CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Tuesday, August 2nd
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Happy Trade Deadline Day! There should be quite a bit of movement today, and even after initial lineups are released, you’ll need to stay on top of the news up until lock. But once the deadline passes and we get final lineups, it’s just baseball as usual with a big 14-game slate on DK and 13 games on FD.
The biggest headline is the return of Jacob deGrom, but there are quite a few good pitchers on the mound tonight along with plenty of high upside offense, so let’s jump right into it.
Tuesday Night Pitching
What I find tonight is a big top tier that has enough talent and upside at different price points to leave everything else basically out of play tonight. The big second tier also has a lot of good pitchers, and guys that would be very much in play in these matchups on different slates, but it’s getting a little too thin for me tonight.
The Pool
Corbin Burnes at Pirates
Jacob deGrom at Nationals
Spencer Strider vs Phillies
Kevin Gausman at Rays
Cristian Javier vs Red Sox
Lucas Giolito vs Royals
Triston McKenzie vs Diamondbacks
The Leftovers
Logan Gilbert at Yankees
Zac Gallen at Guardians
Noah Syndergaard vs A’s ??
Jameson Taillon vs Mariners
Alex Wood vs Dodgers
Tyler Anderson at Giants
Drew Rasmussen vs Blue Jays
Cole Irvin at Angels
Cheap-ish Nonsense
Jordan Lyles at Rangers
Keegan Thompson at Cardinals
Spencer Howard vs Orioles
Kutter Crawford at Astros
Who Is The Ace?
Corbin Burnes at Pirates
Jacob deGrom at Nationals
Spencer Strider vs Phillies
Kevin Gausman at Rays
Cristian Javier vs Red Sox
Lucas Giolito vs Royals
Triston McKenzie vs Diamondbacks
First things first, Jacob deGrom is ‘the ace’, but not for tonight. It’s great that he’s back, the game is better with him in it, and he is the best pitcher on the planet. But he does not get a post-injury discount, and he threw just 67 pitches in his last rehab start. The Mets would be jabronis to push him too hard too fast, and while no team is more jabroni-ish with their pitchers, I just don’t see any real case to use deGrom on this slate. Let him get back into form, and then be ready to pounce once his pitch count is up.
So now, we’ve got Corbin Burnes at the top in a great matchup, and this looks fantastic. He has been a bit up and down, but we’re still looking at double-digit strikeouts in three of his last four starts and a 32.8% K rate for the season with just 6.4% walks. If salary is no issue, I’d start with Burnes. On DK, it’s too easy to fit him, and I’ll be close to locking him in. FD is a different story.
Particularly on FD, salary is an issue, and we also have two cheaper pitchers with even higher strikeout rates than Burnes in Spencer Strider and Cristian Javier. $8,300 looks like too low a salary for the skill set that Strider has displayed this season with a huge 37.2% K rate, but there are question marks here. Both his innings and his strikeouts have dropped recently and I’m still of the opinion that the Braves are going to look for reasons to limit his workload down the stretch. But with that being said, in a key division game, if he’s rolling, they should still let him roll. With salary considered, I have to say I’d rank him ahead of Burnes on FD, and call him the primary SP2 on DK.
On DK, Cristian Javier is priced alongside Strider, and he’s a very similar pitcher as far as per-inning upside, but unknowns with consistency. The game log looks a lot like Striders, with multiple eye-opening double-digit strikeout games, but tup and down innings and control. The matchups are close, but even if Boston doesn’t trade another bat during the day, I still prefer facing Boston at this point. I think it would be a mistake to try and take any hard stance on one of these two guys being better than the other, and I’ll be splitting them 50/50 on DK.
Kevin Gausman is priced in between Burnes and Strider/Javier, and has been no more consistent than the other wild cards. I do like the fact that his control has been steady, and he’s really just been BABIP’d at a ridiculous .474 over the past three starts that make the results look worse than they are. He is a full step below Strider/Javier and Burnes in strikeout rate, but he has shown the upside, and he has the best control of the group. He also gets a ballpark upgrade and a good strikeout matchup in Tampa. I would play him ahead of Strider and Javier if they were all the same salary, but it’s all jumbled enough that he falls behind them in the pecking order based on those salaries.