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MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: July 31 – Deadline Day!

By Brian Tulloch

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 28: Michael Conforto #30 of the New York Mets runs the bases after his first inning two run home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citi Field on July 28, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JULY 28: Michael Conforto #30 of the New York Mets runs the bases after his first inning two run home run against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Citi Field on July 28, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) /
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MLB DFS
CHICAGO, IL – JULY 25: Minnesota Twins starting pitcher Jose Berrios (17) delivers a pitch during the MLB regular season game between the Minnesota Twins at the Chicago White Sox on July 25, 2019, at Guaranteed Rate Field in Chicago, IL. (Photo by Joseph Weiser/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

MLB DFS – Pitching Breakdown:

Before we jump into today’s Main Slate, if you missed it, yesterday was a huge day in the DFS industry as FantasyDraft rolled out its Rake Free DFS platform. I had the chance to sit down with their founder and CEO and get some insight into a totally new era in the DFS industry which you can read about here. I will say with the new model they are rolling out, playing on FantasyDraft right now is THE best bang for your buck as you can play completely rake-free for under $100 of entry fees a month. Now is the time to start playing there if you want a change from FanDuel or DraftKings.

On to today’s slate where the high-level overview is quite simple – pitching, pitching and more pitching. We have no Coors Field on the Main Slate and only two games with IRT’s over 5 so this is a slate where my gut feel is to prioritize arms over bats and that all starts with the best pitcher on the slate and possibly in baseball – Jacob deGrom ($23.1K) against the White Sox.

For every reason we were on Noah Syndergaard yesterday against this K heavy White Sox team, you simply rinse and repeat with an even more dominant arm in deGrom. The Mets ace has a 31.2% K rate and 15.2% swinging strike rate on the season which are both slate leading totals and his most recent form has been even better with a 34.2% K rate over the last month which is a top 10 mark in the entire league.

The White Sox strike-out at a 26.2% rate against RHP which is the second-highest in all of baseball this season and after seeing Thor mow down double-digit White Sox last night, there is really no reason outside of ownership to go anywhere else in my opinion as your SP1.

Jose Berrios ($20.7K) is the obvious pivot up top with a road start against the Marlins, with a massive ballpark boost against a weak-hitting line-up and while he may seem like the deGrom pivot, I think within the context of this slate he becomes the SP2 in a double-barrel type of DFS build.

If you just looked at the metrics – a 21% K rate and a 10% swinging-strike rate, I think you could argue that the price tag is actually too high, in fact, Berrios’ K metrics are nearly identical to Kyle Hendricks – so would you pay over $20K for Kyle Hendricks?

The context of the slate though is important as we have weather issues in Philadelphia and Boston which could limit our player pool even more and the simple analysis here is you take a talented arm against a bad offense with a slate low run total and work towards safety, as if such a thing exists with pitcher’s in DFS in 2019.

I will say this for Berrios, in his last two starts there has been a change in his stuff, as his fastball velocity has ticked up to 93.1and 93.3 MPH which is a half MPH faster than his season-long numbers and working in parallel, his change-up velocity has actually dropped down over a half MPH which gives the hitter an even greater gap as those pitches work off of each other.

The fact that Mike Everitt is behind the plate, a massive pitcher’s umpire with a 16% increase on K’s called over the average umpire, gives you even more upside here with Berrios and while I do think he is a bit over-priced, there is a 30+ fantasy point ceiling here on a slate where we really do not have many strong pitching options to drop down to and no must-have offenses to pay up for.