is a Twins team with a 23% K rate in their projected line-up that will also likely be without Miguel Sano in the heart of the order after he left Tuesday’s game with an injury. With Valdez’s “control issues” so far, I thought looking at the umpire for this game would be key and the fact that he will have Jeff Nelson behind the plate, one of the most extreme pitcher’s umpires, should help him maximize his value here tonight for the Astros as a -220 home favorite against a Twins team with the second lowest total on the board.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
It feels like it has been forever since we have had Coors Field on a slate and even longer since Coors Field felt like a chalk “must have spot” and tonight I am really interested to see how the ownership, specifically on the Rockies bats shakes out.
On one hand, you get to face off against LHP Andrew Suarez, a pitcher with a .196 ISO mark and 45% hard contact rate to right-handed batters against essentially an all right-handed heart of the order for the Rockies – so it is no surprise the Rockies have the highest team total on the slate at just under 6 runs.
On the flip side, Suarez has also pitched twice this season in Coors Field, going 12 innings with a 13:1 K:BB ratio while only surrendering 2 HR’s and 4 ER total – so this is a pitcher who has had success in the exact same scenario we are looking to attack him in. What is really interesting to me in looking at those starts is that Suarez had a 65% GB rate which is the clear recipe to success in a ballpark like Coors Field and his 2.5 xFIP in those outings seems to prove his success was no fluke.
Now back to the Rockies side – you have a projected line-up with a .200+ ISO against LHP this season with some straight-up video game numbers for guys like Nolan Arenado (.399 ISO), Trevor Story (.331 ISO), Ian Desmond (.247 ISO) and DJ LeMahieu (.207 ISO) so the metrics versus lefties tells you this is the spot you load up on Rockies right-handed hitters.
There are strong arguments to be made on both sides of this game and I wonder if that lack of clarity and the fact that Coors has seemingly lost some of its “must stack” luster will keep people from loading up here today. The other side is that without any must have top-tier pitching, people will have the salary to pay for these bats easily – basically this is a keep your ears open today and see how the industry reacts.
The other team that stands out to me on this slate that you can use as a pivot or a secondary stack is the Seattle Mariners against Andrew Cashner. Cashner has a .215 ISO against LHB this season with a 1.56 HR/9 right and overall his 5+ SIERA is the highest of any pitcher on the entire slate. Kyle Seager at only $6.8K looks like one of the best value plays on the board but do not overlook the spot for Nelson Cruz.
Cashner throws his sinker the most of any offering he has – over 40% versus RHB – and Cruz simply demolishes this pitch with a massive .521 ISO against that pitch from right-handed pitchers in 2018. I love when Cruz is in a R/R match-up its gets far less buzz so pairing Cruz with Seager and/or guys like Denard Span/Ryon Healy/Mitch Haniger to make this a high-upside late night hammer stack.
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: Nick Pivetta ($16.1K)
SP: Framber Valdez ($13.5K)
IF: Trevor Story ($10.1K)
IF: DJ LeMahieu ($10K)
IF: Nolan Arenado ($9.6K)
OF: Ian Desmond ($9.2K)
OF: Mitch Haniger ($9K)
OF: Nelson Cruz ($9K)
UTIL: Kyle Seager ($6.8K)
UTIL: Nicky Delmonico ($6.6K)
Slate Overview: This slate is certainly not a straight forward one, mostly because the pitching is so underwhelming, which may lead people to pay down at pitching and just load up on bats as I have in this example. Keep your eyes and ears open to the buzz on Coors Field today – if this becomes chalky, I can make the argument to fade it based on Suarez’s success in Coors this season but if people are underweight on it – I think you could make the case to go heavy with Rockies bats in all formats.
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