MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday, March 30 – Always Sunny in Philly!
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 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.
No Goldy No Cash! Paul Goldschmidt was the MLB DFS star of the night, launching three home runs and putting up over 50 fantasy points as the key piece to winning GPP lineups on Friday’s Main Slate. Once again we saw winning rosters push over 200 fantasy points and on Friday Night, that winning roster used Gerrit Cole and German Marquez with a Cardinals stack to take down the $25 GPP on FantasyDraft.
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.
Before we jump into the specific picks for today, 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!
Without further ado, let’s get into today’s slate!
MLB DFS – Saturday Pitching Breakdown:
FantasyDraft has a seven game “Main” slate which kicks off at 1PM EST with 7 games included through the 4PM EST start times. Ultimately keep an eye on the weather in Cincinnati as the Reds/Pirates game has 80-90% chances of rain throughout which could turn this into a six game slate quite quickly.
When looking at the pitching on this slate, it is going to be hard for people to look anywhere outside of James Paxton ($21.5K) as their SP1 – this is a pitcher who is a massive -370 home favorite who had a 32% K rate last season, the highest of any pitcher on the slate, and he gets the face an Orioles team with a paltry 2.08 expected run total. The projected Baltimore line-up has a 27% K rate against LHP from 2018 and actually faced Paxton once last season s a Mariner where they whiffed 10 times as he racked up 31 fantasy points. If you are playing cash games or one line-up, it is hard to make the argument to fade Paxton – he’s the clear top choice on this early slate.
As a tournament player, my gut reaction is to fade him and hope variance is on our side but rather than drop down to other high K arms like Strasburg, Syndergaard or Bauer – can we drop even further and build around offense today?
One of the stories today could and should be weather as the East Coast gets 60-70 degree temperatures but take a look at the weather in Kansas City – 41 degrees with 16-17 MPH winds all game long blowing in – hello pitching weather!
Jakob Junis ($15.8K) was a completely different pitcher in the second half of 2018, as his ERA dropped from 5.13 to 3.35 while his HR/9 went from well over 2 to .9 HR/9 and his K rate jumped from 20% to 22%. Junis struck out 6 or more batters in six of his last eleven starts to close out the 2018 season so the K upside is there assuming Junis can keep the HR ball in check.
There has been much buzz about Junis in the spring as he has seen in uptick in his fastball velocity which may keep that second half momentum going into the 2019 season.
Today against the White Sox, a team with the highest K rate from 2018 of any team on today’s slate and with the cold windy weather, it may set up perfectly for Junis to deliver a strong performance at a mid-tier price as the windy weather blowing in could help keep that HR risk at bay.
Spencer Turnbull ($12K) is the lowest priced starter on the slate – well Nate Karns technically is as the Orioles “opener” but we are not going to entertain that thought here. Turnbull gets to face off with the Blue Jays – who have given up 21.6 and 23.1 fantasy points to their first two opposing pitchers – Jordan Zimmerman and Matthew Boyd – not exactly Koufax and Drysdale.
Turnbull has a strong K pedigree in the minor leagues with a 25% K rate at AA in his most recent minor league stint and his three starts at the ML level at the end of 2018 were promising. Turnbull started 3 games down the stretch – with his final start against Milwaukee being his best as he struck out 7 batters in 5 innings. With the early season returns that opposing pitchers have had against Toronto in 2019, Turnbull is an interesting GPP punt play that will allow you to either lock in Paxton as an SP1 or go with a hitting heavy approach.
MLB DFS – Building Around the Bats:
Rather than pay up for Paxton today, in GPP’s I like the idea of pairing Junis with Turnbull and going all in with our bats to try a totally different roster build than those who prioritize Paxton as their SP1.
I mentioned the weather warming up on the East Coast – well in Philly today it will be 72 and sunny with 14 MPH winds blowing straight out to Center Field with Bryse Wilson and Nick Pivetta on the mound. The 9 run total on this game is the highest on the slate and with two power packed line-ups in these kind of weather conditions, I think it makes for an ideal stacking environment.
Bryce Harper ($9.7K) and Rhys Hoskins ($9K) have.260 and .290 ISO marks against RHP since the start of the 2018 season and the weather conditions look perfect for picking up RHP Bryse Wilson. Wilson’s scouting report is that he is a fastball heavy pitcher relying on his mid-90’s heater the far majority of the time with an average slider/change-up he throws as his secondary offerings. Harper and Hoskins simply destroy the fastball at this velocity with both sporting .240+ ISO marks and if Wilson is going to challenge them with heaters – it could be a long day for the heart of this Phillies lineup.
On the other side of this game, Pivetta gets a Braves team that the BvP will tell you he has dominated to the tune of a .245 average over 100 at bats with only a 0.73 ISO mark. Pivetta is someone who the FanGraphs crowd loves – he has a high K rate, especially at home (30% in 2018) but HR’s have always been an issue for Pivetta and this Braves lineup has four hitters in the heart of the order with a .185 ISO or higher against RHP – including Freddie Freeman, Ozzie Albies, Ronald Acuna and Josh Donaldson.
The Yankees bats will likely be popular again today with a 6+ run total but with James Paxton being a priority spend, will you be able to get the big bats in the Bronx when guys like Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton are priced at $10K+ on this slate.
Stepping back and think about this slate for a moment – Assume that Cin/Pit is rained out and KC/CWS is a pitching only spot due to the weather. That only leaves you with 4 games and of those 8 teams – you have offenses facing Paxton, Strasburg, Syndergaard and Bauer – so all of a sudden, the hitting options become SUPER limited. I think because of that dynamic, the bats need to be the priority today and you work backwards into your pitching options.
MLB DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:
Please note – this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative only and should not be used as a plug and play build.
P: Jakob Junis
IF: Rhys Hoskins
IF: Freddie Freeman
IF: Ozzie Albies
OF: Bryce Harper
OF: Ronald Acuna Jr.
OF: Giancarlo Stanton
UTIL: Aaron Judge
UTIL: $7.3K remaining
Slate Overview: To Paxton or not to Paxton – that is the question. Going with James Paxton as your SP1 is likely the cash game route but I think pivoting off that in GPP’s is the route to take and anchor your lineup to the big bats as there are only a few ideal hitting environments today and they all have pricey hitters from the Yankees, Phillies and Braves.
MLB DFS – Late Slate Overview:
After an Early Slate loaded with elite arms, the “Late Slate”is not so kind and as a result, it may mean having to make some choice we do not fully love.
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There is only one “elite” K arm on this slate and that is Kenta Maeda ($19.8K) who has a slate high 28.8% K rate and 14.5% swinging strike rate and will take the mound tonight against Arizona as a -170 home favorite.
Right behind him is Yu Darvish ($17.3K) who has a K rate over 27% and surrendered a slate low 27% HC rate in 2018 albeit only a 40 inning sample size but he had a strong spring with 14 K’s in 12 IP and as long as he is healthy, we may be getting Darvish at a bit of a discount due to his injury history.
The rest of the pitching options, are frankly quite ugly so there is merit to simply locking in the teo highest K arms who both are strong favorites and allow you $7.8K per batter for the rest of your lineup.
With that construct in mind, looking for stacks in this range gives us some intriguing options with the Milwaukee Brewers being the first team that stands out. Milwaukee gets to face Cardinals RHP Dakota Hudson, an extreme groundball pitcher with a K rate under 20% throughout the minor leagues.
Without having dominant stuff, that could spell trouble against a power heavy lineup like Milwaukee that has five of their eight batters in the lineup with a .230+ISO against RHP in 2018. Christian Yelich, Mike Moustakas, Eric Thames, Yasmani Grandal and Travis Shaw make for an intriguing five man power stack with the second highest IRT on the late slate on FantasyDraft.
This 5 man stack will leave you with around $6.7K for the last three spots on your roster but when you consider that all five have HC rates of 40%+ against RHP since the start of last season, this is the kind of power core that could put up huge numbers in GPP’s and the price points are cheap enough where you can stack them around Maeda/Darvish on the Late Slate.
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