MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 28 – Friday Night deLight

Welcome to the Friday 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.

Thursday’s four game Main Slate was a shoot-out as the Rockies and Dodgers went off for 20 runs in Coors Field and the two highest priced pitchers in Stephen Strasburg (14.95) and Walker Buehler (-1.95 fantasy points) were hit hard – resulting in a night where eating the Coors chalk was mandatory if you planned to see the cash line.

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 – Friday Pitching Breakdown:

We have a massive MLB DFS slate here on Friday Night and before you do anything else, our friends at FantasyDraft have another $400 FREE ROLL for you to jump into tonight!

The overall view on this slate is that it is essentially a much larger pool with the same general feel as Thursday – we have top end pitching with guys like deGrom and Berrios but we also have a Coors Field game with 90 degree temperatures at first pitch one night after these teams combined for 20 runs.

Jacob deGrom ($21.3K) is THE arm to pay for on this slate with a 34% K rate over the last month, which ranks 5th in baseball, while his season long 30.6% K rate and 14.7% swinging strike rate are the top mark among qualified arms on this slate. Throughout his career deGrom as been essentially automatic at home with a 2.27 ERA, 2.9 xFIP and a 31% K rate which all represent significant upticks on his road marks – now while that has not been the case in 2019, I am going to side with the career stats here in the larger sample size.

deGrom will face off with an Atlanta team he just played in Atlanta and struck out 10 batters on his way to 35 fantasy points and worked into the 9th inning in that start. With the Mets bullpen now blowing 5 games in a row, I could see this being another start where deGrom gets the ball and never hands it back to Mickey Callaway.

With so much focus on Coors, and rightfully so, and with such a massive slate, I doubt deGrom garners the usual ace ownership and any time I can get the best K arm on the slate at reduced ownership, I am going to have interest.

Elieser Hernandez ($13.1K) will be making his fourth start of the season for the Marlins and considering I have written him up for the first three, I have a hard time not going back to my boy here tonight. I have been beating the drum for Hernandez since his first start as this is an arm that had a 34.3% K rate in AAA but without a track record previous to that – most were hesitant to jump on.

The reality was, Hernandez developed and perfected a slider that has become his swing and miss pitch and it has carried over to the big leagues where he is using it over 40% of the time against RHB and getting a 60% whiff rate on the pitch. Hernandez has struck out 6, 6 and 7 batters through his first three starts with a massive 15.2% swinging strike rate in those outings so you are getting a legit K arm as one of your cheapest plays at SP2.

Now because the slider is so critical to Hernandez’s success, we have seen his splits be pretty extreme – with a 35.4% K rate to RHB and only a 6% K rate to LHB so today against Philadelphia, we need to watch for the line-up they roll out but outside of Harper/Bruce – this is going to be a primarily right-handed hitting team which again – sets up perfectly for Mr. Hernandez.

The right-handed heavy line-up and the fact this game is in Miami, sets up exactly how we would want it for Hernandez who has a path to 15-20 fantasy points here as one of the cheapest arms on the slate and the perfect pairing to go with deGrom in a high-low build.

MLB DFS – Building Our Bats:

We have a game in Coors Field with 90 degree temperatures, a near 12 IRT and once again the Dodgers have a close to 7 IRT as they face off with RHP Antonio Senzatela. The difference here tonight is that we have a substantially larger player pool with tons of value that allows us a path to get Coors bats AND deGrom where we simply did not have that choice on Thursday Night – with that said, going down a path where you can get the best pitcher and the best game stack seems like a spot where I am simply not over complicating the slate.

Now not only do we have hot weather but we have an extreme hitters umpire in Laz Diaz who improves run scoring by 9%, walks by 6% and decreases K’s by 2% – as if this game needed more help.

Let’s start with the Dodgers – now Senzatela is not a bad pitcher necessarily but he is a ground ball focused, low K arm and while he has had some serviceable home starts this year, he also gave up 3 HR and 7 ER to the Giants earlier this year and sometimes, Coors is gonna be Coors and you simply have to get on board.

With a righty on the hill – the three priority bats for me are Joc Pederson, Max Muncy and Cody Bellinger – all three of which have .275 or higher ISO marks against RHP since the start of 2018. Now, this trio is pricey, all over $10K on FantasyDraft, and you may think that paying up for them will be near impossible with a deGrom/Coors game stack – but let’s flip on over to the Rockies prices shall we?

Just without even looking at opposing pitcher, pitch types or anything like that – can we just step back and realize the Rockies are at home with half of their line-up priced at $7.2K or lower and we have two punt plays under $6K in the line-up. Again, just pricing and game environment wise – how do you not take your punts from Coors Field, specifically the Rockies bats tonight?

Now, we do have to factor in the opposing arm – so LHP Hyun-Jin Ryu is not normally one we want to pick on – but either was Walker Buehler and Colorado got him for 13 hits and 7 ER last night – so yeah, Coors gonna Coors.

Ryu is a ground ball inducing machine, but he has been hit hard the last two trips to Coors Field, with 5 runs allowed in each start in 2017. Nolan Arenado ($9.4K) is at home against a lefty who he has absolutely owned in his career for all you BvP fans – going 12 for 21 with 3 HR and a .571 ISO. This is not a BvP play, this is not a Coors play – this is a spot where everything lines up and you just play Nolan.

The beauty of this Rockies team is that you can find value – Ian Desmond and David Dahl are under $9K and Mark Reynolds and Garret Hampson are under $6K – yes, under $6K in Coors Field. This is a spot where the value plays can offset the priority bats like Arenado and the Dodgers lefty trio and all the while by the way, you still have deGrom as your SP1.

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: Jacob deGrom

SP: Elieser Hernandez

IF: Humberto Arteaga ($3.9K)

IF: Nolan Arenado

IF: Max Muncy

OF: Joc Pederson

OF: Cody Bellinger

OF: David Dahl

UTIL: Mark Reynolds

UTIL: Garret Hampson

Slate Overview: Yes, I told you to game stack Coors Field’s slate leading total and play the best pitcher on the slate – ground breaking stuff, I know.

But, look at the build at the surface and can you really argue that it is not the most direct path to attack the slate? There is no better K arm available than deGrom and with the Rockies value bats, you can get what I would consider to be four of the best bats on the slate in Arenado and the Dodgers lefty trio.

Sure it is baseball – we have a massive player pool tonight – you can make the argument to fade Coors if you want due to ownership and I get it – but I think the fact that there is a path to this game with deGrom is one that you can argue is viable cash game AND GPP strategy.

Good luck all – have a great weekend – and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR because as of Monday, July 1st – we have some BIG THINGS planned.

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