CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Friday, July 1st
This DFS content is a part of our Premium Content Schedule and designed to help you build better lineups on DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo!, SuperDraft, and other daily fantasy contest providers. Access MLB Projections, Expert Rankings, Projected Ownership, MLB DFS Picks, and other Data Tools using this content hub. For our world-class optimizer that offers a suite of tools and information designed to help you crush the competition, please head to LineupHQ!
My oh my, Happy July! The season is flying by as we tick another month off the calendar. We kick things off with a 10-game main slate that has a lot of everything from aces to high total offense. Unfortunately, that ‘everything’ also includes some weather issues that can throw this slate directly into the center of whack. The big one is in Cleveland, where Gerrit Cole is on the mound and we have a straight Orange from Roth to open the day. Hopefully we’ll get some clarity there one way or the other well before lock, but be sure to tune into Crunchtime to get the final report if it’s still in limbo.
Friday Night Pitching
Aces and Almost Aces
Gerrit Cole at Guardians – 31.8% K, 6.6% BB, 2.99 ERA, 2.85 SIERA
Corbin Burnes at Pirates – 32.4% K, 5.7% BB, 2.41 ERA, 2.69 SIERA
Chris Bassitt vs Rangers – 25.7% K, 7% BB, 4.01 ERA, 3.50 SIERA
Cristian Javier vs Angels – 31.8% K, 9.4% BB, 2.73 ERA, 3.35 SIERA
Well, the good news here is that unless you are playing for double-aces or MME’ing, it is not going to be necessary to mess with the weather in Cleveland. Gerrit Cole and Corbin Burnes are both elite aces that can dominate in any matchup, but this is a far better matchup for Burnes. It’s pretty close to a Don’t Overthink It even before considering the weather. The case for Cole is simply that if the game stays dicey all day, but ends up playing, you can get one of the best pitchers in the world at an ownership discount. I will absolutely play some double-aces on DK, but Burnes is the easy answer here for SP1.
At his best, Cristian Javier is the other pitcher on this slate who can compete with Burnes and Cole in the strikeout category. We saw it in his 13-K gem last week in New York, but that was the first time all season that he’d reached seven innings or double-digit strikeouts. Consistency and pitch count are the issues for him, and in this instance, I don’t think I can view the 115-pitch outing last week as a good thing. He had been held around 90 pitches the rest of the season, and I can’t imagine them wanting to push him again tonight. If we assume he’s right back around 90, he has a lot of per-inning upside against the high strikeout Angels, but not much room for error.