CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Thursday, August 11th
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Happy Thursday! We’ve got an early start today with all the DFS action taking place on the early slate. This is a very lopsided slate with an obvious build around Coors Field. The pitching side leaves us with very few reasonable pivots off some decent chalk, and every pivot on the offensive side will require an outlier game on the downside in Colorado. Let’s jump right in and see if we can find anything to like outside of the obvious.
Thursday Pitching
Three ‘Aces’
Dylan Cease at Royals
Framber Valdez vs Rangers
Merrill Kelly vs Pirates
Four Other Options
Kyle Gibson vs Marlins
Zach Plesac at Tigers
Edward Cabrera at Phillies
JT Brubaker at Diamondbacks
Look At My ERA!
Dylan Cease at Royals – 32.8% K, 10.5% BB, 1.98 ERA, 3.22 SIERA
Framber Valdez vs Rangers – 21.7% K, 8.7% BB, 2.87 ERA, 3.31 SIERA
Merrill Kelly vs Pirates – 20.6% K, 7.4% BB, 2.86 ERA, 4.12 SIERA
This is a weird little group of pitchers we have today. The first thing I notice is that if you are fan of good old ERA, you’ve got yourself a good old Top 3. Cease, Valdez and Kelly are all in the top 15 in the league in ERA. Ah, good old ERA! Of that trio, the only one whose ERA looks overly flukified is Merrill Kelly, with the 4.12 SIERA. However, not only is he facing the Pirates, he’s also been at the top of his game recently with a 25% K rate and just 3% walks in the past month. It’s no Framber Valdez, but he has an impressive seven straight quality starts with 7+ innings in his last three. Meanwhile, Valdez laughs at that consistency with a remarkable 18 consecutive quality starts. His huge 67.4% GB rate has made him one of the most trustable pitchers in the league and there is no reason to start doubting that now. Neither of these guys are big strikeout pitchers, and to reach any meaningful upside, they need all the batted ball help to pile up clean innings. They are more of the ‘pay up for safety’ variety on a slate where there isn’t much to love.