MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Opening Day 2019 – It’s Lester Day!

Welcome to the Opening Day 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 fantasy baseball 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.

Welcome back baseball fans! After a crazy off-season with some of the biggest names in baseball changing teams, we are finally back to Opening Day in Major League Baseball. For all of you who are ready to dive into the day-to-day grind of MLB DFS, we here at Fantasy CPR will bring you our top plays each and every day across all your favorite DFS sites.

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.

If you are looking to try out a new DFS site, head on over to FantasyDraft and enter my referral code for 10% rake back on your entries.

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 101 – How to Play on FantasyDraft:

It has been months since I had the privilege of writing up an MLB Picks and Pivots, writing my final article last year on the same day my favorite player, David Wright, hung it up for good from the New York Mets. After a crazy off-season, a ton of time to dabble in NFL and PGA DFS and the daily grind that was NBA DFS, we are ready to kick off another great season and I truly thank you all for taking the ride with me.

Before we jump into the specific picks for Opening Day, I thought it would be helpful to dive into the basics of MLB DFS as they pertain to FantasyDraft. I know many of you, myself included, cut your teeth on sites like FanDuel and DraftKings but having played more and more on FantasyDraft, it has quickly become my favorite sites as a result of its superior roster flexibility.

Basic Roster Construction:

When building your rosters on FantasyDraft there are a few key items to keep in mind:

• You have $100,000 salary cap to build a 10 person roster which includes:
  • 2 Pitchers
  • 3 IF
  • 3 OF
  • 2 UTIL
• Rosters must include batters from at least 3 different teams
• Rosters can include up to 6 batters from one team

The biggest takeaway here should be the extreme roster flexibility – unlike other sites you are not pigeon-holed into specific positions and the ability to stack up to 6 batters from one team is unlike anything you can get on the other sites. Having the ability to ignore positions is perhaps my favorite part of playing MLB DFS on FantasyDraft as I no longer have to sort through awful SS options just because the site demands I roster one.

Scoring:

The scoring on FantasyDraft has a very similar look and feel to DraftKings for those of you who have played there previously. As it tends to do on most sites, HR’s and strikeouts are where you make your money on both sides of your roster and will be the key focus especially when building GPP rosters as we will do here each day!

MLB DFS – Opening Day Pitching Breakdown: The Aces

What better way to kick-off the MLB DFS season than with a FREE ROLL? Our friends at FantasyDraft have hooked us up with a $50 Picks and Pivots Free Roll for Opening Day – open to the first 250 people so get in now before it fills up!

For Opening Day on FantasyDraft, they are rolling out a 14 game Main Slate which includes all the games starting at 1PM EST and takes us through the afternoon with all the 4PM EST starts included as well which gives us a massive player pool to work from.

With it being the first set of games for the season, we know we have some elite arms taking the hill as teams can line up their aces for the first start with the exception of Andrew Cashner who somehow draws an Opening Day start, but more on that later.

There are three key top arms on this slate – Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom – all priced over $20K but based off their numbers a season ago are worth every penny. During the 2018 season, this trio was ranked 1st, 2nd and 4th respectively in K% all with 32% or higher K rates and top 6 swinging strike rates at 15% or higher. In the second half of the season, this trio ranked 1-2-3 in K rate with Verlander leading the pack at 38.9% with Max and deGrom right behind at 34.8% and 34.3% while maintaining swinging strike rates in the top 6 in baseball, in line with their season long numbers.

On a two pitcher site like FantasyDraft, I would absolutely look to lock in one of these top-tier K arms and could make the argument early in the season to pay for the known commodities on the mound and lock in two of this trio in your lineup builds.

Verlander gets the benefit of pitching indoors at Tampa Bay against a Rays projected lineup loaded with K’s (25% K rate versus RHP last season) and loaded with lefties (likely 5 in the lineup) which is music to Verlander’s ears as he sported a 39% K rate versus LHB last season which was 8% higher than his mark against RHB. If you are paying up for one arm on this slate – JV looks like the top spot top pay up for.

The fact that Scherzer and deGrom are going against each other should keep their ownership levels down as the win equity seems far less certain any time you have two elite arms going against each other. Let’s get this out-of-the-way, I am a massive Mets fan – so you know which way I am leaning here and that is before I even dig into the numbers.

deGrom is the cheapest of the three aces on this slate despite being the best fantasy pitcher of the three last season, averaging 27 FP/G and now will take on a new look Nationals team without Bryce Harper in the middle of it. The composition of this Nationals line-up now becomes very right-handed heavy with Juan Soto and Adam Eaton looking like the only two left-handed batters in the Opening Day lineup. Jake sported a K rate of 35% last season against RHB versus “only” a 29% rate against LHB so loading the line-up with righties might actually benefit deGrom here.

The history against the current Nationals batters is also exceptional – as in 169 career at-bats, they are hitting just .172 against the Cy Young winner with a .095 ISO and 35% K rate. The knock on Jake last season was the lack of run support and a bullpen that would cough up the lead – two areas the Mets front office focused on in a big way and I think that on the road against Scherzer, this could end up being a low-owned spot for arguably the best pitcher in baseball.

MLB DFS – Pitcher Pivots – Mid Tier and Value:

If you are pivoting down from the trio of aces, I think most will likely land on these next two arms – Jose Berrios ($18K) and Blake Snell ($17.9K). 

Berrios at home is one of those lock and load DFS plays from a season ago as every single one of his metrics was better in Minnesota than when on the road. Berrios had an ERA nearly 2 runs lower at home, a xFIP 1.5 runs lower and a K rate 6% higher and he could end up facing an Indians line-up in this first start without both Francisco Lindor and Jose Ramirez.

If Jose Ramirez is not able to play (all signs right now are expecting him to), I think Berrios becomes the chalk pitching option as many will look to take the savings to pay up for bats while still targeting a pitcher with dominant K upside and seemingly strong run suppression.

Snell meanwhile had every bit the K metrics of the aces on this slate, ranking 5th in baseball last season with a 31.6% K rate and a 15.1% swinging strike rate which matched deGrom and exceeded Verlander’s marks in 2018.

The only “knock” against Snell here today is the match-up – the Astros simply do not strike out – they had a 19.5% K rate in 2018 which was second lowest of any team in baseball and their 20.1% K rate against LHP specifically was third lowest in the league. The projected line-up for the Astros has a 17% K rate, even better than a season ago as a result of adding Michael Brantley and is 8% K rate against LHP and only has two batters (Correa/Chirinos) who had over a 20% K mark last year.

The next tier down I think you can make arguments for as SP2’s – including Masahiro Tanaka as a 300+ home favorite against a weak hitting, high K lineup like Baltimore or take a shot on the K upside of Luis Castillo who had a 26% K rate in the second half of last year which was a 5% boost and in line with his 2017 numbers which suggested a breakout.

If you really want to save salary at your SP2, you can drop all the way down – grabbing the cheapest arm on the slate in Brad Keller ($9.1K) facing a White Sox team that struck out at the highest clip in the league in 2018.

This is a case of match-up over pitcher as Keller’s metrics are not going to jump out to anyone – a 16.5% K rate is certainly nothing to write home about but Keller makes his living with an elite 54% GB rate and this is a match-up he succeeded multiple times in last season.

Keller faced the White Sox three times down the stretch last season – going for 19, 23 and 26 fantasy points with 20 K’s in 18 IP as a result of the K happy ways of the White Sox. The Chicago line-up has a 25-26% K rate based on their 2018 marks so there is upside here but also risk – first the weather, with rains expected in Kansas City and the fact that Keller is not a swing and miss pitcher, this is still a White Sox lineup with some serious thump. In fact against this same White Sox team the first time last season, Keller got throttled to the tune of 5 ER in 2.2 innings and -8 fantasy points.

Assuming the weather holds, Keller makes for an interesting punt SP2 as you can easily afford a top-tier SP1 while also getting the top bats you want but it does come with some risk.

MLB DFS – Building Those Stacks:

If there is one obvious takeaway when looking at this slate at first glance, it is that the New York Yankees are going to be a popular stacking choice with a slate high 6+ run total in the Bronx against Andrew Cashner.

Cashner has the lowest K rate (14%) and lowest swinging strike (6%) of any pitcher on the slate so loading up on Yankees bats may seem like an ideal GPP winning path but consider the facts for a moment. In 28 starts last season, Cashner gave up 4 or fewer ER in 22 of 28 outings, and surrendered 1 or fewer HR in 22 of 28 outings – so while the “blow up” is possible (he did give up 8 and 10 ER in two starts), the probability would tell us he has a better chance of keeping the Yankees bats in check based off last year.

In fact, Cashner faced the Yankees four times last season – giving up 1, 3, 3 and 5 ER and 0, 0, 1 and 1 HR’s. With the likely chalky ownership on the Yankees bats, I think pivoting away from them is a potential leverage spot on the field.

Anyone who has read Picks and Pivots before already knows where I am looking today – it is JON LESTER day! My favorite regression candidate takes the hill today for the Cubs in Arlington where we have a 9.5 game total, highest on the slate, and some of the best hitting weather of any game environment.

By every advanced metric, Lester was one lucky duck (Yes, I said duck), sporting a -1.07 E-F which means his FIP is a full run higher than his ERA, the biggest difference of any pitcher in all of baseball in 2018. Lester had a tidy little 3.32 ERA despite the fact he was sporting a xFIP and SIERA over a full run higher at 4.4 and 4.5 respectively.

This profile from Jeff Zimmerman at FanGraphs does a tremendous job of summing up the Lester story:

"“It’s tough to get excited about the 35-year-old Lester. Of the 57 qualified starters, his K-BB% was the 11th lowest at 11.1% and has been on a four-year decline (19.4% to 19.3% to 18.2% to 15.7% to 11.2%). The cause of this past season’s drop was his strikeout rate dropping from 9.0 K/9 to 7.4 K/9 with all his pitches performing worse (Contact% up 5% points) while his velocity stayed flat. If it wasn’t for his 80% LOB% (8th highest) his 3.32 ERA would have been closer to his ERA estimators (~4.50). His batted ball profile has changed since his first full season with the Cubs with his GB% dropping each season (49% to 47% to 46% to 38%) with his home run rate, unsurprisingly, heading the other way (.7 HR/9 to 0.9 to 1.3 to 1.2).” via FanGraphs"

Lester’s opponent, the Texas Rangers, gives us an Opening Day shot at attacking this Picks and Pivots favorite as they sport batters that would seem to fit the profile with price tags that allow us to pay up for pitching. Texas has four batters in their Opening Day projected lineup with .200+ ISO marks against LHP last season (Shin-soo Choo, Joey Gallo, Asdrubal Cabrera and Rougned Odor). Nomar Mazara had a .174 ISO last season and all five of these hitters had a 38% or higher HC rate against southpaws in 2018 so a 4-5 man stack is certainly viable on a site like FantasyDraft where you can stack up to 6 hitters.

In 2018, Lester surrendered a .243 ISO and 36% HC rate to batters from the left side so loading up on this lefty heavy Rangers line-up could actually play perfectly into how we attack Lester and his 1.75 HR/9 versus LHB in 2018.

To be fair to old Jonny boy – much like we pointed out with Cashner, the reality was despite the advanced metrics, Lester rarely got blown up. In fact, in 29 of 32 games last season he let up 4 ER or fewer so stacking against him worked out far fewer times then the advanced metrics would likely suggest.

At some point, I believe the luck runs out and the pricing here on Opening Day is cheap enough that this stack works nicely with the top priced arms on the slate.

MLB DFS – Pivot Bats and Stacks:

With the Yankees and Cubs having the two highest implied run totals on the slate, we could see folks prioritize paying up for the star bats in each of these lineups but with the Rangers and Blue Jays coming in next in their implied run totals, I think you could get similar upside for a fraction of the price.

Jordan Zimmermann could be argued as one of the worst pitchers on this slate as his 1.92 HR/9 mark ranked third worst in baseball in 2018 behind only Dylan Bundy and Bartolo Colon for pitchers with at least 130 IP.

The nice part of attacking Zimmermann is that he is equally charitable to hitters from both sides of the plate with a 1.9 HR/9 to both righties and lefties while giving up .220 + ISO to hitters from both sides.

The Jays lineup is quietly loaded with power – with 5 batters sporting a .200+ ISO mark against RHP since 2017 including Justin Smoak, Billy McKinney, Randall Grichuk, Teoscar Hernandez and Danny Jansen. The Blue Jays also have some really interesting value plays such as Brandon Drury ($5.6K) who may end up batting lead-off at near minimum price and has a .182 ISO versus RHP since 2017

In 10 of his 25 starts last season, Zimmermann gave up 2 or more HR in a game, so unlike where Lester/Cashner have been able to limit damage, the Tigers RHP is prone to blowups and the Jays hitters pricing makes them an interesting GPP pivot stack with elite point per dollar upside.

No batter on Toronto is over $7.5K on FantasyDraft – why does that number matter – well, if you go back to the original idea of paying up for two stud arms, this is the stack that seemingly fits in perfectly with that build. For example – if you lock in both Verlander AND deGrom on this slate, that leaves you with $7.2K per batter for the rest of your build which gives you the ability to stack up a team with one of the highest run totals on the board all around two elite arms.

With the late day trade of Kendrys Morales to the A’s yesterday, this stack loses one of the more recognizable names which may end up pushing down the popularity of this stack even more. I think there are other arms like Mike Minor, Andrew Cashner and even Jon Lester who people will pick on first because the lineups facing those gas cans are a bit “sexier” but I think this Jays stack is one of the best on the board.

MLB DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

Please note – these sample lineups are meant to be illustrative ONLY and should not be used as a Plug and Play lineup. 

More from FanSided

• Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
• NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
• 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
• Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
• Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet

P: Justin Verlander

P: Jacob deGrom

IF: Justin Smoak

IF: Javier Baez

IF: Joey Gallo

OF: Nomar Mazara

OF: Billy McKinney

OF: Randal Grichuk

UTIL: Brandon Drury

UTIL: Teoscar Hernandez

Slate Overview: Going into this slate my early mindset was to pay up for both pitching spots with the early season expectations that pitching dominates and hitting is slow to adjust. With 3 of the best arms in baseball on display on Opening Day, I think we have a unique opportunity to build around 2 of them and stack value instead of chasing the big name pricey bats of the Yankees and/or Cubs.

Going with a dual stack of Rangers/Blue Jays gives me the ability to stack the 3rd and 4th highest projected run totals against two arms in Lester/Zimmermann that the advanced metrics tell us to attack with power. Going with a roster build of 5-2-1 (meaning 5 hitters from one team, 2 from another and a power one-off), allows us to stack these spots and chase power all while building around the K upside of our starting arms.

Javier Baez ($8.7K) is probably my favorite one-off play on this slate against LHP Mike Minor – as he has one of the highest ceilings of any player on the slate and comes at a substantial discount when compared to other elite hitters. On FantasyDraft where you need to roster hitters from 3 teams, I love working backwards – slotting in my pitchers, my favorite one-off and then mixing and matching guys from my two favorite stacks.

Keep an eye on the lineup news as we get it and get into that free roll. MLB is back baby – let’s roll!

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR each and every day for all the latest MLB DFS news and analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.