MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Friday September 21

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 Night was the worst. Oh, well it did not start out so bad as I sat back on the couch and got an early HR from a 2% owned Michael Conforto against Mad Max (yes, BvP is real) and man, my New York Jets were simply embarrassing Tyrod Taylor and the Browns – this was going to be a great night.

Then things went poorly.

Jorge Lopez, who I thought was simply a victim of BABIP his last outing, proceeded to serve up Home Run derby to the Detroit Tigers and then Baker Mayfield came running on to the field for the Browns and my night got worse, much much worse.

But here I am. Coffee in hand. Advil at the ready. Ready to rebound the only way I know how – Picks and Pivots style.

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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:

Before we get into tonight’s MLB DFS slate, take a quick look at the weather tonight – with some potential rain in Pittsburgh and some substantial wind at a few ballparks tonight including in Cleveland where it will be blowing in at 20 MPH and in Detroit where the wind is blowing out at 17 MPH.

Jacob deGrom ($24.3K) is the top pitcher on the slate tonight and arguably the best pitcher in baseball this season.

This late in the season, you want to focus your MLB DFS rosters on players/teams with something to play for and right now, deGrom and the Mets organization is all-in on getting their ace the Cy Young award so I not only expect he gets his usual long leash, but this Mets team which is red-hot at the plate may finally be able to give him some run support. deGrom has double-digit strikeouts in five of his last eight outings and boasts a 35.9% K rate over the last 30 days. The price tag is high on de-GOAT but there is enough value on this slate already and likely more to come as we could see teams like the Red Sox roll out their bench bats the night after clinching so paying up for deGrom here seems like stop #1 in your roster build.

German Marquez ($20.7K) checks all the boxes for me when looking for a DFS SP this late in the season as the Rockies sit just 1.5 games out of the Wild Card so we know Marquez has something to play for here and when you talk about K upside, there is no arm on this slate in better recent form as Marquez’s 36.4% K rate over the last 30 days indicates.

Marquez has faced Arizona three times since July 11th with 25, 6 and 36 fantasy points outings which include his last game in Coors Field where he dominated to the tune of 7 innings, 11 K’s and 1 ER allowed. It will be interesting to see what kind of line-up we get for Arizona who at 5 games out in the WC race, seemingly threw in the towel last start against the Cubs where they sat all their top bats and even though the back-ups came through, it would only further boost the case for Marquez if we get the JV squad this evening.

MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:

One of the reasons I think you can pay up for both arms on this slate tonight and still field a high upside line-up is because this Tigers-Royals game has a ton of value in what seems to be an elite hitting environment. As mentioned earlier, it looks like we will have 17 MPH winds gusting out in this game and considering that Francisco Liriano and Ian Kennedy are the pitchers in this game, I would expect a night after seeing 20 runs scored that this will be a popular spot for some cheap offense tonight.

Let’s start on the Royals side against Liriano who has some pretty awful metrics against RHB this season – a .190 ISO, 35.1% HC rate and only a 17.8% K rate as compared to a 13% walk rate. At home this season, Liriano is giving up a 2.3 HR/9 rate to right-handed batters with a 44% HC rate and now you get nearly 20 MPH winds blowing out – yeah, if you bat from the right side on Kansas City tonight you are in play.

Salvador Perez ($7.4K) is a great place to start in any Royals stack as his .175 ISO mark and team-leading 44% fly ball rate are exactly what you want to utilize here – get the ball in the air with some pop and let the wind take it out! Adalberto Mondesi ($9.3K) is the priciest investment here but after back to back games with a HR and a .200 ISO/50% HC rate mark against lefties this season – the price may still be a worthwhile investment. The value plays here – Hunter Dozier, Rossell Herrera and Jorge Bonafacio all sit at $6K or lower on FantasyDraft and all give you the right-side platoon advantage we want to exploit against Liriano in this spot.

Flip to the other side of this game and we get the Tigers against a fly-ball pitcher in Ian Kennedy who has been reverse splits this season, giving up a .210 ISO to RHB versus “only” a .179 ISO mark to left-handed batters. Nick Castellanos ($8.3K) is the play that jumps off the page here with a .192 ISO mark against RHP this season and he has the profile we want – a fly-ball hitter with a 48% HC rate – get it up in the air with some pop, let the wind do the rest baby.Christin Stewart launched 2 HR’s on Thursday Night and in limited sample size has a 45% fly ball rate against right-handed pitching so you can add him into any stack here.

Stepping back, I think I like the Royals side more just because their bats have a bit better power/price combination here and I would rather load up on their cheap hitters like Dozier/Bonafacio than play the “punt” guys like Victor Martinez in the heart of the Tigers order.

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 ($24.3K)

SP: German Marquez ($20.7K)

IF: Salvador Perez ($7.4K)

IF: Hunter Dozier ($5.6K)

IF: Nick Castellanos ($8.3K)

OF: Jorge Bonafacio ($6K)

OF: Rosell Herrera ($5.8K)

OF: Christin Stewart ($7.2K)

UTIL: Adalberto Mondesi ($9.3K)

UTIL: Gregor Blanco ($5.4K)

Slate Overview: Whenever we have a slate like this with elite high K arms like we do with deGrom and Marquez, I am always interested in finding a build where you can pay up for both instead of going high/low at pitcher which tends to be a bit more popular. The key is finding that cheap stack that works and I think on this slate the Royals/Tigers game fits the bill perfectly with two awful pitchers, the wind blowing out and two teams that just scored 20 runs on Thursday Night. Enjoy this Friday Night MLB DFS slate and we will see you back here on Saturday for some more Picks and Pivots. Now, if you will excuse me – I am going to get some more Advil and coffee and pretend Baker Mayfield didn’t happen last night.

Best of luck in your MLB DFS contests on FantasyDraft and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS coverage across all your favorite DFS sites and sports.