CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Monday, July 4th
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Happy Birthday America, and Happy Monday to all of you. Officially, you don’t need a holiday to have my permission to eat a bunch of good food, but as always, have at it!
I was expecting to see a bunch of day games, but that is not the case, with just a few games spread haphazardly throughout the day. We get one main slate to focus on for each site tonight, but even those don’t quite line up perfectly. DK is starting at 6:40pm ET with a 7-gamer that will include the second game of the Guardians-Tigers doubleheader. FD also has a 7-game main slate, but it starts earlier at 6:10pm, and does not include that doubleheader, but instead adds in the Giants-D’Backs.
Pitching For America
Carlos Rodon at Diamondbacks (FD)
Alek Manoah at A’s (America?)
Sean Manaea vs Mariners
Julio Urias vs Rockies
Kyle Wright vs Cardinals
Taijuan Walker at Reds
Hunter Greene vs Mets
This biggest difference between the sites appears immediately with Carlos Rodon headlining the FD slate. Even though he hasn’t been incredibly consistent, no one can match his ceiling, and even when he’s not at his best, he’s pretty good. He only has two starts below 20 FD points in 15 outings this season vs 8 starts above 45-FD points. No one on this slate is more trustable or comes with a higher ceiling, so he’s my SP1 on FD.
What we find after Rodon is 5-7 very good pitchers, all under $9,500 on DK, but mostly priced up on FD. If we take full season numbers, the only pitcher here over 26% strikeouts is Hunter Greene, but he comes with a whole other set of issues in terms of control and power. Taijuan Walker is the outlier on the other side with just a 17.7% strikeout rate this season. The good news with him is that he is pitching much better recently, bringing his strikeouts up to 24.8% over the past month and pitching 6+ quality innings in his last four outings. I’m not completely out on Greene-Walker, but they are a step behind the others here.
What we see next are Sean Manaea and Kyle Wright at 26% strikeout rates with 8-9% walks, but very different pitching styles with ground balls for Wright and fly balls for Manaea. In the same matchup, I would have a very slight lean to the skill set of Wright, but it’s extremely close, and we do have a much longer track record for Manaea. Neither has a completely ideal matchup, but I do prefer Manaea against Seattle. I don’t see anything here for either that would either take them out of play, or make them priorities.
It would be a real kick in the teeth for the Canadian pitcher to come down here and be the ace tonight, but that certainly could be the case with Alek Manoah in Oakland. Technically, Manoah is from Florida, but the jersey says he’s not from around here anymore. His strikeouts are just OK at 22.7%, but he’s been extremely consistent with excellent control all season and he’s only allowed more than two earned runs twice in 15 starts. He’s most often at six innings, with upside for more when things go his way and tonight he gets a big ballpark upgrade against one of the weakest lineups in the league. At some point, he’s due some batted ball regression, but tonight is the not the most likely night for that to start. He’s my SP1 on DK tonight. On FD, I stick with Rodon ahead of him. For America.