MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 24 – Regression is Thy Name

Welcome to the Monday 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.

Welcome back to Picks and Pivots as after a nice long weekend getaway to the beach with the family, I am back and ready to dive into some MLB DFS. As we approach the All-Star Break the week of July 9th, now is a good time to really dive into DFS ahead of the league mandated break where you can evaluate what is working, what is not and give yourself some time to clear your head.

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 – Monday Pitching Breakdown:

We have a 7 game MLB DFS slate here tonight to kick off the work week and with rain concerns in the Indians/Royals game, this could become a 6 game slate before we know it which means a whole lot of concentrated ownership and some interesting game theory we can put into play.

Lucas Giolito ($22.8K) is the clear-cut top K arm on this slate but as a road underdog (+170) heading into Fenway Park against the Red Sox, there are some red flags in paying a premium for him today especially when you consider he is coming off his worst outing of 2019 with 6 ER’s in only 4.1 innings against the Cubs.

The metrics have been outstanding for Giolito this season with a slate high 30.9% K rate and 14.6% swinging strike rate and over the last 30 days his 34.6% K rate is 5th best in baseball behind only names like Sale, Cole, Scherzer and Buehler.

Now the Red Sox are not a high K team with a 21% K rate against RHP in their projected line-up and Giolito had one of his lowest fantasy outings in his only start against Boston earlier this season with 14 DK points, giving up 7 hits, 3 ER although striking out 7 batters.

Considering the opponent and the recency bias, Giolito actually feels like a contrarian play on this slate where I think if folks are looking for pitching, they will side with his opponent – Eduardo Rodriguez – who has a 25% K rate over the last 30 days which ranks 24th in baseball during that time period.

E-Rod will likely end up a popular step down arm against a K heavy White Sox line-up and considering he has gone for 20+ fantasy points in 4 of his last 5 outings, it is hard to argue with his cash game viability on this small slate as the second largest Vegas favorite against a White Sox team with a IRT under 4. The K upside is absolutely there as well considering this White Sox projected line-up has a 26.6% K rate against LHP since the start of 2018 and really my only concern with E-Rod is the ownership being far too high and we have seen how chalk E-Rod has worked out before.

Jon Gray feels like the other “safe” mid-range play here with his K upside and plus match-up on the road in San Francisco against a weak Giants line-up but this match-up has not exactly provided the ceiling most would expect the last two seasons. Gray has made three road starts in San Francisco since the start of 2018 and only once did Gray manage to even reach double-digit fantasy points with two starts resulting in 5 ER’s while only making it a total of 7.2 IP.

The E-Rod/Gray  mid-range pairing today feels like a popular route for cash games but in GPP’s I think you can really swerve off the field here today and go high/low with Giolito as an SP1 and even double up on your leverage by going with Giolito and Drew Pomeranz as the direct opposition.

There are not many times I would write-up Drew Pomeranz but this is actually setting up quite nicely for him as he gets the Rockies outside of Coors Field with Trevor Story on the IL. Pomeranz has been strong this season at home with a 26.3% K rate and an elevated 43% GB rate while only giving up 28% HC and has put up 20+ fantasy points in two of his last three home starts against the Brewers and Dodgers.

With Pomeranz being one of the cheapest arms on the slate at only $12.7K and the proven ability to get 20+ fantasy points, he could end up as an elite point per dollar play on this slate at low ownership with everyone flocking to Gray on the other side. With the pricing now out on FantasyDraft – you can go high/low with Giolito and Pomeranz and still have over $8K per batter for the rest of your line-up which feels like a great place to start your GPP builds.

MLB DFS – Building Our Bats:

No, its not my birthday today but it sure feels that way as we get Jon Lester and Julio Teheran in the Regression Derby in Wrigley Field with the wind blowing straight out at 14 MPH. Hello beautiful.

The regression train hit Mr. Teheran hard in his last outing against the Mets when very few people were really targeting bats against him but after giving up 6 ER in 4 innings, and with a game total here today of TWELVE in Wrigley Field, this is going to be a popular stacking spot. Teheran ranks in the bottom five in xFIP and SIERA among qualified pitchers with 5+ marks for both and even after a Met induced beat-down last game, his E-F ratio remains at -1, meaning his ERA sits a full run lower than his FIP which tells you regression remains in the outlook.

It is going to be a popular place to start but that 1-5 Cubs stack looks mighty juicy here today with every single hitter sporting a .200+ ISO mark against RHP this season which puts Kyle Schwarber, Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez and Willson Contreras among the top stacking options on the board.

When you factor in pricing – the Cubs stack becomes even more appealing as guys like Schwarber ($7.2K) and Baez ($8K) feel insanely under-priced and you can expand a stack to cheap OF bats like Jason Heyward ($6.7K) and Carlos Gonzalez ($5.5K) for added salary savings.

On the other side of this game, Mr. Regression himself – my arch-nemesis Jon Lester takes the hill against a red-hot Braves team with a .200+ ISO against LHP this season which ranks firmly inside the top 10 in baseball.

Lester has given up a 43% HC rate and .215 ISO to RHB this season and there are five RHB in this Braves line-up with .200+ ISO marks against lefties since the start of 2018 with Ronald Acuna Jr., Ozzie Albies, Josh Donaldson, Austin Riley and Tyler Flowers all sporting that mark while Freddie Freeman has a .241 ISO mark of his own in the L/L match-up to round out any stack.

The game stack here in this game is going to be a priority GPP target for me today with two blow-up prone arms that the metrics tell us to stack against and with possibly the most extreme hitting conditions on the slate with the wind blowing straight out at Wrigley – yeah, you know where my hitting core is going to be built!

Sample Line-Up 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: Lucas Giolito

SP: Drew Pomeranz

IF: Anthony Rizzo

IF: Willson Contreras

IF: Javier Baez

OF: Kris Bryant

OF: Kyle Schwarber

OF: Jason Heyward

UTIL: Ronald Acuna Jr.

UTIL: $6.2K one off

Slate Overview – With pricing now out, I wanted to add in a sample lineup page just to see what a high/low build at pitcher with a 6 man Cubs stack could look like.

Frankly, it feels you are working towards a build in GPP’s that has a massive ceiling as you are anchoring to the highest K arm and arguably the best stack on the slate. Keep an eye on the weather in Cleveland and also stay tuned to my Twitter (@2LockSports) where I will post updated thoughts as we get closer to lock – thanks for reading all!

Enjoy the slate all and we will see you back here on Tuesday for more MLB DFS!

Stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all the latest MLB DFS news and analysis each and every day across FantasyDraft, FanDuel and DraftKings.