MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 16 – Happy Padres Day!
Welcome to the Sunday 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.
Happy Fathers Day to all the MLB DFS players out there – I hope you get to spend this day celebrating all the great Dad’s in your lives and if you are a Dad yourself – then it feels like a great day to grab an extra cup of coffee and build some DFS lineups and start your day out the way you want to.
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 – Sunday Pitching Breakdown:
In looking at this Sunday Main Slate on FantasyDraft what jumps out to me right away is the fact that we have two clear elite arms at the top in ideal match-ups that conveniently sit at price points that will allow us to still chase upside with our bats.
Trevor Bauer ($21.1K) is the highest priced arm on the slate and the only one above $20K of all the pitchers available. Now, while Bauer has not necessarily performed like a $20K arm thus far in 2019, this match-up against Detroit is one where I think we could see a vintage ceiling game from the Indians right-hander.
Bauer on the season has significant splits, with 29.7% K rate against right-handed batters which is 9% higher than his mark against lefties while his ISO drops to .149 and his GB rate spikes to 45%. The fact that this Tigers line-up will likely only have 2-3 lefties at most would seem to set up perfectly for Bauer and when you factor in that Detroit strikes out at the 2nd highest mark against RHP in 2019 (26.1%) – this becomes a spot on a weak pitching slate where the match-up alone seemingly makes paying for Bauer a strong investment.
James Paxton ($18.4K) is the top-tier pivot off Bauer but with how this slate breaks down, I can and will argue that he makes for the ideal SP2 to pair with Bauer as you can get another elite K arm in a favorable match-up.
Paxton’s 30.9% K rate in 2019 leads all available arms here today and after a rough outing his last time out against the Mets, it has dropped his price to a level I think we need to enforce against a K heavy White Sox squad. Paxton has proven this season he has double-digit K upside with 30-40 fantasy point upside and you are getting him at the lowest price he has been since the end of April.
There is some risk with both of these top arms – rain risk in Detroit for Bauer and the recent form since coming off the IL with Paxton – but when you start digging into lineup construction, I think you will notice pretty quickly that the $7.5K per batter you have to build your bats allows you to build strong hitting builds around the two arms I feel most confident in on this slate.
MLB DFS – Building Our Bats:
With the context of going double barrel aces, we are going to be shopping in the mid-range in our bats so that will mean having to step away from the high-priced offenses like the Yankees and Twins with 5-6 IRT’s on this slate.
The one game that jumps out to me offensively today is the Mets-Cardinals where we have a pitcher friendly umpire, 80 degree temperatures and 13 MPH winds blowing straight out at Citi Field.
RHP Dakota Hudson is a pretty simple pitcher to attack as he has significant traditional splits, allowing a massive .241 ISO to left-handed batters with a 40% HC rate so right away bats like Jeff McNeil and Michael Conforto but do not forget about Pete Alonso in a three-man stack for the Mets who has a team high .290 ISO and 41% fly ball rate against RHP this season. From a pitch type perspective, Hudson relies roughly 50% of the time on his sinker and that is a pitch that Conforto specifically just smashes – to the tune of a .384 ISO and 46% HC rate.
The Cardinals side of this game is certainly one you could argue for either way considering how strong LHP Jason Vargas has been in recent turns, but with a right-handed heavy lineup that seems far too cheap considering the talent – I think St. Louis could be the stack that breaks this slate.
Look up and down this Cardinals line-up and they have lefty mashing bats all over the place with guys like Matt Carpenter, Paul DeJong, Marcell Ozuna, Harrison Bader and Jose Martinez all over .200+ ISO marks this season while Paul Goldschmidt has a team high .247 ISO mark against southpaws since the start of 2018.
Vargas relies heavily on his sinker to right-handed hitters and 6 of the projected hitters in this line-up have ISO marks of .200+ against that pitch type. Now let’s be real for a second – Vargas has been very strong this season, now having gone four straight starts without allowing a HR and also limited this same Cardinals team to only 1 ER in their earlier meeting but with a right-handed heavy power line-up in these hitting conditions and a terrible Mets bullpen behind him – I think this is a spot where the Cardinals can pay off in a big way with Ozuna being the only bat over $9K.
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.
More from FanSided
- Thunder projected lineup and rotations heading into 2023-24 season
- NWSL Challenge Cup news: Courage ruthless against Washington, Racing remain perfect
- 2023 Women’s World Cup: Ary Borges and Brazil showed the entire world what they are about
- Trea Turner’s rough season goes from bad to worse
- Brewers attempt to troll Elly De La Cruz backfires 456 feet
SP: Trevor Bauer
SP: James Paxton
IF: Paul Goldschmidt
IF: Paul DeJong
IF: Jeff McNeil
OF: Marcell Ozuna
OF: Michael Conforto
OF: Jose Martinez
UTIL: Pete Alonso
UTIL: Jason Kipnis
Slate Overview: The pricing structure today is leading me towards a build where I can pay up for the two best arms on the slate in Paxton and Bauer and still load up bats with power – focused specifically on the Cardinals/Mets where we have ideal hitting conditions in Citi Field. The key is finding the value to make it work – and Sunday’s always become a great punt day as backups give the regulars a day off – however we may not even have to go that cheap with Jason Kipnis at only $4.5K which is basically a #FreeSquare for a hitter of his caliber.
Enjoy the day all – Happy Father’s Day!
Next. Fantasy Football Dynasty League Rookie Draft. dark
Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest MLB DFS news and analysis across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.