CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings - MLB DFS Strategy: Wednesday, June 29th

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Happy Wednesday! We’ve got baseball all over the place today with about 37 different slates throughout the day. My focus will be on the 7-game main slate starting at the usual 7:05pm ET time slot. But with all these day games, let’s start with a quick glance at the 12:10pm ET ‘Very Early Only’ 5-game FD and the 4-game DK slate at 1:05.

Very Early is when Milton the dog needed to go outside today, so I’m starting out a little groggy. Milton the dog also does not always feel able to make his way back up the stairs, especially if the stairs are wet, so the good news is that I’ve already been outside today. Look at me getting out the house already today!

Early Slate Pitching

I see three buckets of early slate pitchers. Basically, two good options, a mostly unnecessary mid-tier, and then cheap nonsense with good matchups:

Justin Verlander at Mets
Jameson Taillon vs A’s

Eric Lauer at Rays (FD)
Taijuan Walker vs Astros

Dane Dunning at Royals
Mitch Keller at Nationals
Zack Greinke vs Rangers
Paolo Espino vs Pirates

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The early slates today have a clear top two on both sites with Verlander and Taillon, then a mid-range that ends up being not any more exciting than the cheap nonsense due to the matchups.

Justin Verlander is a better pitcher than Jameson Taillon, but it’s close-ish, with both guys being more about control than strikeouts. Verlander’s 24.3% K rate leaves him needing the seven inning starts to be worth his salary. The good news is that he more often than not gets those seven innings, and there are still occasional spikes in strikeouts. Taillon needs the innings even more than Verlander, but he rarely gets them, usually being held around 90 pitches.

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About the Author

CheeseIsGood
Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood)

One of the preeminent baseball minds in all of fantasy, Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood) has won contests at the highest levels of both season-long and DFS. He is a 2x winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize in DFS; having won the 2014 FanDuel baseball Live Final and following that up by taking down a DraftKings Milly Maker Tournament in 2015. In addition, he’s won the Main Event championship in the National Fantasy Baseball Championship and the NFBC Platinum League, which is the highest buy-in entry league. His consistent success in the NFBC tournaments earned him a prestigious spot in their Hall of Fame. Dave can also strum a mean guitar while carrying a tune, and if you’re lucky, you’ll see him do so on one of his MLB Crunch Time appearances. Follow Dave on Twitter – @DavePotts2