MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday, April 2 – It’s Amazin

Welcome to the Tuesday 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.

If you had never played MLB DFS before last night, my guess is after how that slate played out you are likely moving on to knitting or some other hobby – THAT WAS UGLY. Winning GPP scores barely cracked 130 while the cash line was under 90 fantasy points on an all out brutal night. The pitching was a total nightmare as popular arms like Matt Strahm and Sean Reid-Foley put up -6 and 0.3 fantasy points while the popular stacks on the night – Cubs, Red Sox, Astros and Dodgers combined for FOUR total runs. If you somehow survived last night, simply smile and move on – and if you lost, well let’s chalk that one up to variance and never speak of it again.

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 – Tuesday’s Pitching Breakdown:

We get a 10 game bounce-back slate tonight with the Yankees and Reds game being left off due to their pre 7PM EST start time. Looking at the weather at first glance, there appears to be some rain showers in the Nationals/Phillies game with mild temperatures in most of the game environments tonight so not too much weather wise to worry about.

After just an ugly slate for pitching on Monday, we are back to getting aces in our player pool with three arms priced above $20K – Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander and Chris Sale. Overall, there are four arms on this slate, the trio noted plus Blake Snell ($18.5K) that had 31% or higher K rates in 2018 with swinging strike rates between 15-16% so with that context understand there are going to be high raw point totals on the pitching side tonight so getting cute at pitcher on tonight’s slate is not advised.

The question becomes how we prioritize a player pool with such great arms?

For me it comes down to two tiers – first which $20K plus ace do you want to build around?

All three of Max, Verlander and Sale are strong favorites but with varying degrees of upside/risk based on their opponents. Max Scherzer ($22.8K) is a -200 home favorite as he welcomes old buddy/traitor Bryce Harper back to DC against a Phillies projected line-up that not only has power but also struck out at only a 19.8% clip against RHP in 2018.

Chris Sale ($20.5K) got roughed up in his first start against the Mariners, giving up 7 runs and 3 HR’s and it was widely reported his velocity (less than 93 MPH) was way down on his fastball so there are red flags here BUT the same red flags everyone will see which could end up making Sale the GPP option everyone forgets about.

Justin Verlander ($22.4K) feels like the best combination of safety and upside among the aces as he gets the most strikeout prone lineup opposing him as the Rangers strike out over 23% of the time against RHP and this is a team he put up 23+ fantasy points against in 4 of 5 starts last season, striking out at least 7 batters in each game.

My goal is to get at least one guy from this tier in my builds tonight – if I had to rank them, I would go Verlander, Scherzer, Sale.

The second tier here gives us two high upside K arms we can use as SP2’s if we want to go pitching heavy as Blake Snell and Jose Berrios sit in the $18.5K-$18.7K range as the obvious second level aces on this slate.

Snell struggled in his first start, understandably against a contact heavy deep lineup like the Houston Astros and in many ways today’s opponent, the Rockies, have a similar profile as their projected lineup has only a 20% K rate against LHP since the start of 2018. Berrios meanwhile was straight up nasty in his first outing, striking out 10 Indians on his way to 39 fantasy points and will take on a Royals team today with a 24% projected K rate.

While the season long K rate and swinging strike rate metrics may favor Snell over Berrios based on 2018 numbers, the match-up for Berrios here looks more appealing from an upside perspective for only $200 more on FantasyDraft.

I think you can make a case today to simply limit your pitching player pool to 2 of these 5 arms and go with a pitching heavy approach built around elite K arms and that is exactly the route I want to explore as we dig into our top hitters.

MLB DFS – Finding Value Stacks:

If you decide to go pitching heavy on this slate as a result of having multiple high K arms available, it will mean living in the mid-range to find your bats but I think we have some viable high upside options here that make this build feel strong all around.

After facing a trio of aces in Washington DC and a tough left-hander in Caleb Smith, I haven’t had a chance yet to write-up my Amazin’s but with Jose Urena on the mound and a Mets lineup loaded with cheap lefties – this could be the value stack to put around two top arms and still capture some big time upside.

Urena has some pretty obvious splits, giving up a .170 ISO, 41% HC rate and a 1.4 HR/9 rate to LHB in 2018 and after getting roughed up by the Rockies in his first start (4.2 IP, 9 hits, 5 ER and 1 HR) – the New York Mets bats look like they could be in position for a left-handed heavy stack with great point per dollar upside.

Michael Conforto ($9K) is really the only “pricey” left-handed stick from the Mets as the rest of the projected lineup – Brandon Nimmo, Jeff McNeil, Robinson Cano and Dominic Smith (who will get the start at 1B) – are all priced in the same $7.2K-$7.4K range on FantasyDraft which gives you a chance to get a full heart of the order stack with power/speed at a reasonable price.

Since the start of 2017 – Nimmo and Conforto have .233 ISO marks against RHP with Cano not far behind at .197. Urena relies primarily on his sinker to LHB, throwing it nearly 40% of the time which once again sets up perfectly for Nimmo and Conforto who since 2016 have .300+ ISO marks with 46% HC rates against that pitch type.

With LHP Jason Vargas on the other side of this game, a game stack here of cheap bats is something to consider – listen, I have been anti Vargas since the day the Mets signed him and I know his second half was better last year but this is a guy who still gave up a ton of power to RHB (.227 ISO and 1.92 HR/9).

Now the Marlins aren’t exactly a spot I want to stack, but there are some power one-off’s here we can use. Starlin Castro ($7.5K) homered off Steven Matz last night and much like Nimmo/Conforto, profiles well against Vargas who relies on his sinker over 40% of the time against RHB. Since 2016, Castro has a .232 ISO with over a 307 foot average distance against that pitch type making an intriguing one-off power bat in the same game.

MLB DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

Please note – the sample lineup shown here is meant to be illustrative and should not be considered a plug and play build.

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P: Justin Verlander

P: Jose Berrios

IF: Jeff McNeil

IF: Robinson Cano

IF: Albert Pujols

OF: Brandon Nimmo

OF: Michael Conforto

OF: Dominic Smith

UTIL: Starlin Castro

UTIL: Rossell Herrera

Slate Overview: Pitching rules this slate and I think it makes sense on a two pitcher site to load up on two high K arms and find the value stacks and bats to make it work. There are simply too many good arms on this slate where I think prioritizing K upside is your first stop in your roster build which also makes finding bats a challenge today as we have so many tough pitchers to deal with when looking for hitting. The Mets will load up lefties against RHP Jose Urena in Miami and I think targeting Urena’s splits give you the ability to stack power/speed at the top/heart of the New York order.

Good luck all!

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