CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Monday, May 16th
Happy Monday! We’ve got a pretty big slate for a Monday, with 11 games on the main slate starting at 7:05pm ET. I apologize in advance that you have to read this on a Giants in Coors Field slate. The good news here is that I will be off tomorrow, and Wednesday’s game will not be on the main slate, so you only have to deal with this once from me. I am exceedingly disappointed that the salaries are as low as they are on DK. If we had all the Giants bats up over $5k, it wouldn’t be an issue, but alas, it’s an issue. Let’s just try and get through the pitching, and I’ll hold back my excitement for a while, and then we can talk about all the things you can do if you don’t want to just play the best team. Really, the good news here is that this slate is quite loaded with bats, and it ends up being nowhere near a must-play situation with Coors Field bats. The bad news is, you’ve got to find a pitcher or two to play, so let’s start there.
Monday Night Pitching
It is not pretty out here tonight. The lack of good options makes it so that you can make a case for a ton of these mediocre options. Freddy Peralta and Luis Severino look like the belles of the ball, and then this is what the rest of the nonsense looks like:
Freddy Peralta vs Braves
Luis Severino at Orioles
Tony Gonsolin vs Diamondbacks
Miles Mikolas at Mets
Garrett Whitlock vs Astros
Ian Anderson at Brewers
Jon Gray vs Angels
Noah Syndergaard at Rangers
Chris Archer at A’s
Zach Logue vs Twins
Yusei Kikuchi vs Mariners
Kyle Bradish vs Yankees
Wade Miley vs Pirates
Something Close To Ace Potential
Freddy Peralta, Luis Severino (Garrett Whitlock)
This is gobbledygook. There are only two pitchers on this slate with a strikeout rate above 25% this season. That would be Freddy Peralta and Garrett Whitlock. Peralta is doing his usual thing where he nibbles and goofs around and walks a few too many guys leading to short outings. But, at the same time, the strikeout upside is real and undeniable. He hasn’t been below 30% K in his career, and part of the reason he rarely pitches more than 5-6 innings is because he’s striking out 7-8 batters per start. The matchup is full of power risk, but comes with plenty of strikeouts, just adding to his already boom/bust profile.
Whitlock has shown similar skills to Peralta, with big per inning upside, but he opened the season in the bullpen. The good news here is that he worked up a season high 82 pitches last week, but the bad news is that in four starts, the innings look like this – 4, 3, 5, 3. Theoretically, he could get up towards 90 pitches, but we still don’t know if the Red Sox would be willing to give him more than five innings, especially in this type of matchup. I just can’t get excited here at all, and he’ll likely miss my player pool tonight.
If we take long-term skills plus matchup, Luis Severino looks like the other ace to consider alongside Peralta. He has not been great this season, but on this slate, a 25% strikeout rate with 7.3% walks puts him near the top of the list. We still don’t know if/when he’s going to make it back to his 2017-2018 pre-injury form, but for now, I’m just taking him as the pretty good, not elite pitcher that we have seen this season. The matchup is good enough for me to call him the SP1 at his savings from Peralta. This is not the type of pitcher I’d generally want to be close to all-in on, but as we get further down the list of options, it becomes a tougher fade.