Covering The Bases: Sunday, April 21st
Long-time grinder, STLCardinals84, is here to cover the bases for the upcoming MLB DFS slate. Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Cards has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his favorite MLB DFS picks.
Happy Sunday, Grinders! We have a fun Sunday slate on tap, with ten games on the main DraftKings docket and eleven on FanDuel this afternoon. FD is including the SEA/COL game at Coors Field that starts just after 3 PM ET, whereas DK is not including that game. Generally, that’s common practice for how both sites handle Sunday home games in Denver.
This is also a slate where you can really get lost in the weeds. There are not a lot of “obvious” plays today. Ownership is going to be spread out. There are a lot of offenses that project for somewhere between 4.2 and 4.6 runs scored. From a projections perspective, there’s a lot of bunched-up-ness today. We’ll get into that more below. Let’s break things down!
Sunday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
Part of what makes this slate so difficult is that we don’t have much for dominant pitching upside on this slate. A lot of the best pitchers are good real life pitchers but not high strikeout arms. That’s going to make ceiling results hard to obtain. In any case, here’s the best of the bunch.
TOP TIER PITCHING
Aaron Nola vs. White Sox
Sonny Gray vs. Brewers
Aaron Civale vs. Yankees
Tanner Bibee vs. A’s
George Kirby vs. Rockies (FD Only)
As usual, here’s a peek at the 2024 numbers for each of these five guys (thanks Cheese):
Nola – 3.47 ERA, 4.19 xFIP, 20% K, 9% BB
Gray – 0.00 ERA, 2.74 xFIP, 28% K, 0% BB (two starts, 11 IP)
Civale – 2.74 ERA, 3.12 xFIP, 29% K, 5% BB
Bibee – 4.82 ERA, 4.63 xFIP, 21% K, 12% BB
Kirby – 6.64 ERA, 3.78 xFIP, 21% K, 2% BB
I’m actually going to work my way up in reverse order here for a reason.
George Kirby is not as bad as his 6.64 ERA would indicate. He has been victimized by a higher than normal BABIP so far, and that should correct over time given his skill set. However, he’s also a pitcher that is an extreme pitch-to-contact arm, and that’s not really a predictor of success at Coors Field. The good news is that it is cold in Colorado, the Rockies are terrible, and Luis Castillo set them down with ease last night. With that said, given Kirby’s status as a low-strikeout pitcher, I just don’t see the benefit here.
Let’s be honest. Tanner Bibee is only even listed in this tier because he’s facing the A’s. He’s overpriced and has struggled in the early going. I’ll pass.
Aaron Civale has been a revelation so far for his new team with a huge bump in strikeouts over his first handful of starts. I’m not ready to buy into that at 100% just yet, and I don’t love the matchup against the Yankees. On a positive note for his outlook, though, the Yankees have not looked great at the plate lately, and Aaron Judge was 0-for-4 with four strikeouts on Saturday. I could see a case for Civale here, but I would like to see a few more strong starts before buying in.
Sonny Gray has been nearly flawless in his two starts for the Cardinals, but he is still working his way back from injury. He was on a 65 pitch limit in his first start and a 75 pitch limit in his second start. I would guess he might get up to 85 today, but that’s still not quite a full workload. At his salary, we need a full workload. I’m okay with using him against the Brewers, but I would prefer just waiting until he is allowed to get to 95-100 pitches.
I went in reverse order here to prove that there really isn’t a sure thing in the top tier today. That leaves us with Aaron Nola. About ten days ago, I would have even been worried about him here. However, we have positive trends now. Namely, we have the following:
A) Nola looked great in his last start, throwing 7 1/3 innings of one-run ball with nine strikeouts.
B) Nola has always been a much better pitcher at home throughout his career.
C) Nola gets to face an injury-laden White Sox team that almost got no-hit by Zack Wheeler last night and has already been shut out seven times on the season.
I am just going to play Nola as my SP1 here, no questions asked. As I said in the introduction, there’s not going to be a ton of massive chalk on this slate, and I am not getting overly concerned with pOWN%, especially when we get to bats. Nola will be popular, but not to some extreme measure.
SECONDARY TIER PITCHING
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