Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks for Friday, May 3rd
CheeseIsGood, a winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize on both DraftKings and FanDuel, is here to give you his musings on the upcoming MLB DFS slate. Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Cheese has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his MLB DFS picks.
Happy Friday! With games spread out at different times, we are left with a manageable 9-game main slate tonight. But even without the usual full Friday schedule, we have a big top tier with both pitchers and hitters. I am going to get things narrowed down to a reasonable-sized primary pool, but this is definitely going to be one of those slates to keep an eye on projected ownership throughout the day. My initial hunch is that the chalk pitchers get steamed up a bit. I’ll be on Crunch Time tonight at 6:20 PM ET, where I will let you know if I’ve had any changes to these thoughts.
Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We’ve got a big top tier, with 8 pitchers priced from $10,100 down to $7,800 on DK. With the exception of Sonny Gray, who has been lights out through 4 starts, every one of these pitchers has something a bit confusing in either their skill set or game log. I’ll do my best to break them down and come to some sort of conclusion, but my initial lean is that at least 5-6 of these guys need to be in the primary pool.
EIGHT ACES IS A LOT OF ACES
Sonny Gray vs. White Sox – 36% K, 4.5% BB, 1.16 ERA, 2.16 SIERA
Tanner Bibee vs. Angels – 26.3% K, 9% BB, 3.45 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
Marcus Stroman vs. Tigers – 23.2% K, 10.9% BB, 3.69 ERA, 3.89 SIERA
Dylan Cease at Diamondbacks – 28.8% K, 10.1% BB, 2.78 ERA, 3.59 SIERA
Ronel Blanco vs. Mariners – 23.4% K, 10.9% BB, 1.65 ERA, 4.18 SIERA
Tanner Houck at Twins – 26.5% K, 3.2% BB, 1.60 ERA, 2.62 SIERA
George Kirby at Astros – 28.4% K, 3% BB, 4.18 ERA, 2.86 SIERA
Brady Singer vs. Rangers – 24.5% K, 9.4% BB, 2.62 ERA, 3.59 SIERA
I’ll start with the easy one – Sonny Gray against the White Sox. There’s no way he continues to be this good, with 36% strikeouts and a career-best walk rate. But at this moment, I don’t see any reason to overthink calling him the SP1, at least on DK, where he’s only $10,100. This is just going to come down to watching projected ownership. While he’ll certainly be the chalk, we have enough good pitchers that I don’t expect it to be extreme, at least in larger-field tournaments, so my initial plan is to have him as my highest-owned pitcher. That changes on FD, where an $11,500 price tag is more than I’m willing to go when looking at the next few options.