MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 4 – Where the Wind Blows
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 three game slate ended up being all about pitching with Walker Buehler (40) and Robbie Ray (23) putting up the top two raw point totals on the night, while the chalk pitcher Aaron Nola (80% plus ownership in GPP’s) was roughed up by Manny Machado and the Padres and ended the night with less than THREE total 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 – Tuesday Pitching Breakdown:
After a whacky little three gamer on Monday Night, we are back with our usual 15 game beast here on Tuesday and to start it off, our friends at FantasyDraft are bringing us another FREE ROLL with $400 of MLB DFS tickets up for grabs for Wednesday’s slate. FantasyDraft has some big things coming – now is the time to start building that bankroll!
The name of the game in MLB DFS is always strikeouts and tonight we have a handful of elite arms that is going to make paying up for high strikeout arms the #1 priority.
Stephen Strasburg ($22.4K) is the highest priced arm on the slate and will get a home start against the White Sox that essentially checks all the boxes for an SP1.
- Massive -260 home favorite – CHECK
- 2.96 IRT for White Sox which is a slate low – CHECK
- 31.3% K rate and 14.6% swinging strike rates on the season – CHECK
- White Sox strike out at a 26.3% clip against RHP this season, 2nd most in MLB – CHECK
Listen, we saw last night with Aaron Nola that the “can’t miss” spots will, well miss, from time to time in MLB but if you just look at the metrics for the Nationals right-hander here tonight, he seems to check all the boxes for cash games and has a GPP winning ceiling.
Blake Snell ($21.4K) sees all those impressive K metrics for Strasburg and is like, oh those are cute – care to look at my 34.9% K rate and 19.1% swinging strike rate? Snell will take on a Detroit Tigers team that has the 6th highest K rate in baseball against lefties (26.4%) and despite being on the road carries a massive -220 favorite tag of his own.
Whenever we have a slate like this where we have two elite K arms in “smash spots” (man I hate that term), the argument for me is not which to play, but rather how can I afford both?
Snell and Strasburg rank 2nd and 6th in K rate across baseball this season, while ranking 1st and 7th in swinging strike rate and will face two of the highest K opponents versus their handedness – which makes this a spot I think you simply prioritize and find a way to make the bats work as both arms here have 30-40 point ceilings.
MLB DFS – Building Our Bats:
If you have read Picks and Pivots for any amount of time, you know that whenever I argue for a dual aces build that the next stop on my build is to find the #FreeSquare value plays that unlock these kinds of top-heavy builds.
Enter Travis Shaw ($4.5K) who is one of the cheapest bats on the entire slate and has been re-activated off the IL for the Brew Crew. Against RHP Pablo Lopez in Miller Park, let’s not overlook the fact that Shaw has a .258 ISO mark against RHP since the start of last season and against Lopez’s primary pitches (change and sinker), Shaw has a .220+ ISO mark against both of those pitch type. Lock city.
So, two aces and a power punt play – now where?
What if I told you that you could stack up a team with one of the highest IRT, in a massive hitting environment alongside Snell/Strasburg? Yes, I am aware a salary cap exists in DFS wise guy.
The Chicago Cubs have a near 6 IRT as of this writing and it is no surprise with Jeff Hoffman on the hill opposing them in Wrigley were it will be 75 and have 12 MPH winds…blowing straight out. Every single batter in the Cubs projected line-up has a .190 or higher ISO mark this season and RHP while the Cubs as a team have a .200 ISO mark against RHP with 75 HR’s, which is 5th most in the league.
Jeff Hoffman in his career has been a reverse splits pitcher, with a 1.79 HR/9 rate to RHB and a .240 ISO to RHB since the start of 2018 so simply locking and loading the lefties here may be over-looking some lower owned pop from the right side. It has been a limited sample size this season, but against RHB, Hoffman is giving up a 45% fly ball rate, nearly double his GB rate and if that trend continues today with the wind blowing out in Wrigley – oh boy.
The obvious place to start whenever you stack the Cubs is with the big boys – Rizzo/Bryant etc, but you are going to need value to make that work and there is some new value in Chicago with Carlos Gonzalez ($6.4K) who was inserted into the 5th spot yesterday for the Cubbies and if he has that kind of lineup spot today, I am all over CarGo.
Speaking of cheap plays with good lineup spots – Kyle Schwarber ($7.4K) in the lead-off spot has a .242 ISO mark against RHP since the start of 2018 and the curve that Hoffman throws nearly 30% of the time to LHB – well Schwarbs has a .241 ISO and 50% HC rate against that pitch type.
As much as you may want Rizzo/Bryant – I think you can build an interesting bottom of the order/wrap-around stack with the Cubs today, stacking 4-8 and bringing it back with Shwarber in the #1 hole. Javier Baez, Carlos Gonzalez, Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward and Addison Russell proved yesterday they can pay off as a stack as this group plus Kyle Schwarber accounted for all 8 of the Cubs runs against the Angels.
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: Stephen Strasburg
SP: Blake Snell
IF: Travis Shaw
IF: Javier Baez
IF: Willson Contreras
OF: Carlos Gonzalez
OF: Kyle Schwarber
OF: Jason Heyward
UTIL: Addison Russell
UTIL: Danny Jansen ($4.2K available)
Slate Overview: Pitching is going to be the name of this slate and I think you need to find ways to invest in high K arms with raw point potential. Sure, the high-end arms can bust as we have seen on countless slate this year but I am willing to side with the stats and match-ups here when prioritizing Snell and Strasburg.
Any time I have a slate like this, my first stop after locking in the arms is to head to FantasyLabs MLB lineup page so I can toggle on pricing and see what stacks/players fit within my player pool. Personally, I like to let pricing dictate my builds especially since I only play on one DFS site (FantasyDraft) – I am not worried about the pricing on FanDuel or DraftKings so I can narrow in a bit more.
As such, you can start with someone like Shaw and then figure out which stacks in the $7K range fit for you which is exactly how I landed on the Cubbies here today. Obviously it will take more than just Shaw to make this work (in this case I used Danny Jansen as a true punt) but there is a path here to a 6 man Cubs stack with the wind blowing out in Wrigley – all while locking in the two best arms.
Let’s roll baby!
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