CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings: Monday, August 30th

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2021-08-30 18:42:53 Premium Content Part of the product MLB DFS

Happy Monday! We are loaded up with pitching on this 9-game slate. We’ll see what we can do to split them up, but this is going to be a slate where you could reasonably end up with a very different order of things. Because of the good pitching, we’ve also got a pretty clear group of top offenses that will garner the bulk of the ownership. You may have differing opinions within that top tier, but the dividing lines should be the same for everyone. Let’s jump in and see what happens.

Monday Night Pitching

This is a very good pitching slate, but one where I see some clear tiers.

Tier One Aces

Zack Wheeler at Nationals – 29.1% K, 5.1% BB, 2.90 ERA, 3.12 SIERA Corbin Burnes at Giants – 34.4% K, 5% BB, 2.30 ERA, 2.68 SIERARobbie Ray vs Orioles – 31.6% K, 6.3% BB, 2.72 ERA, 3.18 SIERA

Tier Two Aces

Julio Urias vs Braves – 26.3% K, 5.5% BB, 3.17 ERA, 3.65 SIERALuis Garcia at Mariners – 28.9% K, 7.4% BB, 3.21 ERA, 3.58 SIERAJosiah Gray vs Phillies – 27.8% K, 8.6% BB, 3.75 ERA, 4.03 SIERAGerman Marquez at Rangers – 25% K, 8.4% BB, 4.02 ERA, 3.88 SIERA

Good Pitchers

Nick Pivetta at Rays – 26.1% K, 10.3% BB, 4.57 ERA, 4.25 SIERAJohnny Cueto vs Brewers – 20.6% K, 5.9% BB, 3.73 ERA, 4.33 SIERADrew Smyly at Dodgers – 21.8% K, 8% BB, 4.54 ERA, 4.44 SIERALuis Patino vs Red Sox – 23.9% K, 9.5% BB, 4.53 ERA, 4.51 SIERAChris Flexen vs Astros – 16.5% K, 4.9% BB, 3.54 ERA, 4.62 SIERATyler Gilbert vs Padres – 18.2% K, 10.2% BB, 2.38 ERA, 5.14 SIERA

Limited = No and Maybe

Corey Kluber Chris Paddack

Getting Paid To Babysit?

A.J. Alexy vs Rockies

On DK, Salaries Say Play The Aces

OK folks, let’s do things this way today. As we’ve seen pretty much all year, the pitching salaries are bunch up tightly enough on DK that we can pretty much play whoever we want. Corbin Burnes, Zack Wheeler and Robbie Ray are all between $9,700-$10,200. Julio Urias and Luis Garcia are just barely cheaper at $9,200 and $9,500. Neither Urias nor Garcia has anywhere near the pitch count upside of Wheeler or the strikeout upside of Burnes/Ray. They are basically unplayable in primary lineups for me. Josiah Gray is $8,800. You could take an MME shot here, but like Urias and Garcia, the pitch count alone makes him nothing more than a leftover in comparison to the top three. We start getting closer to enough of a salary difference and a good matchup with German Marquez at $8,500, so let’s look at the top three and then get back to Marquez and below.

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