Million Dollar Musings: Thursday, September 20th

by Dave Potts (CheeseIsGood) Last Updated 2018-09-20 20:07:23 Premium Content Part of the product SimLabs+

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Thursday, September 20th

Happy Thursday! We’ve got a small seven-game slate for tonight, with the whole world slowing down in preparation for the big win incoming for the Cleveland Browns tonight. All seven games are starting by 7:35 ET, to make sure every MLB player will be finished in time to celebrate this huge Cleveland victory tonight.

In the games we have going on tonight, it is the story of Max Scherzer and then a bunch of other dudes. There are no good pitching options after Scherzer, and as we’ve seen most of this week, a lack of exciting hitting options as well. We’re sure to see some more bizarre lineups coming out, so be sure not to get too locked into your decisions until we see who is playing.

THURSDAY NIGHT PITCHING

THE MUST PLAY ACE

Max Scherzer vs Mets – Scherzer is so far ahead of every other pitcher on this slate, that there’s not much to say about. His 34.2% K rate is 8% ahead of the next closest option, his 2.53 ERA is a full run lower than the next best option, his 2.75 SIERA, his 15.9% swinging strikes, his 24.3% soft contact rate, whatever you want to look at, it’s all the best by a huge margin. If you want to find a reason to avoid the obvious play, it would be that he had his worst start of the year in his last outing. But even in that outlier start, he still struck out six batters in four innings, so it’s not as if everything disappeared. Since the end of July, he has six double digit strikeout games in 10 starts, so the upside has been here the entire season. The Mets have a couple lefty power bats that could potentially find some power against his fly balls, but we’re paying for the strikeouts, not the shutouts. He’s expensive, but on this slate, he should be expensive, because he’s better than everyone else. He is an absolute must play in cash games on all sites. In tournaments, you’re certainly allowed to fade him, but he’s the highest upside pitcher by a mile and has the lowest risk by just as many miles.

THE HUGE GAP TO EVERYTHING ELSE

I was listening to comedian Demetri Martin yesterday, and always chuckle at this one – “I’m going to open a store called Chasm. It’ll be like the Gap, but way bigger.” That’s how this pitching slate works out, there is a chasm between Scherzer and everyone else. Like we saw last night, two of the best pitchers are squaring off in New York against two of the best offenses, which hurts their value. But let’s take a look at them to start with.