MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Saturday, April 6 – Early Slate Breakdown
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.
Friday’s MLB DFS slate was a high scoring one as winning GPP scores push to 175 and higher as 11 players went for 25+ fantasy points including 6 hitters. On a night where we advocated paying down at pitcher to jam in big bats like Mike Trout and Mookie Betts, those high-priced stars did not disappoint with 28 fantasy points each and combined with a strong value start from Trent Thornton, it had the makings for a good night. The biggest mistake I made was sticking with Pablo Lopez over Sonny Gray – while Lopez did flash some K upside with 5 K’s in 5 innings, he got bit by the HR ball against the Braves, giving up 2 HR which really hurt his final line while Gray at basically the same price, struck out 7 Pirates and put up the third highest score of any arm on the night. Ultimately though the takeaway for me on this slate was that the cheap pitching/stud hitting approach was the right way to go and one small pivot between Lopez/Gray drastically changes the outcome. I highly recommend you do these postmortem’s of your roster each day too – try and take inventory of what went right and what went wrong.
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 – Saturday’s Early Pitching Breakdown:
We have a 6 game Early Slate which kicks off at 1:10PM EST with the “late” games starting at 2:10PM EST and with no weather issues to speak of, it looks like a pretty clean first slate to kick off our Saturday of MLB DFS.
When looking at the 12 arms on this slate, there is one thing that immediately jumps out to me – 7 of the 12 pitchers put up 20+ fantasy points there first start of the season which interestingly enough excludes the highest priced arm on the slate in LHP Patrick Corbin.
One of the reasons I bring this up is that we now have FPPG data to pull from with arms with one pass through teams rotations so there is a natural inclination to look at those numbers, click on the game logs and try and pick your pitchers based on that minimal sample size with the expectation they can do it again.
On the other side of that argument, Corbin at $19.9K, is getting the same exact match-up he had the first time around against the Mets where he he was largely pedestrian with 4 K’s in 7 IP on his way to 12 runs.
As a result, I think we could see folks over-reacting in both directions – assuming guys like Lucas Giolito, Mike Leake and Matt Moore are ready for another big night while Trevor Williams gets the same exact match-up against a Reds team he just faced and put up 27 fantasy points while striking out 7. With the massive ballpark shift from Great American ton PNC, Williams at only $15.1K seems like a great bargain but remember this is a guy with an 18% K rate in all of 2018 so be careful over-reacting to one start.
So where does that leave us – I think, and it is just my first take, but I think we will end up with some weird chalk spots, people going after Williams and Giolito based on their first outing and may end up over-looking other solid spots.
Chris Paddack ($18.6K) was extremely popular his first start against the hapless Giants where he struck out 7 (41% K rate) and allowed only 2 hits in 5 innings but faces a much tougher test against the Cardinals. Paddack’s talent level is what wins out to me here – listen, it would be foolish to argue his 40% K rate is sustainable, although he did have that and more at three different spots in A ball, but I also think the hype train will slow a bit today against a solid veteran lineup like St. Louis. I am sorry, but if you show up to your MLB debut looking like this, I do not care who is on the other side of the match-up – I am riding with the sheriff.
Steven Matz ($15K) sits $100 cheaper than Trevor Williams and gets the same match-up he sputtered in the first time through against the Nationals – my guess is he gets completely over-looked with the price point alone. Now, I am a Mets fan and I am rarely on Matz especially when he is chalky like he was in his first start against the Marlins – but today I think he will end up with single digit ownership in a sneaky spot for GPP’s.
Matz has historically pitched much better at Citi Field than on the road and the stats back it up every which way – he has a K rate 3-4% higher and an xFIP of 3.6 which is a half a run lower than on the road. What really stands out to me is how dominant he is against LHB at home, in 177 batters in his career, sporting a 70% GB rate with only a 15% HC rate.
Now, I am very much terrified of that Rendon/Zimmermann duo in the middle of this lineup – I have seen them time and time again smack Matz around, but without Trea Turner in the lineup, this eliminates a huge stolen base threat which is something he has always struggled with.
On this pitching slate, my goal is really to try to pivot off the field – and I could see Corbin (by default) being popular along with the game log chasers who go after Williams and Giolito so my initial goal is to simply take arms that I think will be lower owned and who have the ability to leverage the field.
MLB DFS – Early Slate Hitters:
With Patrick Corbin being a popular SP1 on a slate without many aces, I think getting leverage with the Mets bats is an interesting option and it all starts with a guy I brought up the last time he faced Corbin – Michael Conforto ($8.2K).
https://twitter.com/2lockSports/status/1112372185253982208
Conforto was only 2-5 in that game so the pitch data in isolation may not have worked in that small sample size, but I think the data is telling us this is a match-up we can go right back to again. The nice part about the Mets bats is that they are cheap – meaning we can stack around Conforto with guys like Pete Alonso ($7.3K) and J.D. Davis ($6.9K) who were 3-9 in the first game that Corbin started against the Amazins.
On the early slate there is really only one “high upside” offense that I want to target and that is the Phillies, who are at home against RHP Michael Pineda. Yes, Pineda was strong in his first start, garnering tons of swinging strikes in his 4 innings of work for the Twins, but this is also a pitcher coming off injury who now has to navigate arguably the best hitting park on the slate and a line-up loaded with power.
There are five hitters in this Phillies line-up averaging 10+ fantasy points per game, with the 1-4 stack of Andrew McCutchen, Jean Segura, Bryce Harper and Rhys Hoskins all putting up strong early season numbers and giving you an elite top of the order stack to build around on the early slate.
If Giolito ends up being a popular target here today, then gaining leverage with a Mariners stack is another great strategy as Giolito, despite his talent, is also a pitcher who had the highest SIERA and HC rate of any arm on this slate in 2018.
At home in 2018, Giolito gave up 1.5 HR/9 and a near 6 xFIP – so stacking up the power bats of Jay Bruce, Mitch Haniger andd Domingo Santana gives you the ability to attack Giolito’s blow up potential. The pricing on these bats is high, and with the Phillies likely being a bit more popular at similar price points, the Mariners not only give you some leverage against those who chase the Giolito game but also a pivot off the Phillies stack.
MLB DFS – Early Slate 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: Chris Paddack
P: Steven Matz
IF: Rhys Hoskins
IF: J.D. Davis
IF: Pete Alonso
OF: Michael Conforto
OF: Bryce Harper
OF: Jay Bruce
UTIL: Mitch Haniger
UTIL: Domingo Santana
Slate Overview: I do not think there is a clear path to roster builds on this slate but I do think that game log and recency bias could push certain chalk across the industry so my take is this – read and listen to others takes today and try and gauge where you think the chalk may be. If Lucas Giolito becomes the popular value arm off one start – gain leverage and stack the Mariners and bank off the larger 2018 sample size. If everyone is scared to use the rookie Padres right-hander, anchor yourself to his elite talent level and hope that the Cardinals bats are held in check the first time seeing this live arm up close. I am not a cash game player so I approach these slates with a GPP mindset, focused on finding pivots and leverage off what could end up being the popular routes.
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