Covering The Bases: Saturday, May 4th
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 Saturday, Grinders! We have the usual split slate on this Saturday, with the games pretty much evenly split between early and late. There are seven early games today, which DraftKings is offering as one slate starting around 1 PM Eastern. FanDuel has split that into two early slates (one four-game slate and one three-game slate). I will just discuss the seven games together, and you can split the analysis as needed if you are playing on FanDuel.
There are six night games this evening, with DraftKings offering us a full slate that starts at 6:40 PM Eastern. FanDuel and Yahoo have excluded the BAL/CIN game from their contests, however, leaving us a five-game slate on those sites that starts at 7:10 PM Eastern.
Another big issue today is going to be the weather. I am going to write the slate up as though all games will play, as none of them currently have any “red” in their forecast from Kevin Roth, but we will need to keep an eye on it. Check out Roth’s updated forecast here.
Let’s dig in and see what this Saturday slate has to offer!
Saturday Afternoon Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
TRIO AT THE TOP
There’s not much for top end pitching this afternoon, but I do see three arms that could potentially stand out from the rest in terms of upside.
Pablo Lopez vs. Red Sox
Jared Jones vs. Rockies
Kevin Gausman vs. Nationals
As usual, we start with a look at the 2024 numbers so far:
Lopez – 4.83 ERA, 3.03 xFIP, 29% K, 5% BB
Jones – 3.18 ERA, 2.49 xFIP, 32% K, 4% BB
Gausman – 4.50 ERA, 3.92 xFIP, 19% K, 5% BB
The only pitcher out of this group that has shown zero reason for concern in the early going is Jared Jones, the dominant rookie pitcher for the Pirates. Oh, and he also gets to pitch at home this afternoon against the woeful Rockies. Last night marked the first game all season in which the Rockies had not trailed at some point during the game. All things being equal, Jones would be my clear SP1 choice this afternoon. Unfortunately, not all things are equal, as this game has an early ORANGE / YELLOW weather rating from Kevin Roth, and we have light-to-moderate rain forecast in Pittsburgh pretty much all day.
Last year, Gausman would be my clear SP1 choice this afternoon. Unfortunately, this is not last year. Gausman still doesn’t look quite right, and while his results have been better of late, we still have just a 19% strikeout rate on the year. This game also has an ORANGE weather rating from Kevin Roth, and while the matchup is solid against the Nationals, I just can’t trust him right now. Throw in the weather forecast, and it’s not worth messing around here.
That leaves Pablo Lopez. The one time he was massive chalk a few weeks ago, he threw perhaps his worst game of the season against the woeful White Sox. There were rumblings that he was injured. That’s still a mild concern, but he’s the one pitcher in this tier that doesn’t have a weather concern. He also has strong peripheral data that includes a 3.03 xFIP and a 29% strikeout rate. He seems completely healthy to me, and he still has a 21/3 K/BB ratio over his last three starts despite shaky results.
You can probably fade this whole tier if you want – Lopez due to performance and a tougher matchup against Boston, Jones due to weather, and Gausman due to performance and weather. However, I’m going to try to get some exposure. I am ranking this group as Jones > Lopez > Gausman IF weather is not an issue, but for now I’ve tagged Lopez in LineupHQ as my “official” play simply because of the weather concern in Pittsburgh. If the game in Pittsburgh ends up being a full go with clarity for pitcher usage, Jones would be my preference.
EVERYTHING ELSE
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
