MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday September 18

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.

Well, looking back on Monday’s MLB DFS slate, my guess was pitching would rule the night but I never would have guessed it would come from Kyle Hendricks and Ryan Borucki who both put up over 30 fantasy points on the night. Christian Yelich continued his MVP type season as the popular Brewers stack hit for 8 runs with Yelich being the big star on the night, hitting for the cycle and scoring 4 of the Brewers runs on his way to 36 fantasy points.

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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.

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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:

We have no shortage of tip-tier strikeout arms to choose from tonight and any time we have this many elite options to choose from, my perspective is to not get cute as the opportunity cost for missing on pitcher when you have a slate like this is simply too high.

No pitcher in baseball has a higher strikeout rate over the last month than Blake Snell ($22.9K) who has racked up a massive 40.4% K rate over the last 30 days and will get a road match-up against the Texas Rangers in Arlington. Snell’s recent form is exactly what you want from a high dollar SP1 as he has gone for at least 25 fantasy points in seven straight outings, flashing 33-34 point ceilings in two of his last five trips to the mound.

Snell will get to face a high strikeout team in Texas that he dominated in his only other start this year in Tampa back in April where he struck out 9 in 6 innings for 31 fantasy points and that is exactly the kind of upside we are paying for here. The only drawback is that with this game being in Arlington in arguably the best hitting weather on the slate, there is some risk, but I think the upside for Snell is worth absorbing that risk and locking him in as your SP1 in all formats.

Aaron Nola ($21.4K) is sporting his own 32.4% K rate over the last month which is good for 12th in all of baseball during that time and behind only Mr. Snell when it comes to tonight’s pitching choices. Although he had a tough outing last time out, Nola has been in great recent form as well, putting up 22+ fantasy points in 6 straight previous starts with two of those starts going for 36+ which including one against the very same Mets team he faces tonight.

Nola has faced the Mets three times since July with the following lines:

• July 9 – 7 IP, 10 K’s, 0 ER and 38.55 fantasy points
• August 17 – 7 IP, 11K’s, 1 ER and 36.75 fantasy points
• September 7 – 7 IP, 8K’s, 3 ER and 26.75 fantasy points

With so many top-tier arms including, Snell, Nola, Clayton Kershaw, Corey Kluber and Stephen Strasburg, I expect ownership will be fairly spread out so my goal is to simply lock in the highest K arms here and would like to find a build that allows me to build around both Snell and Nola this evening.

If you are looking for a more cost-effective SP2, than Joey Lucchesi ($14.7K) would be my favorite of the bunch at home against the Giants. Lucchesi has strong K ability with over a 25% K rate on the season and will face one of the worst offenses in baseball since the All-Star Break in the Giants  – not to mention this is a team he dominated earlier in the year with 9K’s and 30+ fantasy points. Lucchesi has struck out at least 6 batters in 6 of his last 7 seven starts with two games of 9K’s which give you an indication of the upside he has and allows you to save some salary without sacrificing big time K upside from your pitcher.

MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:

One thing that jumped out to me right away on this slate was the Seattle Mariners and their three run total. Wait, why am I starting my top hitting section with a team that has one of the lowest run totals on the entire slate?

The reason is, I could not figure out why the prices on the Mariners were so low when it looked like they were set to face a rookie in Astros RHP Josh James. Is it possible the Mariners were priced assuming that Gerrit Cole was the starter and now that he has been pushed back, are we getting Cole prices against a rookie arm?

Now James is no run of the mill minor league arm as evidenced by his 35% K rate at AAA and his 40% K rate at AA and in his only big league start this year he struck out 9 Angels in only 5 innings so you could argue that at only $8K, this is an SP2 arm we need to consider when you look at his pure ability.

https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1039960638485876736

Now back to the Mariners for a second – let’s ignore the mesmerizing heat from the Pitching Ninja GIF and look at the Mariners prices – there is only one batter, Mitch Haniger that is priced over $8K with guys like Nelson Cruz and Robinson Cano  priced in the low $7K range. The Seattle line-up has some serious pop against right-handed power with five batters sporting a .190+ ISO mark this season including Haniger, Cruz, Ryon Healy, Kyle Seager and Mike Zunino.

One of the reasons they jump out to me is that you can lock in two stud arms like Blake Snell and Aaron Nola and now go ahead and lock in the six man stack mentioned above – you STILL have over $7.5K per hitter for your last two spots!

Now, James has some obvious high K ability and the Astros bullpen has the lowest ERA of any team in baseball the last 30 days so this is not a stack without risk and Vegas still has this as a 3 run total as I write it Tuesday morning – so if it stays that way, I would expect the masses to completely ignore the Mariners bats here today and we could even see James gain traction as a punt SP2.

Personally, this feels like a spot where the talent level of the Mariners hitters is simply coming at too significant of a discount off a rookie arm who is not stretched out and has not proven anything at the Major League Level. Seattle also gets the benefit of moving out of SafeCo to Minute Maid Park which is a slight upgrade and if we get the roof open tonight, it could add even more upside to this 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: Blake Snell ($22.9K)

SP: Aaron Nola ($21.4K)

IF: Ryon Healy ($5.9K)

IF: Mike Zunino ($5.8K)

IF: Robinson Cano ($7.3K)

OF: Mitch Haniger ($8.2K)

OF: Nelson Cruz (7.4K)

OF: Miguel Sano ($7.5K)

UTIL: Kyle Seager ($6K)

UTIL: Shohei Ohtani ($7.6K)

Slate Overview: Slates like this are why I love MLB DFS and honestly, cannot believe we are only two weeks away from the end of the regular season. We have so much top end pitching and sure you can go high/low and build a more “conventional” line-up but I love the challenge of roster construction if you choose to pay up for both spots today. I doubt the Mariners get much traction as a full on stack, especially as a max 6 man stack as I have outlined here, but I love the idea in the context of paying up for two elite arms. It looks like we have no real weather issues for the Main Slate so sit back and enjoy tonight – we get a nice break from NFL DFS and can focus all our attention on this MLB DFS slate and building bankroll for this weekend’s Fantasy Football action. Enjoy all!

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest DFS news and fantasy analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings all season long for all your favorite fantasy sports.