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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: July 18 – Thorsday Bauer Hour!

By Brian Tulloch

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 05: Noah Syndergaard #34 of the New York Mets in action against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field on July 05, 2019 in New York City. The Phillies defeated the Mets 7-2. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 05: Noah Syndergaard #34 of the New York Mets in action against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field on July 05, 2019 in New York City. The Phillies defeated the Mets 7-2. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) /
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MLB DFS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JULY 05: Noah Syndergaard #34 of the New York Mets in action against the Philadelphia Phillies at Citi Field on July 05, 2019 in New York City. The Phillies defeated the Mets 7-2. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) /

MLB DFS – Thursday Main Slate Pitching:

While my focus in this article will be on the 8 game Main Slate, for those of you looking to play the 4 game Early Slate, you can check out Mike Marteny’s Early Slate Breakdown right here.

At first glance on this slate, the top end pitching is really appealing and with the pricing not overly aggressive, I think going with a double-barrel ace approach could be a viable build on FantasyDraft today.

It all starts with Trevor Bauer ($21.3K) who is the most expensive arm on the slate, at home against the Detroit Tigers. If you read my write up on Mike Clevinger yesterday, well you can pretty much copy and paste the same logic to Bauer here this evening. The Tigers strike out at the second-highest clip in baseball against RHP at well over 25% and after seeing Clevinger mow down 12 Tigers last night, there is no reason to think the same outcome is not possible for Bauer.

Bauer has a top 10 K rate in the league over the last 30 days at 32.3%  with double-digit strikeouts in 2 of is last 4 contests and 30+ fantasy points in 3 of his last 6 outings including a 42 fantasy points CGSO of this same Tigers team just a few weeks ago.

Bauer has a 30.4% K rate against RHB this season and this Tigers line-up projects to have 4-5 right-handers in there today. Bauer to me is the cash game lock as an SP1 and with his double-digit K upside and match-up seemingly aligned, I would argue that much like Clevinger yesterday, it was chalk you should probably eat.

Rather than pay down at SP2, I think you can pair Bauer with Noah Syndergaard ($18K) here tonight in San Francisco against the Giants, which would leave you still with about $7.7K per batter on FantasyDraft for your batters.

The Giants are coming off a series in Colorado and now fly back home to San Francisco in arguably the biggest park shift you can imagine and with this being the first series back after facing the Rockies, I think the “Coors Effect” is very real here and we could see the Giants struggle right out of the gate to adjust as the Mets will throw Thor and De-GOAT in the first two games of this series.

Against a weak-hitting Giants line-up in this massive ballpark obviously gives Thor a pretty safe run prevention floor but after Syndergaard’s last start in Miami, I do wonder if the strikeout equity is starting to bounce back which adds to his ceiling. In that start, he struck out 9 Marlins with a season-high 19.1% swinging strike rate but his pitch type and velocity is really what stood out.

The 98.3 average velocity on his fastball is well over his season average of 97.7 and his highest in any start since May, but he also relied heavily on his slider, nearly 18% which he had basically abandoned, not throwing it over 10% in any of his previous seven starts. Why does this matter? The slider is a pitch that Thor relied on well over 20% last season and it is by far his best swing and miss offering, touting a 45% whiff rate on the pitch over the last two years.

If Thor has regained that swing and miss ability on the slider, combined with the added velocity on his fastball – this spot in a massive pitcher’s park against a team adjusting from Coors thin air, it could be a vintage Syndergaard performance.