MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Monday, April 29 – This Means WAR!

Welcome to the Monday 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.

Sunday’s MLB DFS action was dominated by pitching with 6 of the top 10 raw point performances coming from the arms as Reynaldo Lopez, the second cheapest pitcher on the slate went for a high score of 43 fantasy points on the back 14K’s while Ozzie Albies hit 2 HR’s to pace a high scoring Braves stack that put up 8 total runs.

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 – Monday Pitching Breakdown:

Monday brings us a solid 9 game MLB DFS slate with no real weather issues lurking which gives us the opportunity to play the slate straight up and not have to worry about factoring in rain issues. Nearly every ballpark is going to play the game in 50-60 degree temperatures with the exception of the Braves/Padres who will get 80+ degree temperatures in the best hitting weather on the slate.

Justin Verlander ($21.3K) is the highest priced arm on the slate, putting up 30+ fantasy points now in three straight starts and facing the same Twins team he just faced in Houston and racked up 8 K’s in 8 innings on his way to 33 fantasy points. Listen, I wrote up and played Dylan Bundy yesterday against this same Twins team so it would seem a bit psychotic if I did not tell you to play JV.

Obviously Bundy was more of a leverage/ownership play but he did return 8 K’s despite giving up 2 HR’s so there is clearly K upside to be had here despite the Twins minuscule K rate against RHP this season. Much of that to be fair is skewed by Willians Astudillo who has a 0% K rate on the year and is now on the DL. Verlander is the top dog on this slate, coming in with the best recent form and even with the Twins line-up being dangerous, Verlander is the guy you anchor to as your high dollar SP1.

Zack Wheeler ($17.5K) was mega chalk his last start against Philadelphia where he struck out 11 and I expect recency bias to push ownership his way again against the Reds in Citi Field. The Reds projected line-up has a K rate of 24.1% against RHP this season so there is some K equity to be had here but with Wheeler’s 11% walk rate, which is top 15 in all of baseball this season – he could also end up with base runners as a result of the Reds lineup having an 11.6% walk rate versus RHP.

John Means ($13.7K) is today’s Reynaldo Lopez. Yesterday Lopez was the second cheapest pitcher on the slate despite the fact he was facing the same opponent he just put 20+ fantasy points against and now today we get Means in the exact same boat after a 5 inning, 6 K, 22 fantasy point outing against the White Sox.

I was hesitant to play Means last time more because of the pitch count but after throwing 92 pitches against the White Sox, those concerns are very much put to rest and with the amount of K upside Means has against a free swinging White Sox squad, I see no reason to avoid what will likely be a popular SP2 today.

MLB DFS – Top Batting Options:

At first glance, I think pitching today is going to end up being pretty chalky with Verlander/Wheeler as popular SP1 options alongside Means as the value SP2 but rather than fade the chalk pitching, I think I would rather look to pivot with my bats.

The Atlanta Braves will likely be the popular stack today coming off a huge Sunday where they scored 8 runs and with the highest IRT on the slate and 80+ degree temperatures, all signs point to some serious recency bias.

LHP Nick Margevicius is not the same punching bag that Tyler Anderson was on Sunday, limiting RHB to a 28% HC rate with a 51% GB rate this season so it is worth thinking twice before paying over $9K for every batter in the top 4 of the Braves stack today. Now Fergilicous relies heavily on his slider and this is a pitch the Braves RHB (Albies, Acuna, Donaldson) all hammer to the tune of a .250+ ISO mark, so there is upside in this Braves stack but the pricing and the likely popularity, leads me to look elsewhere and hope the Padres LHP can continue to limit HC and get GB outs.

You know what is more fun than spelling Margevicius – having to follow it up with Jeff Samardzija. The Dodgers get a date with the veteran RHP in San Francisco and while the ballpark is certainly not one we want to target, the opposing arm is.

Shark is a low K arm who gets hammered by LHB to the tune of a .220 ISO, 50% FB rate and 41% HC rate since the start of 2018 and this Dodgers line-up is loaded with left-handed power that you can stack up. Joc Pederson (.319 ISO), Cody Bellinger (.272 ISO) and Max Muncy (.292 ISO) all have insanely high power output against RHP and all three have .280-.320 ISO marks against the splitter which is the primary pitch that Samardzija throws to lefties.

The Red Sox have the second highest IRT on the slate behind the Braves so Vegas is telling you that you have a logical pivot off the Braves in Fenway against RHP Frankie Montas. I believe in the talent of Montas but this is still an arm that struggles with lefties, giving up a .210 ISO mark against them since the start of 2018 with a 42.4% HC rate so loading up on some of the Red Sox lefties here with Andrew Benintendi, Mitch Moreland and Rafael Devers seems like the best way to attack Montas.

With the Dodgers and Red Sox lefties at the top of the list, I have one more mini stack of lefties and that is in New York with the Mets against RHP Tanner Roark. Roark is a simple DFS pitcher to breakdown, you use him when he faces a right-handed heavy team and stack left-handed bats against him as his .324 ISO and 45% HC rate to LHB this season suggests. With Robinson Cano likely to miss a few days, the trio of Michael Conforto, Jeff McNeil and Brandon Nimmo is your focus.

Last but not least – the Oakland A’s make for one of my favorite GPP stacks on the board alongside the Dodgers as both teams have mediocre 4-4.1 IRT which should keep the masses off them. Now LHP Eduardo Rodriguez is an arm that by the metrics is someone we do not want to pick on, as he has always done an exceptional job of limiting HC to RHB and generating a ton of ground balls.

However this A’s line-up absolutely took E-Rod to the woodshed once this season, hammering him with a 53% HC rate for 8 hits and 6 ER in 3.2 IP. In that game, Rodriguez relied heavily on his fastball, throwing it 67% of the time which was by far the most of any game this season and generated only a 6% swinging strike rate, again his lowest of any start this year.

I bring this up because the larger data set would tell us not to stack against E-Rod, but with a patient and powerful Oakland team, is it possible that they just match-up well with the Red Sox lefty? While he has been solid the last three starts, he was hit extremely out his first two outings, giving up 11 ER to the Mariners and A’s, so there is some stack potential here that may go overlooked.

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. 

More from FanSided

• Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
• NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
• 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
• Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
• Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet

SP: Zack Wheeler

SP: John Means

IF: Max Muncy

IF: Corey Seager

IF: Cody Bellinger

OF: Joc Pederson

OF: Khris Davis

OF: Stephen Piscotty

UTIL: Matt Chapman

UTIL: Michael Conforto

Slate Overview: At first glance this seems like a slate where my pitcher pool is limited to an SP1 choice of Verlander/Wheeler with Means as my SP2 while the offensive choices look plentiful and give us a ton of ways to attack this slate.

With what will likely be a chalky pitching pairing, pivoting with the bats feels like the best way to play this and rather than chase the Vegas totals with the Braves/Red Sox, I think you can drop down and get mid-range stack like the Dodgers and A’s who have similar power upside at cheaper price points.

Good luck tonight all!

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest MLB DFS news and analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.