MLB DFS Pitching Analysis: April 27, 2021

Our MLB DFS lineups don’t start and end with pitching. I’m not saying to punt pitcher every night or even every now and then. I’m just stressing that each and every slate does not rest upon our pitching. That said, the pitcher position is so vital because it’s the slot where we can get the most accurate projection in an extremely volatile wing of DFS.

Our pitching 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.

TIER ONE — ACES: Scherzer, Giolito, and Buehler

What’s fun about tonight’s three aces is that they vary is price, so we can build three completely different lineups with them — especially on FD, where $1,400 separates the top-two and $2,200 separate the most expensive to the least expensive ace. Max Scherzer is the most expensive on both sites, while Lucas Giolito is the cheapest and under $10k on DK and Walker Buehler is the cheaper and under $10k on FD.

Basic skill rating, the play is Max, but — as my friend, Dean, always says — we live a world of a salary cap. Max being the best pitcher doesn’t make him the best play. He is the most restrictive on what we can do with our lineups and has the worst matchup.

Giolito and Buehler are nearly identical in SIERA and far behind Max. Giolito pretty far ahead of Buehler in strikeouts, but Giolito’s walks only give him a slight 24.1% to 23.4% edge in K-BB%.

Bringing us back to the matchup. Giolito’s edge in the matchup is so huge over Max and Buehler — in wRC+, in K rate, the .146 ISO the Tigers have against right-handed pitching — to go with an old-school manager holding a long leash that he’s the optimal play on both sites.

TIER TWO — LEVERAGE: Montas, Anderson on DK

For the second pitcher slot on DK, everyone is either: (a) spending up at SP on one of the three aces or Cristian Javier; or (b) spending way down on Jose Quintana.

Frankie Montas, who’s average by every measure, will go overlooked in a great spot. He’s in a pitchers’ park against a team that strikes out 24.6% of the time to right-handed pitching. He projects worse than Javier, but only by a couple of points, yet is $2k cheaper. He’ll be owned, but not nearly as much as Javier and Quintana.

Ian Anderson is more interesting with Kris Bryant out of the Cubs’ lineup for today. Already projecting about the same as Montas and Quintana before lineups were released — and even lower owned than Montas — he gets a bump in the projection that put him ahead of the two, as he was only fractions of a point behind them.

All of that said, the best leverage is to either: (a) stack the Tigers; or (b) play Max or Buehler somehow. The other two aces are also looking to be lower owned than Javier, Quintana, and Montas.

TIER THREE — DEEP LEVERAGE: Max-Buehler lineups on DK

Normally, tier three is a reach. It’s a bad pitcher in a decent spot or a decent pitcher in a terrible spot. Today, the best leverage is probably lineups where we cross off Giolito and play both Max and Buehler together for over $20k. Almost no one is gonna do that. And they’re two great pitchers, worthy of their salary. The industry is gonna flock toward the massively underpriced Giolito and find other ways to be contrarian, or just substitute Giolitio with oneof the other two aces. The Max-Buehler combo is going to be a small fraction of the lineups out there.

All stats cited are since 2019, unless otherwise noted.