Mar 14, 2016; Lakeland, FL, USA; New York Mets right fielder Curtis Granderson (3) and left fielder Michael Conforto (30) during the middle of the third inning of a spring training baseball game against the Detroit Tigers at Joker Marchant Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks April 16

Welcome to the Saturday edition of Picks & Pivots, a daily fantasy column focused on providing analysis for the upcoming MLB FanDuel slate. The purpose of this column is to first identify key building blocks that can be used for any roster construction and then identify pivot points to help differentiate your lineup in hopes of a big pay day

Follow me on Twitter @2lockSports and feel free to pose questions each day as you work to construct your DFS roster on FanDuel!

FanSided and FantasyCPR have you covered – if you are not already, follow @MattyMcMatt17 for his daily FanDuel Economics article driving key value plays and for those of you playing DraftKings, check out @MikeMarteny for his thorough daily DraftKings top plays!

The Saturday Slate will be broken in two with 8 games starting at 1:05PM EST and another 7 starting at 7:05PM EST which gives us the ability to attack two entirely different slates on one day. From my perspective, I will treat today as a 2 for 1 special and analyze each slate independent of each other and break my picks up accordingly.

As a follow up to my Friday article, I will continue to track winning GPP lineups and compare trends over 5 day periods to help us understand what it takes to remain profitable.

This is a CRITICAL analysis I recommend every player does to track their performance relative to the winners in the games they play. This is a great way to identify unique ways for you to improve and putting this practice into play I can tell you that my profits have increased over 30% this past week as a result. The view below compares the 5 day period April 9-13 and the winning GPP scores from the multiple slate entries on April 14:

• Average Top GPP Finish Points Scored: 225 Points(5 day) – April 14 (221)
• Average SP Salary: $7,900 (5 Day) – April 14 ($7,750)
• Hitter/Pitcher Percentage of Salary Spent: 23/77 (5 Day) – April 14: 22/78
• $ Value Per Point: $6.4 (5 Day) – April 14: 6.3

Very interesting to see the consistency in Thursday’s results across three different GPP’s as compared to the previous 5 days results and how the composition at least in the early going tends to favor rosters with mid-tier starting pitchers. With all the aces going tonight, let’s see if that trend stops!

Now on to the picks…