MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Thursday September 27
Welcome to the Thursday 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.
I hope the Cy Young voters can get some rest now – go ahead and get the shipping labels and packaging ready because that NL Award needs to be on its way to Flushing to Jacob deGrom who cemented an incredible season with a slate leading 40+ fantasy point outing on Wednesday. The duo of him and German Marquez was expensive but on a night where they finished 1-2 in fantasy points with 80+ combined points, it was worth every penny of that investment.
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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 – Top Pitching Options:
This is overwhelming.
I am not sure how to type this morning with this flood of emotions overcoming me at every key stroke.
I have been playing Whitney Houston’s “I Will Always Love You” on repeat while I watch highlights of Jon Lester‘s 2018 season and cannot quite believe we have made it to his final regular season start and the last time I can use this amazing picture of him in what appears to be a cheesy elementary school backdrop from the 1980’s (do not lie – you had a similar class picture if you grew up in that generation).
I digress.
Gerrit Cole is the clear SP1 on this slate, the only elite K arm available to us and he gets the best possible match-up against the Orioles so on a six game slate he would seem like a lock and load but here is the thing – we have weather issues in Baltimore with rain expected (50% change and increasing as the game goes on) and the Astros have nothing to play for at this point – proving that with the AAA line-up they rolled out last night. With weather concerns and getting ready for a World Series push at the top of mind – I cannot see Cole pitching long enough to pay off his $24K+ price tag on this slate.
Marco Gonzales is the largest Vegas favorite at -175 and the Rangers have the second lowest run total on the board and Marco did just pitch against this Texas team his last time out where he put up 22.3 fantasy points – his second such 22+ point outing in three starts against the Rangers this season.
Jason Vargas could be an interesting punt – and as a Mets fan it pains me to say it – but he has actually pitched quite well recently with 15 K’s over 11.2 innings with 22 fantasy points per game the last two starts.
Now back to Lester – as much as I poke fun at Mr. Regression – there is one thing I have watched over and over again this season with him – when he has a favorable umpire who gives him the outside pitches, he is able to get batters to chase and induce soft contact and swings and misses.
Tonight, Jim Wolf will be behind the plate, a significant pitcher’s umpire who per Swish Analytics, has a 12% K boost over the average umpire. Lester has faced this Pirates team three times since June and put up 28 and 31 fantasy points in those outings so there is significant upside to be had here with a pitcher’s umpire behind the plate.
If Lester becomes chalk though and let’s be honest – with the uncertainty around Cole I could absolutely see it – the smart thing may be to pivot off him and look at his opponent Trevor Williams with the same favorable umpire.
Williams has been quietly awesome the second half of the MLB season and honestly, I did not realize it until I dug through his game logs. Since July 11, a span of 12 starts, Williams has pitched a shutout in a whopping 8 of those games and in the other 4 – he has given up only 1, 1, 2 and 4 runs.
So in 11 of his last 12 starts he has given up a total of only 4 runs – that is some quiet dominance. What really stands out to me over his last five starts however is this elite K upside he is sporting out of nowhere – for a pitcher with a season long 18% K rate, it is eye-popping to see a 28.1% K rate over his last five starts.
I assume the Cubs bats will gain some popularity today too as this is a team desperate for a win as even with a playoff seed clinched, they are only .5 game up on the Brewers for the division so they cannot afford to slip and drop down into a winner take all Wild Card game. This Cubs team has been ice-cold over recent weeks and if the Lester/Cubs bats are going to be a popular route today – play the leverage game and use Williams and his sneaky high K upside to leap-frog the field.
MLB DFS – Top Hitting Spots:
On a short six game slate, which could become a five game slate with rain concerns in Baltimore, I think you need to play the ownership game more so than normal and even though I discussed why guys like Jon Lester and Jason Vargas could be in play as SP options – if they become popular routes then I also believe they make for great options to stack against.
We all know the story with Lester by now – he gives up hard contact and will occasionally have a blow up outing which could be aided tonight by 10 MPH winds blowing out at Wrigley. This Pirates team is certainly not one we would normally stack but they do have some solid power bats with Jose Osuna ($5.8K) standing out as one of the best value plays on the board. Osuna homered last night off Jose Quintana and is sporting a .245 ISO mark against southpaws this season.
Outside of Osuna – Starling Marte (.188 ISO) is likely the next best option against Lester and you can pair them with any of the guys in the mid $7K price range like Josh Bell, Francisco Cervelli and Pablo Reyes who has homered in two of his last three games here in Wrigley Field.
As much as Jason Vargas has been good in his most recent starts, this is still a pitcher with a .242 ISO mark to RHB and he is going to face a Braves team with 5 of their 8 projected starters having a .200+ ISO mark versus LHP this season.
Go down the line here – Ronald Acuna (.300 ISO), Ozzie Albies (.220 ISO), Freddie Freeman (.222 ISO), Johan Camargo (.224 ISO) and Kurt Suzuki (.224 ISO) and what you have here is a power packed stack against what COULD BE a chalk SP2 choice in Jason Vargas. In two starts against the Braves in Citi Field this year – Vargas has pitched 9.2 innings, surrendering 3 HR’s and 10 ER – so I am going with the larger sample size here and I would argue the Braves are the top stack on the board this evening.
The Marines bats should end up being a popular stack with the highest team total on the slate going against Ariel Jurado who has given up a massive 45% HC rate this season with lefties hammering him at a .227 ISO mark. I would suspect that most will go with the more traditional platoon splits with guys like Cano or Seager but it is worth noting that it is Mitch Haniger and Nelson Cruz that have the highest ISO marks of the top-tier hitters from Seattle against RHP this season with .220+ marks respectively so going R/R could be an interesting pivot off those who go with the more traditional splits.
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: Trevor Williams ($17.9K)
SP: Marco Gonzales ($17K)
IF: Freddie Freeman ($8.7K)
IF: Ozzie Albies ($8.4K)
IF: Jose Osuna ($5.8K)
OF: Mitch Haniger ($8.7K)
OF: Nelson Cruz ($8K)
OF: Ronald Acuna Jr. ($9.7K)
UTIL: Kurt Suzuki ($8.3K)
UTIL: Johan Camargo ($7.2K)
Slate Overview: As I mentioned, this six game slate could turn into a five game slate with rain issues in Baltimore which would take the only real strong pitching option in Gerrit Cole out of play. If this happens – my guess is guys like Jon Lester and Jason Vargas become popular pivots – and that is where I think you can play the ownership game on this slate and look to leverage the field by going with Trevor Williams as the Lester pivot and stacking the Braves as full on leverage against Jason Vargas. Enjoy the slate all – it is the final Jon Lester day of the regular season – maybe today is when regression finally hits!
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