FanDuel MLB Main Slate Breakdown – Pay up at Pitcher?

FanDuel MLB: Main Slate Breakdown

Good morning, MLB DFS grinders and welcome to a special Saturday morning article from me, Thunder Dan! Welcome to the FanDuel MLB Main Slate Breakdown! You may know me from my FanDuel NBA breakdowns or MLB DFS Pitching Primers, but today I wanted to give you my take on tonight’s 5-game MLB main slate on FanDuel.

A 5-game main slate is relatively small compared to a typical MLB slate, but just big enough to give us enough options to feel pretty good about a cash game lineup and some spots where we can get contrarian for tournaments. I’ll have some thoughts on both pitchers and hitters for both your cash game and GPP rosters today.

On a one-pitcher site like FanDuel, I almost always recommend paying up for a higher-priced ace pitcher in cash games. It doesn’t have to be the highest priced pitcher, just someone with a solid track record of consistency, a good matchup, and good Vegas odds to win. Strikeouts are certainly helpful, too! Let’s take a look and see who checks all those boxes with tonight’s cash game ace!

FanDuel MLB: Cash Game Ace

Max Scherzer (11.7k) vs. San Diego

Mad Max is a no-brainer on this slate in cash games in my opinion, and he will likely be the chalk on the slate. But it’s certainly for good reason, as he’s checking all the boxes for what we want out of a cash game pitcher.

He is coming off his best outing of the season, in which he struck out 15 Reds over 8 innings and refused to come out of the game in the 8th inning when his manager came out to get him (if you didn’t watch the video, go ahead and google it now…I’ll wait.)

Max has the best strikeout rate (33%) on the slate and has been tough on righties this season as he usually is. He’ll face a Padres team that will send 6-7 righties to the plate today and have the highest strikeout rate this season on the slate at 27%.

The Padres have some power in their lineup, but Mad Max has the type of strikeout upside that can survive a solo homer or two and you certainly don’t want to be without him in your lineup if he goes completely nuts like he did in his last start when he racked up 76 FanDuel points!

You can pivot in tournaments, but play Max in cash! Speaking of pivots, let’s see what other pitchers I’m interested in for GPPs tonight.

FanDuel MLB: Pitching Pivots

Rich Hill (10k) @ San Francisco

Hill is 1700 less than Mad Max tonight and is a great spot here against the Giants. Like Max, he’s also in great form, coming off 7 shutout innings against the Phillies with 9 strikeouts in a 58 FanDuel point performance.

Hill has been excellent over his last four starts, allowing only 3 earned runs over the course of his last 25 innings, while racking up 32 strikeouts in that stretch. Meanwhile, the Giants have been dominated by left-handed pitching recently.

They actually fared a little better against Clayton Kershaw last night (7 innings, 2 runs) than they did against Mets lefty Jason Vargas, who tossed a complete game shutout against them on Thursday night.

The Giants have the lowest implied team total on this slate, lowest wOBA, and second lowest ISO as a team. I expect Hill to handle the Giants, and if the strikeouts are there he could even match Mad Max in raw points at the pitcher position.

Jon Gray (8.4k) @ New York Mets

Jon Gray is a little dicier of an option tonight considering he had this start bumped back after he felt like a blister may be developing on his throwing hand. But I certainly still have interest in the hard-throwing Rockies’ righty here against a very average Mets offense on the road.

Gray is coming off a great start against Toronto in which he went 6.2 scoreless innings and struck out 7 Blue Jays in Coors. He gets a major park upgrade here at Citi Field and faces a Mets lineup that has mediocre at best this season.

Gray dominates righties and the only lefties he will see today will be Michael Conforto, Robinson Cano (is he actually healthy) and singles-hitter Jeff McNeil. I love his strikeout potential as his 25% K rate (30% to RHH) matches up well with the Mets 24% whiff rate.

FanDuel MLB: Cash Core Bats

Nolan Arenado (4.3k)

Arenado would be 5k if this game were being played at Coors. He will face Stephen Matz on the hill for the Mets, a pitcher who he has 4 career home runs off in only 14 at-bats. Even if you’re not a BvP truther, you have to admit that’s pretty impressive.

If you’re into pitch type stats instead, consider that Matz throws a sinker 56% percent of the time and Arenado has a massive .496 ISO against that pitch type over the last two seasons. He’s my priority spend in cash games after Mad Max.

Omar Narvaez (2.5k)

Does anyone play catchers on FanDuel anymore? Well, I do. Especially when it’s a catcher that is hitting .282 with 9 homers and batting cleanup for a team with a 4.6 run implied run total against a young pitcher.

Dillon Peters takes the hill for the Angels tonight and he’s had his struggles with keeping the ball in the ballpark during his few short MLB stints and has shown some reverse splits with lefties hitting him harder. The price is too good to pass up on Narvaez here, as I am looking for hitters under 3k to use with Mad Max.

David Fletcher (3.2k)

I love that Fletcher is now a SS on FanDuel instead of third base. He usually leads off against lefties and has been great at getting on base (.363 OBP) ahead of Mike Trout and the other power hitters in the middle of the Angels lineup. He rarely strikes out (6.7%) and has 5 stolen bases on the year.

Other values under 3k to consider:

Mallex Smith, Brian Dozier, Jose Martinez, Harrison Bader, Ian Desmond, Jurickson Profar, Kurt Suzuki

FanDuel MLB: GPP Stacks

L.A. Dodgers vs. Jeff Samardzija

I have a thing for using Dodgers lefties against bad righties. The Dodgers stack is expensive, but Pederson-Muncy-Bellinger-Seager is one of the most dangerous quartets of lefties in all of MLB.

Samardzija is allowing a .304 wOBA, .212 ISO, and 51% fly ball rate to lefties this season. Meanwhile, the Dodgers lefties have an average ISO of .318 between them, with Joc Pederson‘s .426 leading the way.

St. Louis Cardinals vs. Jon Lester

In order to maintain your position as an MLB DFS contributor here at FantasyCPR, you must recommend stacking against Jon Lester, otherwise, @2locksports will fire you.

Just kidding! I love picking on Lester, too. And today is a great day to do it with the Cardinals and their right-handed heavy lineup. Lester has pitched well at times this season, including in his last outing against the Angels, however, I will continue to attack him as his xFIP is nearly a run higher than his ERA and he is allowing 42% hard contact to righties.

The Cards have big-time power in their lineup with Goldschmidt, DeJong, and Ozuna being the big three. There could be some nice value in that stack, too, depending on where Harrison Bader or Jose Martinez hit.

Washington Nationals vs. Eric Lauer

Eric Lauer is a mediocre lefty who happens to be facing a Nats team that has some elite hitters against left-handed pitching. Anthony Rendon has been well-known for being a lefty-masher throughout his career and his .341 ISO this season reflects that. Juan Soto is also a great lefty-lefty hitter who I love using against lefties at low ownership.

But my favorite way to stack the Nats tonight is to use hitters 5-8 with righties Howie Kendrick, Brian Dozier, Kurt Suzuki, and Victor Robles being more affordable than Rendon/Soto/Turner trio.

FanDuel MLB: Sample Lineup and Overview

Here’s where I’d like to summarize things for you and give you my thoughts on roster construction for tonight’s slate. I’m tossing in a sample lineup today, too, so that you can see my thought process as I build my cash game lineup.

For cash games, I’m plugging in Max Scherzer and Nolan Arenado and then using players around 3k or cheaper who are in good lineup spots and have positive matchups to fill out my cash game build, including Fletcher and Narvaez. Today’s sample lineup is a cash game build that reflects that strategy.

P: Max Scherzer

C/1B: Omar Narvaez

2B: Jurickson Profar

3B: Nolan Arenado

SS: David Fletcher

OF: Mallex Smith

OF: Ian Desmond

OF: Jose Martinez

UTIL: Brian Dozier

In GPPs, I love the idea of using Jon Gray as a way to fit in a four-man Dodgers stack. The pitching options below Gray are all pretty dicey, but I can’t really blame anyone for trying to ride a red-hot Adrian Sampson if you wanted to. With three good pitchers at the top, though, you better be right about your GPP pitcher of you’re going to be chasing most of the field if they flop.

Thanks for reading my MLB DFS Breakdown for FanDuel and keep coming back to FantasyCPR for the best DFS content for MLB and all of your other favorite fantasy sports! Hit me up on Twitter @ThunderDanDFS with any questions and feedback!