MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday September 22
Welcome to the Saturday 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.
Friday Night’s MLB DFS slate was dominated by pitching as three of the top four scorers on the night were high-end aces as Gerrit Cole, Jacob deGrom and German Marquez all put up 30+ fantasy points and if mixed and matched with the right mid-tier bats like slate leader Yuli Guriel (41 FPTS), then you likely had yourself a nice DFS start to the weekend!
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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 – Early slate Overview:
The five game Early Slate today looks like it has one clear goal – stack as many Yankees bats as you can against David Hess in Baltimore. With a slate high 6.4 run total, this will be the chalk stack and without any true top-tier arms to pay up for – fitting in the New York Yankees bats as the core of your build feels like a necessary route to lock in as your core.
Hess is a fly ball pitcher who is giving up a .245 ISO to left-handed batters and a .199 ISO to right-handed batters and will face a Yankees line-up with 6 of their 9 projected starters having an ISO over .200 against RHP in 2018. If they are in the line-up, you stack them today – do not over think it.
The other spot that really stands out is in Toronto where we get a nice hitters umpire in Laz Diaz calling balls and strikes for the Rays bats against LHP Tommy Pannone. On the season, Pannone in 100 plate appearances versus RHB has given up a 62% fly ball rate, .207 ISO and a 1.8 HR/9 rate – so locking in the big righty power from Tampa Bay like C.J. Cron and Tommy Pham feels like a great way to get exposure here. Pannone is basically a two pitch arm, throwing a fastball at 88 MPH nearly 70% of the time to RHB and using a change-up to off-set it – Cron has a .310 ISO this year against the FB and a .275 ISO against the change-up from lefties so he is one of my core plays on this slate.
Pitching is where it gets a bit trickier as we have three “obvious” plays at the top in Tyler Glasnow, Mike Foltynewicz and Lance Lynn. My take is that none of these arms are must haves and if forced to choose I would take the savings on Lynn in what looks to be the best match-up against the Orioles.
Lance Lynn ($16.9K) will have an extremely pitcher friendly umpire behind the plate who per Swish Analytics, has an 11% K boost over the average umpire and will be facing an Orioles team with a 23% K rate in their projected line-up. Lynn on the season has a 28% K rate against RHB so keep an eye on the line-up here – the more righties the better and as a -300 road favorite against a team with the lowest run total on the slate, he feels like the safe SP1 choice today.
I cannot believe in 2018 I am recommending Adam Wainwright (12.1K) but this spot seems to line-up perfectly for him as an SP2. The Cardinals, much like the Yankees, are one of the few times with something still to play for and Waino gets a pitcher friendly umpire against a SF Giants team with a massive 28% K rate in their projected line-up. Wainwright happens to be coming off a 9 K shutout of the Dodgers where he dropped 32 fantasy points so my guess is he will be popular and honestly, this Lynn/Wainwright pairing feels like the most obvious route. I am happy to eat the chalk here on the smaller slate and simply let others chase the variance while I play what I think are the best plays.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Overview:
We only have a few slates left and with the playoff picture coming into focus, it is a total unknown if the regulars will even have an impact the last week of the MLB DFS season – and with that said, it makes me sad to think this could be one of the last Jon Lester slates of 2018. You know I am going to have me some White Sox stacks today because – well, at this point I am pot committed and I cannot pass up a chance for a few bombs from the high power/high K White Sox line-up.
The reality is though, there are simply better spots to plant your flag as we have some elite pitching and big time offensive spots so I have other avenues that I think should be a priority on the Main Slate.
Justin Verlander ($23K) is simply pitching out of his mind right now – with double-digit K games in three of his last four outings while putting up 30+ fantasy points in each of his last three trips to the mound. The price point is steep but I think there is enough value to make it work using him as your SP1 tonight.
Lucas Giolito ($9.3K) is one of those value plays that I think opens the door for this build – going extreme high/low on two pitcher sites with a Verlander/Giolito duo. We have cool weather in Chicago, the wind is blowing in and Giolito gets an extreme pitcher’s umpire against one of the coldest offenses in baseball – the Chicago Cubs.
Over the last two weeks, the Cubs are striking out at a 26% clip (5th in MLB), with a .098 ISO which is second to last, edging out only the light-hitting Giants and all told they have hit the second fewest HR’s in baseball and scored the 5th fewest runs during that time period. The name value of the Cubs hitters is going to scare people away here and Giolito is as volatile as a punt play can get – but he does have 19+ fantasy points in four of his last six outings. Pairing Giolito with Verlander gives you nearly $8.5K per batter to build a loaded line-up on FantasyDraft, so it is a pretty appealing strategy at first glance.
Not only is it a Jon Lester slate, but the Dodgers have the highest total on the board – Lester and the Dodgers – this is what Picks and Pivots is all about. The Dodgers will take on Jacob Nix, a right-handed pitcher who is giving up a .241 ISO and 43% HC rate to left-handed batters – and you may have heard, the Dodgers have a few good ones. Joc Pederson, Max Muncy, Cody Bellinger and Yasmani Grandal all have .200+ ISO marks against RHP this season – pick any/all of them as core plays on this slate as the match-up simply could not be more perfect.
The Oakland A’s are the best offense in baseball right now – scoring a league leading 87 runs the last two weeks and will face a fly ball pitcher in RHP Chase DeJong. Against RHP this season – Khris Davis, Matt Olson and Matt Chapman all have .200+ ISO marks and with all three priced in this $8-9$K range, they fit in perfectly in this build as a secondary stack around the Dodgers.
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!
Early Slate:
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SP: Lance Lynn ($16.9K)
SP: Adam Wainwright ($12K)
IF: C.J. Cron ($9.3K)
IF: Didi Gregorious ($9.8k)
IF: Luke Voit ($8K)
OF: Tommy Pham ($8.7K)
OF: Giancarlo Stanton ($9.5K)
OF: Aaron Judge ($10.4K)
UTIL: Aaron Hicks ($9K)
UTIL: Billy McKinney ($6.4K)
Main Slate:
SP: Justin Verlander ($23K)
SP: Lucas Giolito ($9.3K)
IF: Cody Bellinger ($9K)
IF: Matt Chapman ($9.3K)
IF: Matt Olson ($8.6K)
OF: Joc Pederson ($9.8K)
OF: Khris Davis ($8.7K)
OF: Ryan LaMarre ($5.7K)
UTIL: Max Muncy ($8.8K)
UTIL: Matt Davidson ($7.7K)
Slate Overview: For both slates, I think focusing on the teams with something to play for is the path of least resistance as the Yankees, A’s and Dodgers all battle for playoff seeding. Be smart with your bankroll today and this last week – personally, I am scaling back and taking GPP shots only and with so much variance this last week of baseball, I would highly advise doing the same.
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Best of luck – enjoy your Saturday and all the NFL action this weekend – Fantasy CPR will be chock full of NFL DFS content all weekend to get you set for Week 3 – see you back here on Monday.