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DFS Pitching Preview: May 24, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

The complexity of pitching on this slate is that there’s a lot of noise. Kevin Gausman, Logan Webb, Dylan Cease, and Walker Buehler can all make the claim that they’re aces. But there is one who rises above all of the rest.

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DFS Pitching Preview: May 20, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

This is a really tough slate in that there are no clear aces and the best pitchers we have don’t have matchups that stand out. On slates like this, I prefer to save money where I’m sacrificing the least projection, as opposed to chasing raw points. Because there are obvious plays for raw points.

Robbie Ray

Robbie Ray is probably my go-to on the slate. The only knock on him is that he wasn’t striking out many batters to start the season and walked 12 in his first 30.1 innings. But if we’re looking at recency bias, I’d rather look at what confirms the larger sample. Over his last 11.2 innings, Ray has 19 strikeouts and five walks, which is more in the direction of the 11.54 K/9 he achieved last season. Though he’s been effectively wild, he’s been effective, making the price tag too cheap.

As for the matchup, the Red Sox are a fine enough team to target. They don’t strike out much against left-handed pitching, but Ray’s strikeouts are baked into his skillset. At these prices, he can strike out seven in six innings and pay us back with extra juice.

Nestor Cortes

Of the pitchers on this slate, Nestor Cortes has the second-lowest SIERA this season (2.73). That’s elite. And we better believe he’s truly elite to play him because he has the worst matchup on the slate. The White Sox active roster has a 129 wRC+ with only a 21.1% strikeout rate against left-handed pitching since 2020.

To play Cortes is to play him to the degree by which his talent matchup-proof. And that’s not a reach, considering that none of the top pitchers have good matchups.

Sean Manaea

Sean Manaea has come heavy with the strikeouts this season. 10.47 K/9 this season so far and THE BAT thinks this is sticky, as it projects him the highest on the slate. The problem isn’t just the strength of the Giants to score runs, but their 21.1% strikeout rate against lefties since 2020. This looks like a spot where Manaea won’t get blown up and he has a long leash, but his BB/9 is up to 2.93 this season from 2.06 in 2021, so the plate discipline matchup is hairy.

Again, if you’re gonna believe the recency of Manaea’s 2022 strikeouts, we have to believe in the walks, too. This is a scary offense to which any pitcher can gift extra outs.

Julio Urías

Julio Urias belongs with these three not because of his talent, but because of his leash. Since 2021, his 3.73 SIERA is fine, his 8.97 K/9 is fine, but his 1.97 BB/9 and 1.06 HR/9 on a 5.7% barrel rate are elite. The Phillies need power to blow a pitcher up and he just doesn’t break that way, so there’s a high probability of six innings here.

Then, we get the strikeouts. The Phillies active roster has a 24.1% strikeout rate against left-handers since 2020, so if six innings is in the bag, we can strongly believe that at least six strikeouts are, as well.

There’s nothing sexy about this play, but Urias is adequately priced and we should project him well for the sneaky-decent matchup (relatively speaking). I prefer taking on the blowup risk of Ray for the biggest strikeout upside on the slate, but Urias is perfectly fine.

The great thing about DraftKings pricing pitchers so horribly is that we can play whoever we want. But — again — I’m not looking to spend $19k on pitching. The Ray-Urias combo costs only $17.2k.

Tarik Skubal and Jakob Junis

Finally, we get to good matchups. Tarik Skubal and Jakob Junis are the only pitchers on the slate with SIERAs under 4.00 who are also matched up with a wRC+ under 100 versus the handedness of the starters. They’re not very good pitchers, but they have the best matchups.

Thing is, Skubal’s matchup isn’t great and he’s really expensive because he’s got 10.21 K/9, only 1.82 BB/9, and a microscopic 0.45 HR/9 this season on a 5.7% barrel rate. this is a far cry from the feast-or-famine guy we’ve seen throughout his short career. This kid’s surrendered a ton of homers over a short period of time. Is he breaking out or is this a fluke?

Maybe a little bit of both.

We’ve seen his BB/9 slide in the right direction since he debuted, and — from there — it’s natural to see the power prevention get stronger.

But 0.45 HR/9 is just silly. That said, the Guardians are pretty weak on power outside of Jose Ramirez and Franmil Reyes, so Skubal should be fine.

Junis is palatable from a matchup perspective, as the Padres aren’t much after Manny Machado and Luke Voit. Junis can get a strikeout-per-inning, but his volume is firmly in the range of five innings. The pitching on this slate isn’t great, as we’ve already addressed, but we might need six innings from SP2 on this slate because there are some volume machines on it.

Cristian Javier

The Rangers are a great matchup, but they’re fine. We should only keep Cristian Javier in our MME player pools because he has the highest K/9 since 2021 on the slate at 11.37 and the Rangers can strike out a lot. The bad side of this is that he also has the most BB/9 at 4.41. He’s more dramatically effectively wild than Ray at a higher price.

Eric Lauer

I don’t believe it. Remember that if we’re gonna be prisoners of the moment, we have to still look at the total package. Sure, his 2.34 SIERA is the lowest on the slate and his 12.72 K/9 is the highest, and his 2.08 BB/9 is a reflection of great command, but he’s also given up 1.82 HR/9 on a whopping 11.1% barrel rate. American Family Whatever the Hell Park is a hitters park and Washington can mash left-handers just enough through Juan Soto, Nelson Cruz, and Josh Bell. Not to mention the latent power of Keibert Ruiz. This is a sneaky-terrible matchup for over $10k on an unproven guy with a history of being a bit of a bum.

Hyun Jin Ryu 류현진

We should be fans of Hyun Jin Ryu as a real-life pitcher, but his strikeouts have been on a sharp decline since 2020. Sure, he draws the Reds and can go seven, but he could easily come out with only two or three strikeouts. It sounds like I’m being hyperbolic, but I’m not.

Tyler Wells

The guy I’m looking at when I scroll all the way down under $7.5k isn’t German Marquez — a guy I normally like to play cheaply in Coors — or Luis Castillo. I think those guys get mashed tonight. So if I’m risking getting mashed to save a butt-ton of money, why not Tyler Wells?

His 10.26 K/9 and 1.89 BB/9 last year were good enough to translate into a high-command strikeout-per-inning guy after some bouts with control in the minors. The Rays aren’t scary. Their wRC+ against righties since 2020 is only 102, while they have a 24.4% strikeout rate to exploit. Wells is so cheap that we might not need the six innings we discussed earlier, so I can buy it.

Wells fits into the cheap pairing for which we might wanna aim on this complex slate.


DFS Pitching Preview: May 17, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

This is a tough slate for pitching. There are four good pitchers, but none are great. And of those four, three have tough matchups and one is in Coors. Consult the projections and ownership closely. Don’t chase high ownership on a mediocre play. Take the gamble on the lower-owned of your options.

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DFS Pitching Preview: May 9, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

There are a few tiers with which we’re gonna deal. More in order of salary than skill because we’re not talking about your pitcher picks. We’re talking about how you’re going to construct your lineups and the salaries are the shapes of our puzzle pieces.

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DFS Pitching Preview: May 3, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

Tonight’s decision revolve less around stats and more along the lines of gameplan and how you strategize to attack it.

If you’re aggressive on the ownership game and believe that Carlos Rodón is a top-three pitcher rest of season, as THE BAT does, you’re of the mind that he’s matchup-proof. Or you’re indifferent to matchups give a skill set like this. Enough so that his median should be the highest projection. I say that the Dodgers cap his ceiling, but this could be of no concern on DK where the $10k price tag is kinda’ low and no one is gonna play him.

This is an extreme stance — taking a rising star against the Dodgers, but we shouldn’t cross him off if his projected ownership continues to be low.

Wind could be blowing in at Wrigley around 20 mph. If you believe that pitch counts are still so wildly unpredictable that they’re impossible to project, but see Rodon’s matchup as too risky, Michael Kopech has similar strikeout stuff baked in against a Cubs team that strikes out a ton by default. That Kopech went 94 pitches his last outing pumps volume into this per-inning master. If five innings is good to you because it’s so hard to get to six anyway, Kopech is your guy on DK where they don’t give points for the quality start.

If five innings isn’t fine and you want the more comfortable matchup, Joe Ryan has gone six-plus in three straight starts. The Orioles could be less likely to disrupt that streak. He isn’t a consistent strikeout monster, but the Orioles are as good a strikeout matchup as the Cubs, so this could be a ceiling spot for Ryan’s strikeouts. Of these three pitchers, he’s the only one with three outings of six-plus innings.

All of that said, there’s a guy with double-digit K/9, solid control, and elite power prevention since 2021 who’s thrown 89, 89, 95, and 95 pitches across his four starts this season. And he’s facing the lowly Reds for under $9k on DK. Brandon Woodruff is just too damn cheap. If ownership is of no difference to you at pitcher, Woodruff is a game piece that we jam in everywhere to price enforce.

We should be playing one of these four on FD and can mix any of these four into DK lineups. But maybe you wanna sprinkle these four around at SP1 and take a stand on an SP2 cheaper that Woodruff. Which is totally fine — but the options are all very risky.

Cristian Javier has a SIERA under 4.00 since 2021 because of his 11.46 K/9. The risk is that the Mariners aren’t bad anymore, he has 4.40 BB/9 over that stretch with an uncomfortable 1.33 HR/9 allowed on a 9.8% barrel rate. But those strikeouts are sexy. If you disregard walks, Javier is extremely underpriced.

Tyler Mahle is probably not getting the win tonight, but the Brewers are ho-hum offense that strikes out a lot. Mahle has 10.41 K/9 since 2021. The lack of win probability caps his ceiling. But he’s free, so who cares?

Germán Márquez is a great pitcher at Coors Field. We normally don’t give a crap about home-road splits, but when a Rockie pitches well at home, we should take notice, because Coors is its own animal. It’s tough to keep the ball in the park and movement is funky, so pitchers can struggle to generate strikeouts. Marquez’ career ERA is 4.73 at home, but his 9.3 K/9 there is higher than his road 8.6. He’s struggled a little to start the season, but his ERA was 3.67 at Coors last season. I don’t know if last year was a fluke, but if you’re of the mind that Marquez is a good Coors pitcher, hell, no one’s gonna play him.

I think this can be a fine pitching pool from which to choose for SE3 and MME. If you’re wondering why I disregarded some guys, let’s take a look:

Alek Manoah is too damn expensive to be facing the Yankees. If we’re disregarding matchup, we can do it with a far better pitcher in Rodon for a comparable price. If Rodon were catching ownership in the 20% range, we could consider Manoah.

Julio Urías is cheap and there’s an argument that if we’re throwing matchup caution to the wind, we should do at a cheaper price tag. I empathize with this, but Urias doesn’t have baked-in strikeout stuff near Rodon, so Rodon is a rare case

Noah Syndergaard should go without saying. The Red Sox are a pretty neutral-ish matchup, but Syndergaard is only striking out 5.8 per nine this season. The strikeouts could come back this season, given his time away from the game, this is a rare case where I wanna see it first.

This brings us back to Ryan and Kopech. These are $10k-worthy pitchers on whom the field has been saying, let me see it first. The result is them being underpriced and maybe overowned.


DFS Pitching Preview: April 26, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

Pricing differs at the top of the pitching chain today across the sites. The gut reaction is to grab the cheaper options, but that isn’t always the correct option. The field likes to gravitate to the cheaper option. When we go along with the field on a pitching choice, we have to differentiate with our hitters. Don’t certain price points lock you into a chalky build.

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DFS Pitching Preview: April 21, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

This early main slate is a really difficult one to not play chalk pitching. There are five guys with double-digit per-nine strikeout stuff, but three have really samples and two of them are in bad strikeout parks. I’m nitpicking here because the two SP1s are just so obvious that excluding Joe Ryan in a bad strikeout matchup, Tyler Wells and his awful command, and Tanner Houck and his awful matchup feels pretty easy.

EDIT — The cheap Wells is rising on my list because no one is going to play him. I predicted he’d be in the 20-25% ownership range because of the strikeouts and the great matchup, but he could go single digits. He’s become a poor man’s Cease on this slate.

THE SP1s: Kevin Gausman and Dylan Cease

Kevin Gausman is the clear ace of the slate. His SIERA since 2021 is the lowest on the slate and his strikeout matchup is sneaky strong. The Red Sox active roster only has a 104 wRC+ against right-handed pitching since 2020 and their strikeout rate has gone up to 23.5%. Add in his 10.70 K/9, 2.22 BB/9, and 0.89 HR/9 with his ridiculously cheap salary on DK and we’re losing money by not going overweight on him. Sometimes chalk is underowned, too, and Gausman is one of those spots today.

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DFS Pitching Preview: April 19, 2022

Our pitching in MLB DFS isn’t just a source of fantasy points. The price tags on pitchers make it so they shape they dictate the freedoms and restrictions of building our lineups. Before reading this article, it’s highly suggested that you read my article, “DFS Pitching Primer,” so the concepts discussed here make more sense.

That we’re not selecting the best players. We’re constructing the lineups which carry the most leverage without sacrificing many projected fantasy points.

Speaking of lineups, we’re gonna approach this with Coors Field in mind, considering there’s a terribly high-contact pitcher on the mound for Colorado and an erratic pitcher on the mound for Philadelphia. We have to remember that we can’t play chalk pitching with Coors stacks. When stacking Coors teams, we have to find leverage elsewhere.

THE SP1s: Corbin Brunes, Robbie Ray, and Joe Musgrove

Walker Buehler and Framber Valez are strong pitchers, but both have bad matchups on top of weaker K/9, compared to the three we’ll discuss.

Corbin Burnes is at the top of the list. His SIERA is the only one on the slate under 3.00 with the only K/9 over 12.00 and the only HR/9 under 0.75 since 2021, with elite command. And the Pirates are atrocious. Burnes is probably underpriced on both sites.

Robbie Ray is about adequately priced. He’s shown some command issues thus far this season, but we shouldn’t put too much into a couple of outings. We should believe in the bust out we saw last season, where he dramatically lowered his BB/9 and HR/9, while still carrying a high K/9. He draws an unspectacular Rangers team, whose active roster has a 24.2% strikeout rate against left-handed pitching since 2021.

Joe Musgrove has seen his strikeouts, walks, and power prevention swing in the wrong direction since the late-June enhanced enforcement of banned substances. But his numbers since June 30 are still fine: 9.41 K/9, 2.89 BB/9, 1.16 HR/9 on a 3.94 SIERA. Add that the Reds are a no-hitter waiting to happen and fine is, well, fine.

Musgrove’s dramatically more expensive at FD, but the ownership is dramatically lower there. If we can jam in the Coors bats with his hefty price tag at FD, that’s our move. If Otherwise, he’s not really playable with Coors. Sure, the cheap price tag makes it easier to play him with Coors at DK, but everyone sees that same dynamic. Early ownership projections are showing that everyone is seeing Burnes and Ray as much stronger options than Buehler and Valdez, leading me the conclusion that we play Musgrove, Buehler, or Valdez at FD or Buehler and/or Valdez at DK with Coors.

Where we fade Coors, we should be playing Burnes, Ray, or Musgrove. The second we pull that trigger of not playing Coors is the second where we kinda’ don’t have to give a crap about ownership.

THE CHEAP SP2s: Cole Irvin and Chris Archer

Cole Irvin is projected better than Buehler and Valdez, according to THE BAT. The ballpark in Oakland is sexy for run prevention. It’s bad for strikeouts, but Irvin is so cheap that the strikeouts are cherries, not the sundae. Not to mention, the Orioles’ active roster has a 24.9% strikeout rate against left-handers since 2020.

Irvin’s 2.04 BB/9 displays great command and his 1.28 HR/9 is good enough power prevention facing an average bunch of hitters who strike out a ton.

With the field looking for paths toward jamming in two of Burnes, Ray, and Musgrove, Irvin is projecting to gather almost no ownership. But the day is early. He’s projecting so well in terms of performance that the ownership should follow. But, hey, there’s nothing sexy about playing Cole Irvin.

On one hand, there’s nothing on the Fangraphs page of Chris Archer that tells us to play him. But he is free and projected by THE BAT to throw in the 80-pitch range, along with the terrible Royals as his opponent. His 95-96-mph fastball now sits in the 93-94 range and he did go four innings without walking anyone in his first start. The Royals don’t strike out much, on one hand; but they could also be quick outs that get Archer in the direction of six innings. Not putting six innings on the table here; just saying that we could get into the fifth against a high-contact bunch.

Historically, Archer was a fireballer until he got hurt and, then, he got ever more hurt even worse. We don’t really know what he is. But we’re presuming he isn’t and and that’s enough for this price tag against this opponent.

On a personal note: recent months have been overwhelmingly trying for my family and I want to express my deepest gratitude for all of the well wishes and support.


The Argument Against Alex Bregman

Alex Bregman is a really good real-life baseball player who should continue to hit well. In 2019, his last full season, he banged out 41 home runs for us. In the following 580 plate appearance, though, he only has 18. This includes an injury-plagued 2021 that we can excuse, but it still begs the question:

Is Alex Bregman a 40-home-run hitter or a 25-home-run hitter?

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The Argument for Logan Webb

I don’t only like sexy pitchers with double-digit strikeout rates. There are guys for whom I’ll make arguments because they’re being slightly or greatly underdrafted or I’ll pick out a guy who seems about right in Logan Webb, who readers might get a little bit of sticker shock.

Note the list of players with an XFIP- of 65 or lower in 2021 consists of:

Corbin Burnes
Logan Webb

That’s it. That’s the list.

Webb was the epitome of a bad pitch-to-contact guy in his 2019 debut and the shortened 2020 before exploding to find a lot more strikeouts, a ton of control, and continued great power prevention. We hunt down K/9 in volume for good reason, but it’s important to focus on Webb’s control improvements because control keeps him ahead of the count for strikeouts and keeps him in the game for innings.

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