MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – Tuesday, April 30 – How we Drew it up!
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.
Monday’s MLB DFS slate was all about nailing the right two arms and making sure you had a chalky cheap Jesus Aguilar who went off for 2 HR’s and a slate high 35 fantasy points. The winning GPP line-up in the $25 Home Run used a Justin Verlander/Manny Banuelos combination with a 6 man Red Sox stack and Aguilar to take down $1.5K on Monday Night to kick off their DFS week!
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 – Tuesday Pitching Breakdown:
We have a massive fifteen game MLB DFS slate on this Tuesday and from the looks of it, we have a ton of high-end pitching options with a few serious rain concerns to worry about with Minnesota/Houston, Baltimore/White Sox and Tampa Bay/Kansas City which puts two of those aces in Blake Snell and Gerrit Cole immediately at risk.
Even with those studs potentially off the slate, there is more than enough pitching to spend up for and with some serious value stacks (more on that later), I see no reason to bargain shop for arms here tonight.
Trevor Bauer ($21.5K) has everything we look for when paying up for an ace in cash games and in GPP’s with the high K upside and pitching in Marlins Park against a Miami lineup with a sub 3 IRT, he brings you the run prevention you look for with a cash game ace. Since the start of 2018, Bauer has a 30.4% K rate and 12.9% swinging strike rate and faces a Marlins projected lineup with a 26.3% K rate against RHP this season.
Bauer has gone for 20+ fantasy points in 5 of his first 6 starts, facing tough lineups like the Astros, Braves, Mariners and Twins however ironically enough his worst start came against the weakest line-up he faced this year in Detroit.
Now Bauer is coming off a start where he issued 6 walks, the second time he has done that this season, so there is “risk” but this projected line-up for Miami has a walk rate of only 7.8% this year and that excludes the impact of the pitcher batting 9th. Bauer is the perfect choice as an SP1 for safety and upside with the ballpark boost and match-up here this evening.
Walker Buehler ($19.5K) went through the minor leagues as a high K arm, broke onto the season in 2018 with an impressive 28% K rate and 11% swinging strike rate and was a popular breakout candidate in his first full season here in 2019.
So far however, that has not been the case as Buehler has scuffled with a sub 19% K rate and single digit swinging strike rate to start the year. There is nothing about the underlying pitch data that suggests this is anything more than a blip on the radar as his fastball velocity is actually up over last year and really the only difference in the data is that opposing hitters are swinging at 10% fewer pitches outside the zone while swinging at 8% more pitches inside the zone.
Buehler is throwing far less first pitch strikes this season, 52% versus 63% last year so the fact he is starting behind in the count, means he has to come into the zone more and would seem to support the fact he can get hitters to chase outside the zone less.
Three of his last four starts have come on the road against the Cubs, Cardinals and the Rockies in Coors Field with his start at home against the Reds being a dazzling one – an 8 K shutout for 32 fantasy points and that is the upside you are paying for here.
Buehler gets a massive pitchers park in San Francisco against one of the weakest lineups in baseball in the Giants which accounts for the premium we are paying but much like Bauer, you are getting a high K upside arm in an elite pitching environment/park against one of the worst offenses in baseball which gives him cash game safety and GPP upside.
Luis Castillo ($19.8K) does not have as easy of an opponent or as favorable of a ballpark, but his K upside rivals that of any arm on this slate and if Robinson Cano is out again it makes this Mets lineup that much more right-handed which plays into Castillo’s strengths. Since the start of 2018, Castillo has limited right-handed batters to a .113 ISO with a 25.4% K rate and this year has been even more dominant, to the tune of a .015 ISO, 60% GB rate and 28.4% K rate.
I think the point here – we have multiple high end aces tonight, all with massive K upside and with varying degrees of “ease of opponent” which makes paying for arms the ideal path at first glance.
MLB DFS – Building our Bats:
Paying up for not one but two arms may seem aggressive at first glance but there are value bats in elite spots tonight that make such a build relatively easy to do.
Let’s start in New York, where old friend Jason Vargas takes the mound against the Reds after trolling us in consecutive starts. Vargas on the season is giving up a 60% HC rate with .200+ ISO marks to hitters from both sides of the plate and after surrendering only 1 run to the Cardinals and Phillies in back to back starts, some may be hesitant to go back here, but I certainly am.
This Reds line-up has two batters in the middle of the order who can do some serious damage against Vargas with Eugenio Suarez and Yasiel Puig. Since the start of 2018, Suarez has a massive .289 ISO and 55% HC rate against LHP while Puig in a small sample this year is sporting a near .400 ISO mark against southpaws.
Vargas is essentially a two pitch pitcher to right-handed batters with a change-up and sinker he throws roughly 75% of the time – Suarez once again stands out with a .369 ISO mark against the sinker and .387 versus the change-up. At $8.5K Suarez is a premium bat that is not priced as such in this match-up and I would argue is one of the best bats on the entire slate.
The best part about Suarez and the Reds is the pricing of the stack – going up against arguably one of the worst pitchers on the slate and with only one player (Suarez) over $8K which means you can stack up guys like Puig, Joey Votto, Phillip Ervin, Jose Peraza etc without having to fork over a huge investment.
If you think the Reds are cheap, wait until you see the Dodgers.
Now, the Dodgers let me down last night against The Shark in San Francisco, but tonight against LHP Drew Pomeranz, I am happy to go right back to the well.
Pomeranz since the start of 2018 is giving up a .238 ISO to RHB and what do the Dodgers have the ability to do? Go super right-handed heavy with a team that despite its struggles so far in 2019, have 5 of their 8 projected hitters with .200+ ISO marks against LHP from 2017-2018.
There is not a single right-handed batter in this Dodgers line-up priced at $8K or above despite their resumes against LHP and let’s not act like this is Randy Johnson out there folks, this is Drew Pomeranz getting the Big Unit pricing.
Chris Taylor ($5.6K), A.J. Pollock ($6.3K), David Freese ($6.4K), Justin Turner ($7.3K) and Enrique Hernandez ($7.4K) are all dirt cheap here tonight and when comparing the back of the baseball cards, I would much prefer to stack up the Dodgers here at this price points than the Reds.
Note – Pollock is rumored to have an elbow infection which could send him to the I.L.
The fact that the Dodgers have a 3.9 IRT is going to keep people completely off the Dodgers here today. This sub 4 run total,which by the way is only better than the Mets versus Luis Castillo, Royals versus Blake Snell, Giants versus Walker Buehler and Marlins versus Trevor Bauer – is putting Pomeranz’s run prevention on par with the aces of the slate and although betting against Vegas isn’t usually a great long-term strategy, in this case I am willing to take my shot.
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.
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SP: Trevor Bauer
SP: Walker Buehler
IF: Eugenio Suarez
IF: Travis Shaw
IF: Justin Turner
OF: AJ Pollock
OF: Chris Taylor
UTIL: David Freese
UTIL: Cody Bellinger
Slate Overview: I remind folks in the intro to Picks and Pivots each day this is not a best picks column meant to simply point out the top plays but instead give you some thoughts on roster construction and pricing at first glance.
On a 15 game slate (possibly 12 with rain), there are obviously a ton of other routes you can go but what stands out to me here tonight is that we have the ability to take two of, if not the two best arms on the slate and stack up a struggling cheap offense that has as much upside and talent as any in baseball.
If this Dodgers game was happening say three weeks ago against a completely mediocre arm, there is basically no chance you could have stacked them up while grabbing two top arms in the same build but the recent struggles to start 2019 have made the Dodgers line-up far too cheap for the talent level.
You know what that sounds like – Jesus Aguilar yesterday. A talented power bat with a history of crushing LHP, going against a mediocre lefty at a dirt cheap price and how did that turn out?
The point is, I am buying the resume and the back of the baseball card here and despite what the early returns in 2019 and even Vegas are telling us tonight, I think we have the opportunity to stack one of the best offenses in baseball on the cheap. In fact in 2018 – the Dodgers hit the third most HR’s against LHP, ranking 5th in HC % and 9th in ISO – are you going to tell me the exact same roster isn’t capable of that again?
I am going to put my money on the fact they can…and will.
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