Fansided

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: July 14 – A deLightful fish fry

By Brian Tulloch

MIAMI, FL - APRIL 03: Jacob deGrom #48 of the New York Mets runs the bases after hitting a solo homerun in the second inning against the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park on April 3, 2019 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images)
MIAMI, FL - APRIL 03: Jacob deGrom #48 of the New York Mets runs the bases after hitting a solo homerun in the second inning against the Miami Marlins at Marlins Park on April 3, 2019 in Miami, Florida. (Photo by Mark Brown/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
3 of 4
Next
MLB DFS
ST. LOUIS, MO – JULY 13: Harrison Bader, left, Dexter Fowler, center, and Yairo Munoz of the St. Louis Cardinals celebrate after the final out is made in the teams victory over Arizona Diamondbacks at Busch Stadium on July 13, 2019 in St. Louis, Missouri. (Photo by Scott Kane/Getty Images) /

MLB DFS – Building Our Bats:

As many of you Picks and Pivots readers know, I am a big believer on FantasyDraft of using a simple formula – going with two aces, a cheap 6 man stack and two “free square” value punts. Considering how volatile the high-end starting pitching has been this season, this approach is becoming seemingly more and more contrarian with each passing day.

If we take today’s slate, I could argue there is really no must-have offense – sure the Astros and Yankees have 6+ IRT’s – but I also do not think there are viable mid-range or punt arms that will allow us to spend up at this range with our bats.

As such, I am looking for a cheap 6 man stack with some free square punts and the beauty of Sunday MLB DFS is that we almost always get the random bench guy at a minimum price who opens up these double-barrel ace kind of builds, so make sure you watch for lineups before lock.

The St. Louis Cardinals are a team I have stacked more often than I would like to admit and as fellow FanSided Fantasy writer Thunder Dan points out to me often – it literally never works. But, I am stubborn and I believe in the talent level of this Cardinals hitters despite a seemingly season-long cold streak.

Now, the fact this ice-cold offense is facing a name arm in Zack Greinke will likely lead to this offense being sub 5% owned but outside the name, is Greinke really an arm we should avoid hitters against?

Over the last month, Greinke has been hit and hit hard, with only an 11.3% soft contact rate, meaning that nearly 90% of his batted balls are medium/hard contact and when you combine that with a 20.3% K rate we start to see an argument can be made that Greinke is more name value than a DFS arm to avoid at this point.

The Cardinals 1-6 stack is cheap, all in the $6-$7K range on FantasyDraft which allows you to pay up for both pitcher’s today and this is a projected line-up that has a .200 ISO mark as a team against RHP last season which is a far cry from the .150 mark this year. In fact, go back and look at 2017through 2018 and that two-season sample size shows you a line-up that is fly ball heavy with a 45%HC rate and .199 ISO mark.

So while the results have not been there this year, it has also brought the price points down drastically on a line-up with a track record of success against RHP and Greinke is an arm that is rarely missing bats and giving up tons of hard contact. Guess I am going to die on this hill once again Thunder Dan!