MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 25 – Old Blue Eye
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.
Not even hurricane force winds blowing out to CF and a top offense against left-handed pitching could stop Jon Freakin Lester from being the top arm on Monday’s MLB DFS slate – and you all wonder why I have such an extreme love/hate relationship with this dude. Funny thing is – I looked back at my sample lineup yesterday (which of course I changed slightly before lock) and had I just stayed put with my gut look, I would have had a top 10 finish in the $25 GPP on FantasyDraft with a 6 man Cubs stack alongside Pomeranz/Giolito – but hey, let’s chalk this up to a valuable lesson that tinkering with your roster can sometimes end up hurting you – trust your gut kids.
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:
Before we jump into this massive Tuesday MLB DFS slate – make sure you head on over to FantasyDraft where another $400 FREE ROLL awaits which gives you a chance to build your bankroll ahead of the huge change in July to rake free DFS!
We have 15 games here tonight and outside of some rain risk in Boston, this slate seemingly should play clean but where I have to start today is with the aces on the mound as we have a big choice to make at first glance.
Max Scherzer ($24.2K) and Gerrit Cole ($22.3K) are the two highest prices arms on the slate and with match-ups against the Marlins for Mad Max and a home REVENGE start for Cole against his former Pirates team, I am going to make the case to build your rosters around BOTH of these arms here tonight.
Listen, we know K’s are king in MLB DFS and there are arguably no two better strikeout arms in baseball than these two as Cole has a 38% K rate and 16.1% swinging strike rate while Scherzer has a 33.8% K rate and 16.4% swinging strike rate.
Over the last month, Cole ranks 1st in baseball with a 39.3% K rate while Mad Max is 3rd with a 36.8% K rate with both arms racking up double-digit K’s in three of the last five outings. Both studs are massive 200+ favorites with the Pirates and Marlins not surprisingly having IRT’s under 3 which is also not shockingly the two lowest on the slate.
Now you can look at Scherzer’s last two starts against the Marlins where he failed to top 20 fantasy points either time or the fact that the Pirates have a tiny 18% K rate against RHP this season and talk yourself into the fade where you can pay down and get the big bats you want – but I am just not going that route.
Baseball is the highest variance sport for DFS and sure aces have let us down before, but I am a believer in that true ace level pitching like we have here is the one thing you can anchor too and with two of the top, if not the top two, K arms in baseball on the same slate, I am not looking to decide either/or – I am going to double barrel ace it tonight and find my value bats to make it work.
MLB DFS – Value Stack Needed:
Now if you lock in both Mad Max and Cole on FantasyDraft, you are left with just under $7K per batter which means you are value hunting and which also typically means stacking becomes a harder concept to execute on unless you pick a team like the Marlins or Tigers who are perpetually cheap.
Well, there is one team that is cheap, has some pop but also as I write this, is dealing with an unknown opposing arm which makes breaking them down a bit difficult and that is the Toronto Blue Jays.
This was initially looking like an opener start for the Yankees Chad Green but he was needed last night in a wild 10-8 affair in the Bronx and with his “closer” Nestor Cortes Jr. who had followed him the last two times as an opener now in AAA, we will have to wait and see who the Yankees opt to use after needed Green, Adam Ottavino AND Aroldis Chapman out of the pen last night.
Rather than speculate on what we do not know – let’s focus on what we do know – we have a game in Yankee stadium where it is going to be hot and humid with slight winds (5 MPH) blowing out so we have favorable hitting conditions for the Jays bats.
This Jays offense is also sneaky red-hot right now, scoring at least 5 runs in their last 6 games and putting up 41 runs in the last week which is a top 5 mark in baseball while also slugging 13 HR’s (another top 5 mark in that time).
The far majority of the Jays hitters sit under $8K with only Eric Sogard and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. over that mark which means you can stack up powerful bats like Vladimir Guerror Jr., Cavan Biggio, Teoscar Hernandez and Randall Grichuk all for $6K-$7K price points.
Obviously we need to wait and see what the Yankees opt to do from a pitching standpoint here today but after using their three top bullpen arms last night and sending down Jonathan Holder after the game, there is the potential we could get a whole lot of secondary arms from the New York pitching staff here today.
From a game theory perspective, I also think this stack gets largely ignored the longer we wait for an opposing pitcher as DFS players typically pick their bats based on pitchers they want to target against – if we have no pitcher to target, will people just skip this stack entirely? Considering the Toronto bats are cheap and also are one of the hottest offenses in baseball, I surely hope that is the case for ownership in GPP’s!
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: Max Scherzer
SP: Gerrit Cole
IF: Lourdes Gurriel Jr.
IF: Cavan Biggio
OF: Teoscar Hernandez
OF: Randal Grichuk
OF: Kyle Garlick ($3.9K)
UTIL: Eric Sogard
UTIL: Humberto Arteaga ($4.7K)
Slate Overview: Building around Max/Cole is where I want to start today and see if I can find a path to value bats/stacks that make this a viable alternative.
Normally going with value bats means playing more one-off cheap plays but I am a huge believer in stacking for baseball and utilize the 6 man stack on FantasyDraft quite often – the issue tonight is finding a cheap stack that I actually like.
The Jays fit the bill and I will be interested to see what the Yankees opt to do tonight and what sort of lineup Toronto responds with. There are some legit #FreeSquares with guys like Arteaga and Garlick who are true punt plays that also give you some added salary flexibility if you need it.
Make sure you guys get in that Free Roll at FantasyDraft and we will see you back here on Wednesday!
Next. MLB DFS Pitching Primer - Tuesday, June 25. dark
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