MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 1 – It’s The First of the Month

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 night’s MLB DFS slate was a wild one as the chalk Rockies stack erupted for 13 runs behind Trevor Story’s 2 HR, 7 RBI, slate leading 49 fantasy point outing. While no pitchers “broke the slate” with a whopping 15 pitchers putting up 19-25 fantasy points, there were more than enough mid-range arms that put up strong performances and allowed you to stack up the high scoring bats on a night where winning GPP scores pushed over 200 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.

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 – Early Slate Pitching Breakdown:

We have a 6 game Early Slate that kicks off at 2:10 PM EST with the Indians/White Sox – we have 8 of the 12 teams with 5+ IRT’s and a whole lot of nice weather which should make today’s MLB DFS action one that favors the hitters.

With so many offenses projected to put up big time numbers, that is making finding two pitchers on this slate a tough ask. There are two clear options that also happen to be the two most expensive – Mike Soroka ($21.4K) and Brandon Woodruff ($19.8K) – and you can make the argument that the smart play on this slate is to simply lock in the two largest favorites against two teams with 3 IRT’s.

Soroka has gone for 20+ fantasy points in five of his eight starts in 2019, and will face a right-handed heavy Tigers team that has a 26.2% K rate against RHP this season. Soroka has given up a .027 ISO to RHB this season with a massive 65% GB rate – making this a strong run prevention spot with solid K upside.

Woodruff has a 29.1% K rate in 2019 along with a 11.9% swinging strike rate, the highest marks of any arm on this early slate. Woodruff will get a massive ballpark boost, pitching against the Pirates in PNC Park and with 3 (4 with the pitcher) right-handed batters in the projected line-up, it gives Woodruff some added K equity due to his 31% K rate against RHB on the season.

We have seen time and time again this season that paying up for pitching has backfired (see Patrick Corbin last night) so this is not a risk-free roster build but I really do not believe we have viable pivots off Soroka/Woodruff today. Tanner Roark and Lance Lynn are the only other two arms on the early slate with a higher than 20% K rate but at $18.8K and $19.4K, we are not getting any real discount off Soroka or Woodruff specifically that makes pivoting to them (in worse match-ups) a great scenario.

Simply, I think you play this slate straight – get Soroka and Woodruff and find the value bats to make it work.

MLB DFS – Early Slate Hitting:

After the Orioles-Giants fireworks last night in Camden Yards, I expect the cheap Giants/O’s stacks to be a popular pairing with Soroka/Woodruff but there are far more talented offenses on this slate that I think you need to prioritize. Do you really want to play a chalky Pablo Sandoval/Brandon Belt stack?

The Reds get a match-up against Nationals RHP Erick Fedde who has only been able to go 5 innings in each of his last two spot starts which means we can attack Fedde early and arguably the worst bullpen in baseball once he leaves. The hitting environment today in Great American Ball Park is elite – we have 80-85 degree weather with 7 MPH winds blowing out with 50% humidity meaning this Cincy offense is one that I think could break the slate.

The greatest power hitter in the history of Major League Baseball – Derek Dietrich ($10K) is a absolute lock for another 3 HR game here (OK I am kidding), but he and the rest of the lefties in this Reds line-up have an ideal match-up against Fedde who is surrendering over a .200 ISO to LHB in 2019 and with only a 14% K rate and single digit SWSTR rate, Fedde simply doesn’t have the ability to miss bats which in this ballpark could be a huge issue. A full 1-6 stack here is my preferred approach with Nick Senzel, Joey Votto, Yasiel Puig, Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez all providing significant pop.

This season – Winker, Suarez and Dietrich all have .200+ ISO marks against RHP while every single one of the top six has a 35% or higher HC rate – if Fedde struggles early and you get into this Nats bullpen, you could be looking at a double-digit run type outing in one of the bets hitting parks on the slate.

MLB DFS – Sample Lineup and Slate Overview – Early:

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: Mike Soroka

SP: Brandon Woodruff

IF: Jeff Mathis

IF: Eugenio Suarez

IF: Joey Votto

OF: Derek Dietrich

OF: Jesse Winker

OF: Nick Senzel

UTIL: Yasiel Puig

UTIL: Cam Gallagher

Slate Overview: The early slate seems really straight forward when it comes to pitching with Soroka/Woodruff being the only pairing I feel really good about and I think offense is where you need to differentiate.

While the Giants/Orioles may provide great salary relief – it is hard to stack those bats when you have power lineups like the Reds, Brewers, Rangers etc all available so in cases like this, I am willing to take 1-2 true punts (ie. Jeff Mathis at $3.9K) to get a far more talented offense like the Reds as my primary stack.

MLB DFS – Main Slate Breakdown:

The Main Slate on Saturday is LOADED with pitching and any time I see a slate like this my goal is to get multiple high-end K arms and in this instance my gut reaction was to find a way to get both Justin Verlander AND Jacob deGrom into my builds.

With that context of paying up for both arms, you are going to need to find a value stack and that is where my favorite stack in MLB DFS comes into play – the Los Angeles Dodgers against LHP Cole Irvin and the Phillies.

Any time the Dodgers plays a lefty, they become a 1-6 stack for me as the value of guys like Enrique Hernandez, Chris Taylor and David Freese help to balance out the high priced lefty mashers like Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy.

Irvin has some extreme reverse splits this season – giving up a .294 ISO and 64% HC rate to LHB but keep in mind that is only over 19 PA’s. Every single batter in the top 6 of the Dodgers line-up has a .200+ ISO against LHP this season and you can stack all of them while still paying up for two elite arms.

Going with this build is going to mean finding 1-2 punt plays around $5K but there are absolutely options in this range including Starlin Castro ($5.5K) or Danny Jansen ($4.9K) who is a punt catcher playing in Coors – how many times can we find this kind of value in Colorado?

Enjoy the slate all!

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest MLB DFS news and analysis each and every day! See you back here on Monday for more Picks and Pivots.