MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – May 31 – Rocky Mountain High
Welcome to the Friday 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.
Thursday’s MLB DFS slate was a rare night in this season where paying up for pitching actually paid off as Hyun-Jin Ryu and Charlie Morton were two of the top three scoring plays on the entire slate while the Brewers, Rays and White Sox went off for double-digit runs with Mike Moustakas being the slate breaker with 2 HR’s and 38 fantasy points.
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 – Friday Slate Breakdown:
Before we get into this monster Friday MLB DFS slate, our friends at FantasyDraft have another $400 FREE ROLL to kick off your weekend which is something they have been doing for the last two weeks each day – if you have not yet started playing on FantasyDraft, this is the perfect opportunity to play and win money to pad your bankroll on what I believe is the best player experience in the industry.
Normally we start our slate breakdown with the arms, but on this slate I am going to take a bit of a different approach and work backwards, focusing in on hitters first, specifically what we do with the Colorado Rockies and Coors Field today.
The weather in Colorado is finally warming up with temperatures around 70 degrees and with RHP Edwin Jackson taking the hill for Toronto, well, there is a reason the Rockies have a 7+ IRT which is going to stand out more than anything on this slate.
Jackson is everything you want to stack against – a 5+ xFIP, low K rate, gives up nearly 40% HC and 45% medium contact with a .220+ ISO mark to RHB. Jackson’s last two starts against San Diego and Boston have resulted in 4 HR’s and 12 ER in only 9 innings of work – so yeah, you see where this is going.
The Rockies projected line-up has four hitters at the top with .200+ ISO marks against right-handed pitching since the start of 2018 and considering the Rockies are in the midst of a home stand, after a game yesterday against Arizona where they combined for 21 runs, this is a spot where Coors could Coors and you are going to want exposure.
Telling you to stack the Rockies is not going to be sneaky but I also think within the context of this slate, it may not garner crazy ownership either. We have 15 games on the slate without any weather issues, 6 pitchers on FantasyDraft priced over $18K and with Texas, Cleveland, KC and Atlanta all having 5+ IRT’s, there are certainly pivots.
My take here is simple – you are either all in or all out with the Rockies tonight. They are either your first stop core or you utilize a massive 15 game slate to pivot and play variance. If you want to go here – you don’t just stack the top 3-4, you take advantage on FantasyDraft of the 6 man stacking ability and go right down the line – Raimel Tapia, Trevor Story, David Dahl, Nolan Arenado, Daniel Murphy and Ryan McMahon.
Coors is the first decision point for you on this slate so start there and then move on in your builds.
MLB DFS – Backing into your Pitchers:
I mentioned this earlier but this slate is loaded with top end arms – but with the context of stacking Coors, unfortunately it will mean passing on those pricey options. If you want to go that route – my dude Thunder Dan does an awesome job in today’s Pitching Primer of breaking down the top priced arms and sorting through the best plays so I would recommenced you give that a read.
Now, going back to a Coors Stack – if you opt to go this route, you are likely going to need to drop down at pitching and absorb some risk, but there are two arms in particular that stand out to me as GPP plays if you want to pay for bats.
Player X – What if I told you there was a pitcher who ranked 5th on the slate in terms of K rate and swinging strike percentage but was priced 20th of the 30 available arms on this slate? Would you like a top 5 K arm for a bargain price?
What if I told you this player had a higher K rate than Brad Peacock, Zach Wheeler, Joey Lucchesi and German Marquez and a higher swinging strike rate than Patrick Corbin and Trevor Bauer? Would you be interested in that kind of arm who also happens to be priced right above Andrew Cashner?
Come on down Yu Darvish ($13.6K).
Now before you say – Yu crazy or Yu are an idiot or insert your own Yu pun here – just play this out.
Darvish has double-digit K upside and he has struck out at least 7 in six of his last eight starts so there is no doubt the upside is there at tis price point. Conversely, this is an arm with a 15% walk rate and a 5+ ERA so I understand the skepticism especially since he just gave up 12 hits and 6 ER his last start against the Reds.
Two starts prior to that, Darvish faced the same Reds team in Great American Ballpark and struck out 11 while not walking a single batter, so to say he is a GPP option would be accurate with his wide range of outcomes.
Ben Clemens at FanGraphs did an exceptional deep dive on Darvish’s inconsistent 2019 and if you plan on using him today or want to get a jump on him for another start, I highly recommend this read.
Ultimately after reading that article, you come away with a mixed conclusion – perfectly reasonable for Darvish because he has simultaneously been awful and good in the same week – but there are enough data points in the underlying numbers to put him on our GPP radar. The ground ball rate at near 50% is the highest of his career and his K rate and SWSTR rate’s are right in line with his career numbers and among the best of the arms on this slate.
The simple story is when he walks guys, things go south quickly and the HR’s follow. Nothing earth shattering there – so maybe this is a spot we wait and see the umpire data in the hopes Darvish gets a favorable pitcher’s umpire.
As far as the match-up with the Cardinals, this is a right-handed heavy line-up which would align well with Darvish’s 28% K rate to RHB in 2019 – he has induced 51% GB’s and only 29% HC rates to right-handed bats – again, metrics that on the surface we would normally be all over.
The name, the game logs, the walk rate, all of these things are going to keep people away however this is one of the cheaper arms on the slate and one with double-digit K upside. In my mind, he is the ideal GPP play alongside the Rockies – you either get a strike throwing K machine or your night is over early – either way Yu look at it (see what I did there).
MLB DFS – Another Bargain Arm:
For much of the same reason I can make the argument for Yu Darvish, you could drop down even further to Tyler Mahle ($12.2K) with much of the same logic.
Mahle has a 25.2% K rate in 2019, a mark that would rank 8th of the arms on this slate right between Zack Wheeler and Joey Lucchesi and while he has had some low floor starts this year, the far majority of his outings have been strong.
In 10 starts this season, Mahle has gone for 18 or more fantasy points SEVEN times. That is the same number of 18+ fantasy point outings as Patrick Corbin (who has 11 starts), and it is one more than Chris Sale has registered this year in his 11 starts.
Now simply looking at fantasy points and game logs is never a recipe for stand alone success but I do think it is interesting to see the consistent level of success that Mahle has had and yet he is the 8th cheapest arm on a slate with 30 of em going.
Mahle is a pitcher who has some extreme splits with a 31% K rate to RHB versus only an 18% mark to LHB but against a Nationals team with 5 of their 8 projected hitters (less the pitcher) all hitting from the right side, this could be a match-up for Mahle to succeed in once again. The projected Nats line-up has a 24.3% K rate against RHP so there is some solid K potential for Mahle who will likely be completely over-looked with most looking at Patrick Corbin in the same game.
MLB DFS – Slate Overview and Sample Lineup:
Please note this sample lineup is meant to be illustrative only and should not be used as a plug and play line-up:
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SP: Yu Darvish
SP: Tyler Mahle
Nolan Arenado
Trevor Story
Daniel Murphy
Raimel Tapia
David Dahl
Ryan McMahon
$8K/batter for two one-offs
Slate Overview: If you walk into this slate with the Rockies as your priority, it is going to mean paying down at pitcher so rather than spend a ton of time over thinking the Rockies bats, you are likely better off diving into the bargain arms you want to use.
As Thunder Dan wrote in his Pitching Primer, I think someone like Danny Duffy is a viable GPP option but even cheaper you can go down to arms like Darvish and Mahle and you not only can easily afford Coors, but you also have $8K per player for the last two hitters on your roster. At this price point, you can find guys like Bryce Harper, Jose Ramirez, Alex Bregman, Rhys Hoskins and Vlad Guerrero Jr in his first trip to Coors.
The point being, you can load up on bats in a variety of ways and get maximum exposure to Coors. It will mean taking on some risk at pitcher, but Yu know I am always down for that.
dark. Next. MLB DFS Pitching Primer - Friday May 31
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