CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings: Thursday, June 24th
Happy Thursday! We’ve got an eight-game slate tonight that is light on the pitching options. A shoutout to Joe Ross’ father, who apparently has a new gig doing the pricing for DraftKings! We get a different chalk offense tonight, but it’s still a powerhouse team against the Orioles looking to soak up all the ownership. Let’s jump on in and see what we find.
Thursday Night Pitching
It ain’t pretty out here after a couple of ace-filled days. The first thing that jumps out to me tonight is that it’s so rough, that it’s not even necessarily bonkers that Joe Ross is $9,600 on DK. There are only four starters above a 25% K rate on the season, and this is what they look like:
Walker Buehler vs Cubs – 25.2% K, 5.4% BB, 2.38 ERA, 3.68 SIERA
Luis Garcia at Tigers – 28.1% K, 7.7% BB, 2.82 ERA, 3.66 SIERA
Jose Berrios vs Indians – 25.7% K, 6.2% BB, 3.56 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
Nick Pivetta at Rays – 27% K, 11.3% BB, 4.36 ERA, 4.24 SIERA
The next group of pitchers from there are just chasing either matchup or salary:
Joe Ross at Marlins – 22.5% K, 8.3% BB, 4.54 ERA, 4.32 SIERA
Carlos Martinez vs Pirates – 15.6% K, 8.6% BB, 6.62 ERA, 5.01 SIERA
Anthony Kay vs Orioles – 24.5% K, 10.6% BB, 6.43 ERA, 4.09 SIERA
Cody Poteet vs Nationals – 23% K, 10.6% BB, 3.90 ERA, 4.66 SIERA
Yippee!
First things first. Walker Buehler is the best pitcher on this slate, and while the strikeouts come and go, he at least has the ability to pitch deep, and can spike big outings like we saw last weekend with 11 strikeouts in seven innings. However, those type of games are the outlier and he’s much more about control and run prevention. What I would say here is that he is absolutely ‘overpriced’ for his most likely points per dollar outcome. So, what we need to decide on this slate is if we’re more concerned with points per dollar upside, or just plain raw points and getting something close to a sure thing. I won’t decide for sure until digging into the hitter pricing, but my initial lean is that it’s worth overpaying for the one good pitcher on this slate. I would certainly go that way in cash games.