MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 27 – Taste the Rockies

Welcome to the Thursday 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.

Wednesday’s MLB DFS Picks and Pivots turned out to be a giant stinker and while we always should focus on process over results, there is value in looking back at what went wrong as James Paxton got rocked on the early slate while the pivot to Trevor Bauer would have paid big dividends and Jason Vargas continued to keep regression at bay but shutting down the Phillies stack on the Main Slate with a career high 10 K’s. My initial reaction yesterday was that pitching would win you the early slate and hitting would win you the main and that is the complete opposite of what happened – I will simply take my L and the beauty of DFS, is you can move on to the next day!

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 – Early Slate Pitching:

Finding pitching on this six game MLB DFS Early Slate is going to be a challenge – there is not a single elite K arm, in fact – there are no pitchers with over a 26% K rate – either on the season or in the last 30 days. The interesting game theory aspect is that FantasyDraft priced up these secondary arms as aces so you are going to have to pay over $20K for Aaron Nola and $19.5K for Zack Wheeler in Citizen’s Bank Park and conversely the value options are low K, low ceiling options like Joe Musgrove and Tyler Chatwood so the pickings become slim, real quick.

The simple perspective here is to work backwards today with your bats being the first plays in and then retro-fit your line-ups based off the arms you can stomach.

So with an overpriced top-tier and a high-risk, low ceiling value tier, can we opt to live in the mid-range value today to get the bats we want?

Martin Perez ($15.4K) gets a home match-up against a Tampa Bay Rays team I normally avoid picking on, but against left-handed pitching I think we can make an exception as they rank third in baseball with a 26.4% k rate against LHP in 2019. Not only does this Rays right-handed heavy team have some serious K upside but they also have an extremely high ground ball rate at 47.3% which is 5th highest in baseball against LHP and only a 30.7% fly ball rate which is 3rd lowest in baseball.

So what does it all mean for Perez? As a pitcher who generates nearly 50% ground-balls against RHB using his cutter/sinker/change to account for nearly 80% of his pitch mix – those three primary pitches all generate over a 50% GB rate for Perez in 2019 which means he has the ability to generate tons of soft contact. The match-up has some built-in K equity and the run prevention may end up being what gets Perez to value on this slate.

UPDATE: The weather looks REALLY risky in Minnesota so I think a pivot of Perez is necessary – there is not nearly enough upside here to absorb the weather risk. I think you can either pivot down to Chase Anderson or move up to Brad Peacock who will take on a Pirates team with the lowest IRT and Peacock has the K upside to get to value – neither are must plays, I think you build your bats and work backwards.

Ariel Jurado ($12.9K) becomes the latest in the line of “who is pitching against Detroit today?” as we search for some pitching on this slate. No team in baseball has scored less runs than the Tigers over the last 14 days (33 total) and in the same breath no team has struck out at a higher rate (26.4%) and in those 11 games, nearly every pitcher has excelled.

The last 11 starting pitchers to face Detroit have averaged 23.7 fantasy points per game with 9 of the 11 going for 16 or more fantasy points with 9 of the 11 striking out at least 6 batters. Now Jurado is a sub 20% K rate arm so take the K upside with a grain of salt but this is the same match-up Jesse Chavez just dominated for 7 K’s in a 29 fantasy point shut out.

Jurado is cheap, he has gone for 18+ fantasy points in 3 of is last 5 starts and he gets what the metrics would tell us is the best match-up in baseball over the last two weeks. Do I feel great about locking in Martin Perez and Ariel Jurado? Of course not, but do I feel great about spending nearly 20% of my salary cap on Aaron Nola or Zack Wheeler who will likely still be popular just because pitching is so bad on this slate? You are going to have to take your stand and going with cheap pitching will be mine.

MLB DFS – Early Slate Bats:

We have four teams with IRT’s over 5 runs today and two – the Brewers and Astros – who are creeping towards 6 runs which if you plan on saving at pitcher, will give you a clear route to stacking up these bats.

Milwaukee will take on a low K arm in Mike Leake who is giving up a .216 ISO to LHB and a .256 ISO mark to RHB with a 1.6 HR/9 to lefties and over a 2.5 mark to RHB. We will need to keep an eye on the line-up here for Milwaukee as Lorenzo Cain is nursing a thumb injury that may keep him out today – but even without him, this line-up is loaded with power.

Assuming Cain is out, the projected 1-6 lineup of Grandal, Yelich, Moustakas, Braun, Thames and Shaw has five of the six batters with .250+ or higher ISO’s against RHP since the start of 2018 and every single ones of these guys has a 40% or higher HC rate.  If Cain does play – at $7.3K he would become a viable stack addition here due to his extremely low price tag.

Leake has given up 2 or more HR’s in 9 of his 16 starts this season so home run hunting with the Brew Crew is a clear path on this early slate that becomes incredibly easy to afford if you not only pay down for pitching but also use Travis Shaw at only $5.8K on FantasyDraft.

The Astros are getting back to full strength now with George Springer and Jose Altuve slotting into the line-up and while the total is high against the Pirates and Joe Musgrove, personally I think the Brewers stack has more upside.

Musgrove has been bad this year but the reality is, he has given up less than 1 HR/9 to hitters from both sides of the plate and has actually limited RHB to a .155 ISO so where the Brewers have multi-home run upside – the Astros are going to need to be a team you full on stack and hope they get to/exceed their high Vegas total through a series of hits.

So rather than pick one-offs from Houston, heading to Wrigley may be the best bet as we get Tyler Chatwood and Bryse Wilson against the powerful Cubs/Braves offenses. Now Chatwood is a high ground ball arm that relies nearly 50% of the time on his sinker which is just fine for Freddie Freeman ($10.4K) who is the most expensive bat on the slate and simply hammers that pitch type to the tune of a .268 ISO, 49% HC rate and nearly 95 MPH exit velocity.

We do not have a huge sample size on Wilson at the MLB level with only 50+ PA’s in two years but he has been hit hard in his limited time – giving up a 45.5% HC rate and a .250 ISO mark to batters. The issue with Wilson is that he relies on a fastball nearly 70% of the time which may be working in the minors but is seemingly struggling to translate to the Major League level.

The Cubs become the usual suspects with Baez-Rizzo-Schwarber all having .235+ ISO marks against RHP since the starts of 2018 and speaking of free squares – Carlos Gonzalez ($4.5K) can be used as a one-off or as an addition to any stack you want here.

Last but not least if you need a one-off power bat – Joey Gallo is back in the line-up for Texas after missing 22 games and his profile against Spencer Turnbull is exceptional. Turnbull throws his sinker 25% of the time to lefties as his primary non-fastball offering and Gallo simply hammers that pitch to the tune of a .409 ISO, 52% HC rate and nearly 98 MPH exit velocity. If you have not noticed – this slate is loaded with power and I think bats are what will win out today.

MLB DFS – Early Slate 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: Martin Perez

SP: Ariel Jurado

IF: Mike Moustakas

IF: Yasmani Grandal

IF: Freddie Freeman

OF: Joey Gallo

OF: Christian Yelich

OF: Carlos Gonzalez

UTIL: Anthony Rizzo

UTIL: Javier Baez

Slate Overview: By dropping down at pitching and using a free square hitter like CarGo/Shaw, you see a path very quickly to a whos-whos of elite home run hitters and that kind of build in GPP’s gives you massive upside on a slate where I do not think the pitching has that kind of upside. Now I said the same thing on the Main Slate yesterday only to see Cy Vargas strike out 10 Phillies so let’s ope variance is on our side this afternoon!

MLB DFS – Main Slate Breakdown:

The Main Slate looks to be a really strong GPP slate and as they seemingly do each day, our friends at FantasyDraft have another $400 FREE ROLL for you to jump in and build that bankroll. Get in on these guys.

Let’s just cut to the chase on this four game Main Slate – are you prioritizing Stephen Strasburg versus the Marlins or the Dodgers in Coors Field?

That is THE decision on this slate and everything you do centers around that – it is just that simple.

Strasburg is the lone high K ace in the “SMASH SPOT” against the Marlins weak offense, while the Dodgers have a 7 IRT against Rockies RHP Peter Lambert. With such a small player pool, unfortunately there are really no Free Square type plays that allow you a path to Strasburg AND Dodgers so you are going to have to choose in all likelihood.

Here is the thing though – there IS a path to getting a Dodgers stack and Walker Buehler ($17.1K) which I think is a viable route here today. Listen, we don’t normally target arms IN Coors Field but with Trevor Story sidelined, ask yourself this – if this game was in LA, wouldn’t we be all over Buehler after his 16 K 50+ fantasy point gem? The price has been adjusted to account for Coors and I think we need to take advantage of it.

Pairing him with Alex Young ($12.8K) who is pitching in San Francisco and has a 25.8% K rate in AAA, gives you a viable path to a 6 man Dodgers stack which is where I believe we want to land here today.

Lambert has struggled with lefties in his short stint in the bigs, surrendering a .344 ISO to LHB with a 54% HC rate so yeah – go ahead and stack up Bellinger, Muncy, Joc, Beaty, Verdugo and you can mix/match the RHB here like Turner/Taylor/Hernandez depending on how the line-up breaks.

So can you get Strasburg and 6 Dodgers? No – but I think “settling” for Buehler and a Dodgers stack here in Coors is an easy step down for both GPP’s and cash games.

MLB DFS – Main Slate Sample Lineup and Slate Breakdown:

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: Walker Buehler

SP: Alex Young

IF: Max Muncy

IF: Matt Beaty

IF: Justin Turner

OF: Cody Bellinger

OF: Alex Verdugo

OF: Joc Pederson

UTIL: Starlin Castro

UTIL: Yan Gomes

Slate Overview: Nothing sneaky here – I am planting my flag on a short four game slate and going all in on the Dodgers. Yes they will be popular but on FantasyDraft where you can stack 6 of them, I am not sure you will see folks go that heavy and it becomes a way to differentiate your stacks while still anchoring to an elite K arm like Buehler against a banged up Rockies offense.

Good luck all tonight – see you back here on Friday!

Stay tuned to fantasy CPR for all the latest MLB DFS news and analysis each and every day!