MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Wednesday, April 10 – It’s Humpday!
Welcome to the Wednesday 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.
Tuesday’s slate was brutal, ugly, awful and horrendous but mostly was proof positive that MLB DFS is the most variance driven sport we play and sometimes we need to remember that. I do not care how contrarian you think you are or what kind of crazy algorithm you may use, nobody went into last night’s slate thinking Jacob deGrom would end the night with negative points as the Twins put up 14 runs and Mitch Garver, a punt catcher, would lead the slate in scoring with 36 fantasy points on the back of 2 HR’s. It happens, remember the variance but trust the process and move on to the next day.
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 – Early Slate Breakdown:
With another split slate on tap today, I wanted to give a quick breakdown of the 4 game Early Slate and how I think we can attack it. First and foremost, the weather is going to wreak havoc on this slate specifically in Coors Field where a blizzard warning, yes you read that right, is in effect from noon on today. Our Ricky Olshanksy does a great job of breaking down the weather on this early slate and how we should approach it.
Not only do we have snow in Colorado but we have cold temperatures in Chicago with rain expected throughout so a four game slate could become a three game slate or even a two gamer really quickly so the weather becomes key here today.
If we go into the slate assuming that the Rockies/Braves are PPD and the Rays/White Sox are delayed but play wet, then I think there becomes a clear path to attack this slate with weather factored in.
Trevor Bauer ($21.5K) is the clear-cut top choice and outside of being contrarian, there is no real strong argument to fade him as the only elite K arm on the slate, averaging 8.5 K’s per start and 30 FPPG in his first two outings of the season.
Matt Boyd ($16.9K) through his first two starts has struck out 10 and 13 against Toronto and New York, with a near 50% K rate which is just a smidge above his 20% career mark at the major league level. Boyd has generated a 20% swinging strike rate in those starts, relying on his slider at a 37% clip which is a 6% bump over his 2018 marks.
When you look at the Indians projected line-up, outside of Jose Ramirez, nobody has hit the slider with any sort of power and in fact the ground ball rates are almost all over 50% while the whiff %’s on that pitch type, especially at the bottom of the lineup, are 30-40%. The K upside for Boyd may seem like a small sample size but even in Spring Training he struck out 23 in 20 innings so there is merit to pitching both Bauer and Boyd in this game as your two pitching choices on the early slate.
If you need a pivot, Nick Margevicius ($14.9K) gets his second crack at the Giants after going 5 innings with 5 K’s and 16 fantasy points in his start against them in 2019. Now Joey Lucchesi let many down last night in this same spot but keep in mind that in 2019 over 12 games, starting pitchers against the Giants have put up at least 16 fantasy points in 9 of 12 starts with 7 of those 12 going for 20+.
MLB DFS – Early Slate Hitting:
With snow in Coors and cold temperatures and rain in Chicago, the best pure hitting weather may end up in San Francisco where it will be 62 degrees with winds blowing out at 10 MPH, which as we know gets mitigated in AT&T Park. Regardless, the hitters from San Diego and San Francisco may end up as our safest route especially if we take both arms in the Indians/Tigers game.
RHP Derek Rodriguez gets the start for the Giants and will face San Diego for the second time in three starts, after giving up 2 ER in 5 IP the first time around. Now, the runs may have been limited in that first outing but the hard contact was certainly not – as the Padres hit D-Rod HARD, to the tune of a 59% HC rate while generating only 5% swinging strikes.
Rodriguez is not a high K arm to begin with, and he relied on his low 90’s fastball nearly 70% of the time that first outing which not shockingly, this Padres lineup profiles to destroy with guys like Myers, Machado, Kinsler and Hosmer all sporting .300+ ISO marks against that pitch type.
In his second start against the Rays, D-Rod dialed back the FB use and relied on his change-up nearly 33% of the time – again another pitch this Padres team hits well as all of Hosmer, Machado, Renfore and Myers have .200+ ISO marks against that pitch type.
While the Padres implied run total is only 3.8, I think in the context of this slate you could argue a full on Padres stack here which is cost-effective (no player above $8.5K) and allows you to easily pay up for Bauer and Boyd if you so choose.
I know the ballpark is not ideal but in the first two games of this series in San Francisco, the Padres have hit 4 HR’s – with Renfroe, Myers, Tatis Jr. and Franmil Reyes all going deep – so stacking up the Padres power bats here is likely my preferred approach on this early slate and then picking and choosing one-off bats from other teams.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Pitching:
The Main Slate looks clear of any weather issues although it is going to be cold with some serious wind blowing in at Wrigley Field.
After seeing Jacob deGrom let down the masses last night, it will be interesting to see ow folks treat Noah Syndergaard ($20.2K) today. Thor has struck out 6 and 7 batters in his first two starts, both against the Nationals and will take on the same Twins line-up, without a DH that roughed up deGrom last night. The fastball velocity is sitting at 96-97 MPH thus far and the swinging strike rate of 14% supports the lofty price point for Syndergaard here in what could be a lower owned spot as a result of recency bias.
Throughout his career, Thor has performed better in Citi Field with a K rate of 27.7% which is over a 1% jump on his road average while allowing 0.66 HR/9 and only a 23% HC rate. There are some cheap hitters on this slate that I think we can take advantage of which makes locking in Thor as our SP1 an easy choice in cash games and GPP’s/
While Colin McHugh and James Paxton have the highest K rates on the slate, picking on the Yankees and Astros is not an ideal spot but I would argue McHugh at $17K is the better option from this game. McHugh had an elite 37.7% K rate against RHB in 2018 and the Yankees expected line-up has only 2-3 LHB so there is some serious K upside at this price as a home favorite.
Robbie Ray ($17.6K) has a similarly high 31% K rate and 13% swinging strike rate in 2018. Ray is a volatile DFS investment, and we have seen that continue into 2019 with 5 walks in both starts on the road to start the year. The match-up with the Rangers is one where “upside Ray” could be a GPP difference maker as his slider heavy approach matches up well against the Rangers projected line-up with 5 hitters sporting a 35% or higher whiff % against that pitch type.
There are some really cost -effective bats on this slate (more on that in a moment) so paying up for Thor and either Ray/McHugh is a strategy I will likely employ.
MLB DFS – Main Slate Hitting:
We saw FanDuel roll out a $500 Chris Davis on Tuesday which ended up being a big topic in the DFS industry before it was confirmed he would not even play but tonight with a RHP on the mound, FantasyDraft has followed suit, dropping him down to $3.9K, and his likely spot back in the Baltimore order.
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The price point and the roster construction on FantasyDraft make Davis the ideal one-off in my opinion where you need to roster hitters from at least three teams. You can lock in two high-priced arms, stack two top offenses and use Davis as your punt play in the hopes he FINALLY gets a hit. The match-up with RHP Frankie Montas is interesting as this is a pitcher who gave up .219 ISO to LHB in 2018 and a 50% HC rate to lefties so, at under $4K, and what it means for the rest of my build, I am willing to take the Chris Davis bait.
The Phillies have the highest IRT on the slate just below 5 runs and with Jeremy Hellickson opposing them tonight – I think going right back to Bryce Harper ($9.4K) and crew makes a ton of sense. Not only will they get Hellickson, who is making his first start, but once he is out they get one of the worst bullpens in all of baseball so this could be a bombs away spot for the Phillies. Harper and Rhys Hoskins ($9.8K) have video game like numbers against RHP in 2019, sporting .400 and .476 ISO marks against RHP with 40 and 57% HC rates.
I realize the pricing on these guys is high, but when you take the free Chris Davis square – it becomes really easy to fit them in alongside two high-priced arms.
The story with the Mets last night was deGrom’s struggles but this is still a team that scored 8 runs and now gets Jake Odorizzi, an extreme fly-ball pitcher without swing and miss stuff who gave up a .211 ISO to LHB in 2018 with a 38% HC rate.
Odorizzi was hit hard his last start against Philly, lasting only 2/3 of an inning, giving up 5 runs on two hits and three walks and outside of Pete Alonso ($9K) and Michael Conforto ($8.5K), the rest of the Mets are a cheap stacking option. Brandon Nimmo ($6.7K) in the lead-off spot with Robinson Cano ($7.2K) right behind him gives you a 1-4 stack for a Mets offense with the third highest IRT on the slate.
I think going with a Mets/Phillies stack and using Chris Davis as a punt-one off will allow you to build a high upside offense while easily affording both Thor and Ray/McHugh for high K upside arms.
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