MLB Picks and Pivots – FanDuel Picks May 1

Welcome to the Sunday 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!

FanSided and FantasyCPR have you covered – For additional FanDuel MLB analysis, take a look at my fellow staff writer Matt Rogers FanDuel Economics column or Mike Marteny who provides Draft Kings MLB Picks analysis giving you the most in depth DFS coverage for tonight’s baseball slate.

We get a great all day slate on Sunday starting at 1:10PM EST and concluding with the Sunday Night game at 8:05PM EST with the Yankees & Red Sox.

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. I HIGHLY recommend each of you do this each morning to look back on the previous night and understand how the winning lineups are constructed in the games you participate in.

The view below tracks GPP entries over various time periods, breaking out key metrics to understand the trends and compositions of GPP winning rosters:

The new FanDuel scoring has officially raised the bar as in order to take down a large field GPP and even to cash out in other games, we are seeing materially higher scores needed. The target value is roughly 10% higher than the season long average forcing us to continuously re-evaluate our decisions. Although the scores have increased, one consistent theme continues and this is the fact that the 7-8k tiered SP continue to find themselves as the pitchers delivering the best value. Friday night it was Drew Smyly and Aaron Sanchez delivering that value and GPP wins but it has been the offenses with the increased points for RBI’s and Runs that is delivering the biggest boost to our scores.

I highly recommend gamers track their game performance across the various types of games they play – GPP’s, Cash, Multipliers etc – as this simple exercise will help teach you more about profitable roster construction than you can imagine.

Now on to the picks…