Covering The Bases: Saturday, September 15th

by Justin Van Zuiden (stlcardinals84) Last Updated 2018-09-15 16:57:09 Premium Content Part of the product SimLabs+

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Saturday, September 15th

EARLY SLATE BREAKDOWN

Happy Saturday, Grinders! We have just over two weeks left in the MLB regular season, so time is winding down for us to make some cheddar on the diamond. We have a schedule that is all over the place today, with seven “early-ish” games and eight evening games. None of the sites are using the same early slate, so this makes things tricky to break down. Here is what the sites are offering:

FanDuel = 4 game slate starting at 3 PM Eastern (Two 1 PM games and one 2 PM game excluded)
DraftKings = 4 game slate starting at 2 PM Eastern (Two 1 PM games and one 5 PM game exluded)
FantasyDraft = 6 game slate starting at 1 PM Eastern (Only the 5 PM game excluded)

Well, that makes things fun to break down! FantasyDraft is the only site that is including the 1 PM games on their slate, so let’s start there with a brief discussion.

1 PM GAMES – FantasyDraft Only

Dodgers at Cardinals – The Dodgers and Cardinals are tied for the second wild card spot in the National League, so this is a pivotal game. John Gant takes the mound for the Cardinals and is coming off a strong start in his last outing, but his walk rate is over 10% and he allows a ton of hard contact. Lefties have a frightening 54% hard contact rate. Joc Pederson, Max Muncy, Cody Bellinger, and Yasmani Grandal are all strong plays here. I’m not really interested in anyone on the other side. Rich Hill is pitching for the Dodgers and is seemingly over-rated in DFS circles, but I respect him enough to where I will likely avoid the St. Louis bats. Marcell Ozuna has been taking the best at-bats for this team of late and would be my choice if I had to pick one person out.

Nationals at Braves – We could see some offense here with Hellickson taking the mound for Washington and Teheran taking the mound for Atlanta. We all know that Teheran has wide splits for his career, struggling a lot more against left-handed batters. All the Washington outfielders are strong plays in this game, with Harper and Soto offering tons of upside. Hellickson has done a good job of limiting hard contact this year and is a little tougher to pick on, but I like the hitters in the middle of this order for GPP contests. Neither pitcher is on my radar as a viable option here.

Early Slate Pitching

Now, let’s move on to the five games that are generally offered across the board. However, note that the 2 PM DET/CLE game is not on DraftKings and the 5 PM OAK/TB game is not on FanDuel or FantasyDraft. I’ll note that again as appropriate.