MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: July 19 – West Coast deGOAT
MLB DFS: Friday Night Pitching:
Before we jump into tonight’s MLB DFS slate, make sure you are jumping into the $400 Free Roll at FantasyDraft each day as it is a great way to get exposure to this product and build your bankroll!
One night after high-end pitching dominated the DFS landscape, we are back with another incredible slate that is simply loaded with aces. In fact, three of the top 10 strikeout arms in baseball over the last month are on this slate with Patrick Corbin, Shane Bieber and Jacob deGrom all sporting 32% or higher K rates the last 30 days.
If you have ever read Picks and Pivots before, you know I am a huge proponent of going double-barrel aces when the slate dictates and with so many stud arms available tonight, I think the opportunity cost of dropping down for pitching is significant and assuming we can find the value stacks to make it work, it is a path I want to explore.
Now while guys like Justin Verlander, Patrick Corbin and Hyun-Jin Ryu are all great plays in isolation, when you factor in price and the $2K-ish savings you get going down to Shane Bieber and Jacob deGrom, I would argue they are a batter use of your salary here this evening.
Bieber ($20.4K) comes into this game tonight against a banged-up Royals offense having thrown over 100 pitches now in six straight starts and striking out at least 8 batters in 5 of those 6 outings. That kind of K consistency and his ability to work deep into games is something that becomes incredibly hard to pass on when you layer on the fact he has a 30% plus K rate and 14% plus swinging-strike rate the last month.
The Royals remain without Aldaberto Mondesi which makes this line-up one I think we can pick on. Just for a second – take a look at the projected 6-9 in this Royals line-up tonight – Nicky Lopez, Bubba Starling, Lucas Duda and Meibrys Viloria. If that line-up holds, you are talking about 5 of the 9 batters in the line-up having a 25% or higher K rate against RHP since the start of 2018.
There is a reason Bieber is a massive -240 home favorite and the Royals have one of the lowest IRT’s on the board. Considering this is an arm who has surpassed 30 fantasy points in 3 of his last 6 starts, I think you could make the argument rather easily he could end the night as the highest raw point arm despite the fact that he is the 4th highest priced pitcher.
Jacob deGrom ($20.2K) steps into the same situation we went after last night with Noah Syndergaard and every bit the same logic applies, just with a far better arm. deGrom gets a massive ballpark boost heading to San Francisco, with the Giants getting the Coors Field hangover and after seeing Thor rack up 8 K’s last night in what ended up being a 16 inning marathon that ended in the wee hours of the morning, I really don’t think there is a strong argument against Jake here tonight.
Maybe that is really what this slate comes down to, I don’t see a strong argument against any of these top arms but when factoring in price it becomes hard to justify spending $2K more on Verlander with Bieber and deGrom having every bit the same ceiling and arguably better match-ups.
A Bieber/deGrom pairing is pricey for sure, but on FantasyDraft that leaves you with $7.5K per batter and as we jump into bats, there are some underpriced stacks with GPP upside that I think can make this build work with ease.