MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday, September 11
Welcome to the Tuesday 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.
Can we please all stop pretending that German Marquez is not an ace? What does this guy have to do to gain the respect of the MLB DFS community? On Monday, in Coors Field (again), Marquez went out and threw a gem with 7 innings of one run ball and 11 K’s on his way to a slate leading 35 fantasy points – the best mark on the entire slate and get this – he was single-digit owned in tournament play. Unreal.
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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:
Weather – this is going to be the biggest issue all week on the East Coast and if you weren’t paying attention to the MLB DFS Twitter world ahead of lock last night, you probably got stuck with some Phillies bats (Hoskins was nearly 30% owned in GPP’s) even though that game was PPD to today. We have cooler temperatures across baseball right now and rain looks to be a threat again in spots like Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore and New York – so keep an eye on the weather before locking in anyone from the East Coast tonight.
Jacob deGrom ($26.4K) is the obvious top arm on the slate, at home against the Marlins and rather than spewing off his gaudy statistics (believe me, as a Mets fan I would love to), this really comes down to weather risk and the price point on deGrom. With rain forecasted most of the day and some chances for late game storms when combined with his price on a Coors Field slate, this feels like a spot where deGrom could go under-owned in what has to be considered the ideal spot for him. No pitcher on the slate has a higher K % over the last month than deGrom (34.4%) and with the other high-dollar pivot in Chris Sale serving as the “opener” with a 40 pitch limit for the Red Sox, it leaves deGrom as the clear highest upside arm on the entire slate.
Mike Foltynewicz ($21.1K) is the best option off deGrom in my opinion as he gets an ideal pitching environment in San Francisco against the Giants. Folty has been pitching exceptionally well over his last 7 starts, giving up 2 or fewer ER in 6 of those outings with a 26% K rate to boot. We saw last night that Sean Newcomb was able to breeze through this line-up with 6 innings and 8 K’s with only 1 ER and I have a hard time not seeing a similar ceiling for Folty tonight.
So here is the thing – you may almost have to stop after deGrom and Folty on this slate – the rest of the pitching is just simply ugly and lacks any sort of upside. Now, paying for both top end arms leaves you with roughly $6.5K per batter so you are going to really have to dig through the bargain bin to make it work, but there is not a single arm I feel good about outside the top two.
Tyler Glasnow has a 30% K rate this season and did mow down this same Indians line-up two starts ago with 7 innings of 1 run ball and 6 K’s on his way to 23 FPTS but then followed it up with a 7 run barrage against Toronto.
Zack Greinke has the next highest K % on the slate at 24% but has to pitch in Coors Field and while Marco Gonzales may have a nice spot on paper against the Padres, but with it being his first start off the DL and limited in pitch counts in rehab starts – this feels like a scary spot against a San Diego team that actually hits LHP pretty well.
The only other option I could consider if you want “some” salary savings is Mike Fiers ($17.6K) against Baltimore. The Orioles projected line-up has over a 24% K rate against RHP and Fiers has been a revelation since joining the A’s – the before and after splits are pretty material.
Before the trade, Fiers had a 19% K rate and 8% swinging strike rate but since his move to Oakland the K rate has spiked to 27% with a 10% swinging strike rate while using his fastball nearly 5% more than he was earlier in the year. As they always do the guys at FanGraphs did an exceptional job of breaking down some mechanical changes Fiers has made since moving to Oakland and this is a great read if you are considering rostering the A’s RHP.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
So you want to pay up for deGrom and Folty and live in the cheap seats for bats huh? Ok, let’s play this out and give you a stack that not only fits the cheap bill but if I had to guess – it will be virtually un-owned.
The Toronto Blue Jays.
Wait, Brian – you realize Chris Sale is pitching right? Yes reader I do – but here is the rub – Sale will only pitch 2 innings OR 40 pitches and then give way to Nathan Eovaldi so we are getting the Jays bats at a Sale discount when really the majority of the innings will be against Eovaldi, a pitcher with a near 7 ERA over the last month who is surrendering just under 40% HC during that time period.
The obvious top two plays here are Justin Smoak and Kendrys Morales – who have a .230+ ISO mark each this season against RHP but the rest of the line-up is really where we have to wait and see what the Blue Jays do. First, Randall Grichuck left last game after a nasty sideline collision and although the CT Scan was clean, it would not be shocking to see him get the day off here. Secondly, with Sale only pitching the first two inning, will the Jays go as right-handed heavy as they might normally?
The reality is, outside of Smoak, this line-up is priced way down (you could almost say they are on Sale – haha YES!) and with the opposing pitcher being shown as one of the most dominant starters in the game, you can bet casual fans will not dig in to see this is really an Eovaldi start. With Sale being limited to 2 innings/40 pitches, the way I would approach this is to stack the bottom half of the line-up as the top guys will be guaranteed at-bats against Sale so wait until line-ups come out and see how you can work in this concept.
The other spot that jumped out for value to me was the Mariners-Padres specifically at the bottom of the Mariners order with Kyle Seager and Mike Zunino who are both under $7K and facing a pitcher in Bryan Mitchell who has a near 7 xFIP and is giving up a 40% plus HC rate.
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: Jacob deGrom ($26.4K)
SP: Mike Foltynewicz ($21.1K)
IF: Justin Smoak ($8.4K)
IF: Kendrys Morales ($6.8K)
IF: Danny Jansen ($5.8K)
OF: Randal Grichuck ($7.5K)
OF Jose Pirela ($5.6K)
OF: Adam Engel ($5.4K)
UTIL: Mike Zunino ($6.7K)
UTIL: Kyle Seager ($6.3K)
Slate Overview: I have to say – I do not like this slate and will likely only play it as a tournament slate for a few reasons. First, we have weather issues up and down the East Coast and secondly, the pitching outside of deGrom and Folty just looks awful. It is a real struggle to make the bats work in this context outside of doing something a bit off the wall – like stacking the Jays – so unless value opens up elsewhere, this could be a night you take some shots in GPP’s and simply live to fight another day.
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