MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – July 2 – It’s Bauer Hour

MLB DFS – Tuesday Pitching Breakdown:

We have a massive MLB DFS slate here on Tuesday with a game in Coors Field, 13 teams with 5 + IRT’s, no weather risks and a handful of aces on the mound which likely means ownership becomes incredibly spread out on a wide open GPP night.

Best of all – our friends at FantasyDraft have another $400 FREE ROLL to start our day off right so get in there now and build your line-ups!

We have two arms at the top that need to become your first decision points as Trevor Bauer ($22.3K) and Patrick Corbin ($21.5K) will step to the mound against the same Royals and Marlins team they just faced, which game log lovers should absolutely love. Bauer is coming off a dominant 12 strikeout outing against the Royals in his last start where he threw a whopping 127 pitches while only lasting 6.2 innings, but dropped a 37+ fantasy point performance in the process.

Stepping past the game log though is something really interesting if you dig a bit deeper and look at his pitch types in that game as Bauer threw over 40% fastballs, the most he has thrown in his last five starts but more importantly, his velocity was at 95.5 MPH which is the highest it has been this season and a near 2 MPH bump over what he was at two starts ago.

Bauer is also going to is slider more than normal in recent turns, a pitch he has thrown roughly 12% of the time on the season, has been an offering he has thrown over 17% of the time in each of his last 5 starts. This is a significant jump and one we should not discount as the slider is Bauer’s biggest swing and miss pitch, generating a 46% whiff rate against RHB, which is when he uses it the most. The Royals will likely have 5 right-handed batters in the line-up which aligns nicely with Bauer’s 30% plus K rate against RHB this season.

Although most will simply point to the game log as to why we can go back to Bauer here, I think there are underlying pitch type changes that resulted in Bauer saying it was the best hes thrown all year after that Royals game and it makes him an elite spend up option today.

Patrick Corbin was similarly dominant his last time out against the Marlins and has now faced them twice in 2019, putting up 33 and 36 fantasy points over 16 innings with a 14:2 K:BB ratio. Corbin continues to dominate with his fastball/slider combination and his 17% swinging strike rate last time out against Miami was one of his highest swing and miss outings of 2019. Corbin is a -200 home favorite and the Marlins have one of the lowest IRT’s on the slate which puts him in strong consideration as a cash game staple.

From a strategy perspective, what is interesting about this slate is you can make the argument to pay down at the top to someone like Charlie Morton against Baltimore ($20.2K) or Matthew Boyd against the White Sox ($19.3K) or go even further down to names like David Price or James Paxton if you want to fit in more Coors exposure.

However, anytime we see these slates dominated by gaudy offensive totals, my mindset is always how can I go double barrel aces when most likely won’t? In 2019, paying up for pitching has burned enough people in DFS so as the warm weather spreads and offense continues to explode, it will be interesting to see how much players prioritize spending for pitching.