CheeseIsGood's Million Dollar Musings: Wednesday, June 23rd
Happy Wednesday! We’ve got a seven-game main slate tonight, but also several games sprinkled throughout the day. DK is running a six-game early slate with all the day games, while FD has it split up into two three-game slates. I’ll focus on the evening slate, but let’s start out with a quick peek at these first six games.
Early Slate Pitching
Brandon Woodruff at Diamondbacks – 30.7% K, 5.7% BB, 1.94 ERA, 3.04 SIERA
Kevin Gausman at Angels – 30.5% K, 5.6% BB, 1.51 ERA, 3.15 SIERA
Shohei Ohtani vs Giants – 32.9% K, 13.1% BB, 2.70 ERA, 3.79 SIERA
Dylan Cease at Pirates – 29.3% K, 10.2% BB, 3.99 ERA, 3.87 SIERA
German Marquez at Mariners – 23.2% K, 11% BB, 4.26 ERA, 4.33 SIERA
Caleb Smith vs Brewers – 26.8% K, 11.4% BB, 3.21 ERA, 4.15 SIERA
Justus Sheffield vs Rockies – 16.7% K, 8.8% BB, 5.65 ERA, 4.91 SIERA
All of these strong pitching options other than Dylan Cease are in the second set of three games on FD. This makes the obvious top pitcher on that very early FD slate. I will never feel safe with Cease, but he has been good when facing weaker opponents like he has today. If you’re trying to get away from chalky Cease on FD, you’re looking at Erick Fedde vs Vince Velasquez in the Philadelphia-Washington or maybe one of John Gant or rookie Matt Manning in the Cardinals-Tigers game. I just can’t do it with Gant even against Detroit, and if Im going to play an inconsistent pitcher, I’ll take Cease every day of the week ahead of Velasquez. If I have to pivot off of Cease, I guess I’d say I like Fedde, except at his salary, I really don’t.
The DK slate and the later FD slate are jam packed for a smaller slate and you can make a case to spread out pretty far here. I absolutely love the skill sets of Brandon Woodruff and Kevin Gausman, and over his last six starts, Shohei Ohtani has started to figure out his control enough to have him up there as well. Both Woodruff and Gausman have a bit of a longer leash than Ohtani as well as the longer track record with good control, so these they are definitely ahead of Ohtani for me today, but the salaries may not allow you to play both. I’m giving Woodruff a full pass on the Coors Field start last week, when it was really just one bad inning. Neither matchup is outstanding for strikeouts, but it’s slightly better for Woodruff, and he’s my ace today. The Giants have a lot of power, but they also strikeout more than either the Angels or Diamondbacks, and with his discount, I’m perfectly happy with Ohtani as my SP2 if I can’t afford a Woodruff/Gausman combo.