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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: July 17: Wish that I had Jesse’s Girl

By Brian Tulloch

ST. PETERSBURG, FL - JUN 30: Jesse Chavez (53) of the Rangers delivers a pitch to the plate during the MLB regular season game between the Texas Rangers and the Tampa Bay Rays on June 30, 2019, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
ST. PETERSBURG, FL - JUN 30: Jesse Chavez (53) of the Rangers delivers a pitch to the plate during the MLB regular season game between the Texas Rangers and the Tampa Bay Rays on June 30, 2019, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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MLB DFS
ST. PETERSBURG, FL – JUN 30: Jesse Chavez (53) of the Rangers delivers a pitch to the plate during the MLB regular season game between the Texas Rangers and the Tampa Bay Rays on June 30, 2019, at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, FL. (Photo by Cliff Welch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

MLB DFS – Main Slate Pitching Breakdown:

My focus today is going to be on the Main Slate as honestly, I have little interest in a short 6 game slate that has a chalky Coors Field on it and with the contest sizes being smaller on FantasyDraft, I will focus my time on the Main Slate. If you do want an Early Slate breakdown, however, our Mike Marteny has that for you here.

The 9 game Main Slate is loaded with pitching and specifically high-end strikeout arms as Gerrit Cole, Robbie Ray and Mike Clevinger are all sporting 30% or higher K rates on the season. With a cheaper pitcher that is likely going to be chalky (more on that in a minute), then paying up for one of these arms may actually be a bit contrarian.

If forced to choose, Mike Clevinger ($19.4K) would be my favorite against the Detroit Tigers. What we know at this point is that Detroit strikes out one of the highest rates in baseball versus RHP, 25.9% to be exact, which is the second-highest mark in all of baseball. Clevinger meanwhile has a massive 39% K rate in 2019 which is clearly a small sample size alert considering he has only thrown 29 innings but after making it to 92 pitches in his last start and striking out 6 with an 18% swinging-strike rate, I think we can fire him up with confidence here tonight against a high K opponent.

Danny Duffy ($15.7K) is going to be popular today – and chalk Duffy scares me quite a bit, but this is a K arm who gets the same match-up that Jakob Junis just put up 33 fantasy points and 10K’s against before Glenn “Sparkles” Sparkmann dropped 8K’s and 41 fantasy points last night.

As I said yesterday, going into Tuesday, 8 of the last 9 pitchers who faced the White Sox had put up double-digit points and now including Sparkman, 5 of the last 10 have put up 23 or more fantasy points which is going to make this a match-up that screams upside for Duffy at a cheap price point.

The White Sox projected line-up has a 23.3% K rate against LHP this season and against Duffy’s biggest swing and miss offering, the slider, 8 of the 9 projected hitters have 30% or higher whiff rates. Over his last ten outings, Duffy has a 10.5% swinging-strike rate and considering the recent “run” the White Sox have been on – there is a reason Duffy will be a popular mid-tier choice that feels underpriced.

With so many top-tier arms on this slate, my guess is that most will not scroll all the way down to Jesse Chavez ($8.5K) as the cheapest arm on the slate, but I think there is merit here to full-on punting with him as an SP2 here tonight. No this is not a Mr. Sparkles “punt and pray” so we can fit in Coors bats like last night, but I do think there is merit to Chavez here tonight that will have you humming “Jesse’s Girl” while your lineups climb the leaderboard.

Chavez is a high ground ball arm who relies on his sinker/cutter combination to induce ground balls and soft contact but let’s also be fair – in the last two seasons this is a pitcher with a 3.8 xFIP and a 23.3% K rate so metrics wise, this is simply not a pitcher that should be the cheapest on the board.

Look back at his most recent four-game run before having to face two tough opponents in the Twins/Astros – he put up double-digit fantasy points in 4 straight games including back to back games against Tampa and Detroit where he struck out 7 and 8 batters and put up 20 and 30 fantasy points.

Chavez has demonstrated the ability to get you 20+ fantasy points tonight and has the benefit of a pitcher-friendly umpire in Ed Hickox here tonight who calls 14% more strikes than the average umpire. If paying up for pitching tonight is going to be a popular route, especially with no Coors Field game on the slate, then going with value arms like Duffy/Chavez could be a contrarian bat first build that gives you a totally different GPP build. If Duffy becomes TOO chalky for your liking going high/low with Clevinger/Chavez could be a different path that still allows you to stack up the top bats.