Fansided

MLB DFS Picks and Pivots: August 2 – Gingergaards debut

By Brian Tulloch

CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 07: Dustin May #12 of the National League Futures Team pitches during the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game at Progressive Field on Sunday, July 7, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images)
CLEVELAND, OH - JULY 07: Dustin May #12 of the National League Futures Team pitches during the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game at Progressive Field on Sunday, July 7, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
2 of 4
Next
MLB DFS
CLEVELAND, OH – JULY 07: Dustin May #12 of the National League Futures Team pitches during the SiriusXM All-Star Futures Game at Progressive Field on Sunday, July 7, 2019 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images) /

MLB DFS – Friday Pitching Breakdown:

Welcome in to the first Friday MLB DFS slate in August and for me, this will be my last Picks and Pivots for a few weeks as we take a much-needed family vacation but don’t worry, the crew here at FanSided Fantasy will have my back while I am spending some quality family time!

At first glance, we have what seems to be the perfect slate set-up in that we have a Coors Field slate with a monster 13 IRT and two bad arms on the hill, which means we need value pitching and quite frankly, this slate is loaded with it.

Dustin May ($14.8K) is the Dodgers top pitching prospect, a man they have nicknamed Gingergaard due to his Syndergaard-esque flowing flaming locks and with a Bronson Arroyo style delivery if nothing else May is a fun dude to watch throw. His scouting report per FanGraphs shows you the kind of repertoire that May has used in the minors to put up a solid mid 20% K rate:

"His mid-90s fastball plays up due to great extension, and further incorporation of a running two-seamer has given May’s heater enough tail to miss bats in the strike zone. His vertically-breaking slider (May calls it a slider, but it has curveball shape) has one of the better spin rates in the minors and enough vertical depth to miss bats against both left and right-handed hitters. It’s May’s out pitch, but he also has a developing cutter and its movement is a great foil for his two-seamer. After trying several different changeup grips in 2017, it seems like May is still searching for a good cambio, but his fastball and breaking ball command should suffice against lefties for now."

May steps into a really intriguing match-up against the Padres here tonight, a projected line-up with a near 27% K rate against RHP. Across AA and AAA this season, May struck out 70 RHB in 65 innings of work so the K upside has been demonstrated for May throughout the minors and with only 1-2 lefties in the San Diego line-up, May has the potential to really flourish in his first home start in the bigs.

I expect Steven Matz ($15.6K) to be wildly popular in this range as he takes on the same Pirates team he just faced in Citi Field and dropped a CGSO for 40+ fantasy points. Now he heads to an elite pitcher’s park in PNC and the price remains incredibly reasonable – but I do think worrying about ownership is a very fair critique of this play and we can look for pivots at this same price point.

Martin Perez ($14.9K) takes the hill against the Kansas City Royals at home in Minnesota where he has pitched his best this season, sporting a 22% K rate which is 5% higher than his mark on the road and maintaining a high GB rate and sub 1 HR/9.

The Royals have a projected line-up with a 22% K rate against LHP since the start of 2018 and with a 45% GB rate versus a 35% FB rate, it plays perfectly into Perez’s 50% GB rate. Perez has faced this Royals team twice this season with varying degrees of success, failing to hit even 2 fantasy points in his road start, while striking out 7 and putting up 17 fantasy points in his lone home start.

Obviously, we are hoping for a repeat of the later here if we roll with Perez today who is a massive -250 favorite at home. In recent weeks we have seen LHP’s have ceiling type games against the Royals with Matt Boyd striking out 10 back on July 13th and more recently, Braves LHP Dallas Keuchel punched out 12 Royals over 6 innings and put up 30+ fantasy points.

The Keuchel comparison is really interesting here as he relies nearly 75% of the time on a cutter/sinker combination to RHB which while not as extreme, is similar to Perez’s 2019 pitch mix well over 50% on those two pitches. Similarly, over the last 30 days, Perez leads all of baseball (min. 20 IP) with a 59% GB rate, while Keuchel is just percentage points behind him in 3rd – so similar pitch type and ground ball tendencies from the same arm that just dominated in this match-up.

Going with a May/Perez combination is going to give you a very clear path to Coors Field bats and even for cash game type builds, you are getting two of the biggest Vegas favorites on the board against two offenses with bottom 5 projected IRT’s on this massive slate.