MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – June 29 – Play Brendan, MmmKay?

Welcome to the Saturday 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.

Did you eat the Coors Field chalk again on Friday Night? I sure hope you did because if you did not, you likely found yourself well behind the cash line as once again the obvious spot for offense exploded for 21 runs and if you were not heavily invested in those bats, well you simply had no chance to cash with their ownership levels as high as they were.

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 – Saturday Early Slate Pitching:

We have a solid 8 game Early Slate on FantasyDraft this afternoon which includes all the games which start in the 4PM EST hour – which means we skip right over the Red Sox and Yankees in London with a near 12 IRT and also get to dive into a slate without Coors Field on it.

If you are playing this early slate, my recommendation is to start your builds with LHP Brendan McKay, the Rays top prospect and one of the top prospects in all of baseball who is a two-way player with electric K potential.

At Double AA, McKay put up simply phenomenal numbers with a 39.7% K rate and only a 5% walk rate and upon his promotion to AAA, maintained a 28% K rate all the while keeping his HR/9 under 0.5 and his GB rate hovering near 50%.

The spot for McKay comes with risk due to his inexperience but against a Texas Rangers club that has a 26% K rate against LHP this season, the spot at home in the Trop, simply could not be better for him in his first start. At $14.6K on FantasyDraft, he is one of the cheapest arms available and his upside and point per dollar upside gives him a ceiling that I am comfortable building around in GPP’s.

Austin Voth is coming off a dominant home start against the Braves where he went 6 IP, striking out 7 and giving up 2 ER on his way to 20 fantasy points and today gets a match-up with the Detroit Tigers. The Tigers projected line-up has a 26.5% K rate against RHP this season and while the sample size for Voth at the ML level is small with a 30.5% K rate, he did have over a 25% K rate in 60+ innings at AAA so the K upside is very real for another mid-tier arm on this slate.

MLB DFS – Early Slate Hitting:

I have been beating the drum on the Julio Teheran regression train for his last two starts and after getting hammered for 13 runs in those outings, you know I am going right back to the well here today!

Teheran still has an ERA under 4 despite the last two beat downs, but his SIERA at 5.21 and his xFIP at 5, tell you that regression ain’t done yet with my buddy and he gets to face the same Mets team that hammered him in Atlanta two starts ago.

We have hot and humid weather in New York with the wind blowing out to RF and this Mets line-up gives you the perfect stacking combination of high impact power bats with low-cost value. Pete Alonso and Michael Conforto become the priority plays and do not forget about Dominic Smith as all three of these hitters have well over .200 ISO marks against RHP this season. Robinson Cano at only $5.7K becomes an elite value play that allows you to add-on to this stack in between the power bats in the heart of the order and Jeff McNeil up at the top.

No pitcher on the slate has a higher ERA or SIERA than LHP Gregory Soto which puts the Nationals bats in a prime spot today and any time you get a lefty on the mound, it makes Anthony Rendon a near auto play. Soto is giving up a .339 ISO mark to RHB this season and Rendon has a massive .339 ISO mark against lefties this season.

Add on the fact that Soto relies nearly 70% of the time on his sinker to RHB and Rendon – well, oh boy. How does a .347 ISO with a 46% HC rate sounds against that pitch type in nearly 60 batted ball events?

I very rarely say you should call your shot in MLB DFS due to variance but Rendon is a priority play here with a home run on lay away.

Rendon will likely be popular but I am not sure Juan Soto will be as popular with the L/L match-up on tap. The reality is, Soto is also a lefty masher with a .242 ISO this season and his profile against the sinker is equally appealing, with a .282 ISO against that pitch type. The Nationals mini-stack here should be a great way to spend the salary savings you get by paying down at pitcher on this early slate and can be paired easily with the Mets stack against Teheran.

MLB DFS – Early Slate Sample Lineup and Slate Overview:

Please note this sample lineup is mean tto be illustrative only and should not be used as a plug and play build. 

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SP: Brendan McKay

SP: Austin Voth

IF: Pete Alonso

IF: Jeff McNeil

IF: Robinson Cano

OF: Michael Conforto

OF: Dominic Smith

OF: Juan Soto

UTIL: Anthony Rendon

UTIL: Eugenio Suarez

Slate Overview: The Early Slate feels primed to pay down at pitcher and attack high K mid-tier arms that also let you pay up for some of the big bats in the NL East. I am incredibly excited to see how McKay fairs in his first go round against Texas as this could become an arm we jump on early in DFS before the price catches up to the talent.

Enjoy the slate all – see you back here Monday!

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