CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Sunday, May 29th
Happy Sunday! The sites have lined up today with an 8-game main slate starting at 1:35pm ET. It is very heavy on the pitching side today with a multitude of aces and near aces. It looks like we have good weather everywhere with nothing to worry about, so let’s just jump right in and look at all these pitchers.
Sunday Pitching
THREE ACES
Shane McClanahan vs Yankees – 37.4% K, 6.1% BB, 2.06 ERA, 2.07 SIERA
Corbin Burnes at Cardinals – 30.5% K, 4.5% BB, 2.18 ERA, 2.64 SIERA
Dylan Cease vs Cubs – 35.3% K, 9.5% BB, 4.24 ERA, 2.75 SIERA
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
Luis Severino at Rays – 24.4% K, 6.3% BB, 3.02 ERA, 3.49 SIERA
Sonny Gray vs Royals – 31% K, 8.8% BB, 2.60 ERA, 3.06 SIERA
Max Fried vs Marlins – 23.3% K, 3.6% BB, 3.27 ERA, 3.12 SIERA
Miles Mikolas vs Brewers – 18.6% K, 5% BB, 1.96 ERA, 3.94 SIERA
Marcus Stroman at White Sox – 24.2% K, 6% BB, 4.71 ERA, 3.43 SIERA
Josiah Gray vs Rockies – 25.5% K, 10.5% BB, 5.44 ERA, 4.16 SIERA
ORDER NOW AND WE’LL THROW IN THESE MATCHUPS
Nick Pivetta vs Orioles – 23.1% K, 8% BB, 4.25 ERA, 3.90 SIERA
Triston McKenzie at Tigers – 22.4% K, 7.3% BB, 2.70 ERA, 3.98 SIERA
McClanahan and Cease rank 1st and 2nd in strikeout rate among all major league pitchers, while Burnes ranks 6th in strikeouts and 4th in K-BB%. These are all elite aces, with Burnes and McClanahan having the better control and consistency, but Cease having the better matchup.
Cease got absolutely hammered in his last start, and has now allowed 6+ runs in two of his last three outings. Though to be fair, one of those outings also came with 11 strikeouts. I am not scared off at all by the runs, and the strikeout upside far outweighs that. However, it’s not just Cease vs himself, we’ve also got McClanahan and Burnes. The logos on the jersey might make the matchup feel tougher for McClanahan, but the reality of the numbers is that this is a better spot for McClanahan in terms of strikeouts. On top of that, he has been the more consistent ace, and as funny as it sounds, he just looks like the better pitcher right now. On DK, McClanahan is my SP1, and then I’m going to side slightly with Cease ahead of Burnes, but will gladly play either if I can go double aces, or just need to start looking for pivots in multi-entry. On FD, McClanahan is priced way up to $11k, and with how close these guys are, I will call Cease the SP1 with his significant savings there.