MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Sunday, March 31 – Dodger Dogs!
Welcome to the Sunday 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.
Saturday’s split slates saw winning GPP scores come down to 140 on the Early Slate with 170 on the Main Slate. The Early Slate was all about a chalk James Paxton who failed to deliver and left the door open for those who pivoted at pitcher to Jake Odorizzi and Trevor Bauer the field while stacking the Mets bats against Stephen Strasburg was a big time winner! On the Main Slate it was all about the Dodgers who put up 18 runs and four of the top five raw point plays were LA bats – Bellinger, Pederson, Turner and Barnes.
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 – Pitching Breakdown:
We have a loaded 14 game slate that kicks off at 1PM EST with much cooler temperatures today and even some rain risk early on in the Yankees-Baltimore game. We have another slate where the Cubs (5) and Yankees (6) have the highest implied totals and some clear Vegas SP favorites with JA Happ and Walker Buehler massive -200+ favorites against the Orioles and Diamondbacks.
When looking at the pitching, there are no arms over $20K on FantasyDraft, but we have this logjam in the $17-$19K of strong K arms with some serious upside and great match-ups.
Let’s go around and hit quickly on some of the names and my thoughts before I dive into my favorites:
- J.A. Happ – a great cash game play against the Orioles – could end up being a solid GPP option if the rain risk and recency bias of Paxton’s struggles make people shy away from the highest priced arm on FantasyDraft.
- Walker Buehler – Elite K upside but risk the Dodgers will not push him deep into games as he only threw 60 pitches in his last Cactus League game.
- Patrick Corbin – the highest K rate (30.8%) and swinging strike rat (15.6%) of any pitcher on the slate using 2018 numbers after beating Mad Max and roughing up Strasburg on Saturday, will Corbin be low owned against the Mets offense?
Carlos Carrasco ($19.4K) had every bit the numbers that Corbin had in 2018 with a 29.5% K rate and 15.3% swinging strike rate. Carrasco continued to shine on the road with some of the more consistent Home/Road splits in baseball – with an ERA a full run lower on the road with only a .7 HR/9 rate while maintaining his 30% K rate. The Twins projected line-up has a 25% K rate and much like Trevor Bauer had yesterday, we get a mid 30’s degree day with double-digit winds and this was a team Carrasco had big time success against in 2018 with 38 and 39 fantasy points in 2 of his last three starts against the Twins.
Chris Paddack ($18.8K) gets to make his first start of 2019 against a putrid Giants offense and this is an arm with some serious K upside, sporting 40% plus K rates in the low minors. The casual MLB fan may see his price point as the fifth highest priced arm on this slate and skip right past, but this is a name and a match-up we need to jump on while we can.
In Spring Training, Paddack was dominant – pitching 15 innings, allowing just a 1.76 ERA and an absurd 24:3 K:BB ratio which has pushed him right into the Major League rotation despite limited minor league numbers. Paddack is the kind of arm you prioritize in DFS and my hope is the buzz on him for his first start is not as high but be ready – if one of the top prospects in baseball has an electric outing today, you will not be getting this price and ownership once he becomes a household name.
MLB DFS – Building the Bats:
In the first three days of the MLB season, the LA Dodgers have been the critical stacking spot on two slates already putting up 12 and 18 runs while launching 13 HR’s so far in 2019.
After putting up 18 runs last night, my guess is the Dodgers will be popular today and for as much as a fade makes sense – as Chris Aliperto pointed out in his Bargain Bin today, the pricing on these Dodgers is just far too low.
LA will take on Luke Weaver, a pitcher with a sub 20% K rate, a double-digit walk rate in 2018 and will have to face a projected Dodgers line-up with a .216 ISO mark against RHP last year. If you have read Picks and Pivots before, you know I love my Dodgers stacks and today may make 3 slates in the first four where they become critical building blocks that are simply too cheap.
Weaver has traditional splits, with higher wOBA, ISO and HR/9 metrics to LHB and the Dodgers as we know are loaded with them – Cody Bellinger, Joc Pederson and Max Muncy all have ISO marks of .270 or higher versus RHP since 2017 and you can roster the trio for $8-$9K per batter.
The Dodgers have already announced that Corey Seager and Justin Turner will get the day off on Sunday so we could get some value in a bat like David Freese ($7.5K) in the heart of the Dodgers order. Do not overlook the RHB in this lineup if you are stacking – guys like Enrique Hernandez ($8.4K) and AJ Pollock ($9.1K) have .220 + ISO marks against RHP since the start of 2018 and a full on Dodgers stack may be the ideal GPP build today as having 14 total games could help us spread out the ownership especially with the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs all on the slate.
Sticking on the West Coast – the A’s and Angels game looks like another spot to target offense with some under-priced bats. The Angels take on RHP Frankie Montas, who last season gave up a .219 ISO and 43% HC rate to left-handed batters and will have Justin Bour ($7.7K) and Kole Calhoun ($7.5K) staring at him on the other side of this lineup. Bour has a .222 ISO against RHP while Calhoun has a 44% HC rate, making this duo a high upside mini-stack to take advantage of Montas’s low K and high ISO offerings.
Oakland will face off with LHP Tyler Skaggs, with a 4.3 projected run total just .2 runs behind the Dodgers and with a right-handed heavy projected lineup all priced in the $7-$8K range. Khris Davis ($8.1K) is the highest priced Oakland bat while RH power like Matt Chapman, Stephen Piscotty and Marcus Semien all sit under $7.5K as part of a projected lineup with just under a .200 ISO mark against LHP in 2018.
If you want a cheap stack – one day after smacking around the Nationals #2 arm and their bullpen, the New York Mets make for a cheap stacking option against LHP Patrick Corbin. Wilson Ramos ($6.8K) is a left-handed masher, sporting a .236 ISO against LHP in 2018 and has a .333 ISO mark against the slider which is a pitch that Corbin throws 55% of the time. With a left-handed on the mound, I expect the Mets to counter with a right-handed heavy line-up with likely means another start for J.D. Davis ($6.6K) his power at 3B and likely a start for Juan Lagares ($6.6K) in CF after Jeff McNeil got the start on Saturday. Ramos has the one-off pop but this could be an interesting bottom of the order stack that will play off the Mets focus on stringing together hits and playing more situational baseball in 2019.
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 lineup.
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P: Carlos Carrasco
P: Chris Paddack
IF: Max Muncy
IF: Cody Bellinger
IF: Justin Bour
OF: Khris Davis
OF: Joc Pederson
OF: Juan Lagares
UTIL: Wilson Ramos
UTIL: J.D. Davis
Slate Overview: As I have done each day, my goal will be to build around two high K arms and stack power bats around them. As much as the Yankees, Red Sox and Cubs bats are intriguing, I think the point per dollar upside of the Dodgers, Angels and A’s is the right approach which allows you to stack up two great arms. Keep an eye on the lineup news as we normally get some value on these Sunday day games which could help cram in another big bat or two. Good luck all!
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