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.