CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Friday, June 17th
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Happy Friday! We’ve got a big slate with a lot to like on all sides tonight. FD is going with 11-games, while DK adds in the 2nd game of the Nationals-Phillies doubleheader for a 12-game slate, starting at 7:05pm ET. Overall, the pitching side of things looks stronger, but there is plenty of top tier offense and a lot of good hitting weather around the country. I’ve also been told by a moderately reliable source that basketball is finally over, so that’s good. I will assume that means that somebody won, so you know, congrats to them I guess.
Friday Night Pitching
Loads Of Lefties And A Few Other Aces
Carlos Rodon at Pirates
Robbie Ray vs Angels
Tarik Skubal vs Rangers
Clayton Kershaw vs Guardians
Framber Valdez vs White Sox
Pablo Lopez at Mets
Frankie Montas vs Royals
Carlos Carrasco vs Marlins
Lucas Giolito at Astros
Well, this is just a fantastic pool of top tier pitchers. Immediately, we can look at this list and say that anyone is welcome to spread out as far as they want with these aces, and anyone is welcome to have a completely different ranking among them. With this many great pitchers, I’m going to start by eliminating as many as I can from the primary pool.
The first cut is Clayton Kershaw. He may be the best pitcher in our lifetimes, but he’s not the best right now, and he’s limited. He threw 71 pitches in his first start off the IL and he’s priced up to $10,500 on both sites. No thank you.
Pablo Lopez is the next to miss the party. He’s great, but not only does he have a tough matchup, he’s dealing with a wrist contusion that pushed him back a couple days. He should be fine, but it’s not as if he would have been a top option even at full strength.
A little more reluctantly, Lucas Giolito is the next cut. His strikeout rate is the highest on this slate at 30.7%, but his pitching style leaves his innings low and inconsistent and his risk too high for this matchup.
My next cut is Carlos Carrasco. Like all these pitchers, he’s good, but he is just a 23.7% K pitcher with the big starts few and far between. If I’m going to play a lower strikeout pitcher, I prefer Valdez, who we’ll get to shortly.
This is just my opinion on cuts, and by all means, you are welcome to include Giolito, Carrasco and Lopez in your pool, but I need it narrowed down. This leaves me with this group to sort through, along with their 2022 numbers:
Carlos Rodon at Pirates – 30.6% K, 9.2% BB, 3.18 ERA, 3.27 SIERA
Robbie Ray vs Angels – 25.1% K, 8.7% BB, 4.52 ERA, 3.80 SIERA
Tarik Skubal vs Rangers – 27.6% K, 4.4% BB, 2.71 ERA, 2.95 SIERA
Frankie Montas vs Royals – 26.1% K, 5.6% BB, 3.40 ERA, 3.16 SIERA
Framber Valdez vs White Sox – 19.9% K, 9.1% BB, 2.64 ERA, 3.47 SIERA