Covering the Bases: Friday, May 19
STLCardinals84, one of the best tournament players in the game, is here to cover the bases for the upcoming MLB DFS slate. Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Cards has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his MLB DFS picks.
Happy Friday, everyone! I am filling in for Cheese today to give him a well-deserved day off, as he has not had a weekday off all season. He’s also going to be covering a few weekend days for me in the coming weeks, so we’ve bartered it out between us.
In any case, we have the usual full slate Friday on tap. A few teams are still doing the “slightly early” 6:40 start, which keeps the ARI/PIT, MIL/TB, and NYY/CIN games off the main slate. That’s a bit disappointing, as we would have had Zac Gallen and Shane McClanahan available as pitching options in those games. Instead, we are left with a more jumbled mess of pitchers in the 12 games that remain. Alas, there’s nothing we can do about that.
Hey, I should be in a good mood anyhow, as my Cardinals are playing some decent baseball with a 9-2 record in their last 11 games. Finally!
Let’s get to some of the top MLB DFS picks for this Friday evening!
Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
The Top Options
Joe Ryan vs. Angels
Sandy Alcantara vs. Giants
Bryce Elder vs. Mariners
Blake Snell vs. Red Sox
I am not trying to disparage these pitchers by lamenting the fact that we don’t have Gallen and McClanahan on this slate, but the numbers for both Gallen and McClanahan are incredible this year, and they both have fantastic matchups. It sure would be nice to play one of them. The reason I say this is because there really isn’t a lot of differentiation in pitcher projections tonight. I think we are going to see a lot of pitchers put up “good but not great” numbers, and this doesn’t feel like the spot where the slate will be won. However, it is the spot where the slate could be lost if you choose the wrong arm.
With that in mind, I will be looking to safety for my pitching choices tonight, even in GPP builds. The bats are where I will look to get more different.
As usual, here’s a peek at the 2023 data for these top four pitchers:
Ryan – 2.16 ERA, 3.13 xFIP, 30% K, 4% BB
Alcantara – 4.91 ERA, 3.88 xFIP, 23% K, 6% BB
Elder – 1.94 ERA, 3.75 xFIP, 21% K, 7% BB
Snell – 4.61 ERA, 4.63 xFIP, 24% K, 14% BB
As I mentioned above, I’m fine with safety first as the approach tonight. That would put Ryan and Alcantara at the top of the list based on the numbers. Ryan grades out slightly better in terms of overall metrics, but he’s facing the Angels and is also more expensive. I also trust the pitch count more for Alcantara, who the Marlins will clearly let get to 105-110 pitches if he is rolling. Sandy gets the benefit of facing the Giants in a very pitcher-friendly park, too. He’s my SP1 tonight, especially since the strikeouts are up over the last few starts.
Elder has pitched to some good fortune so far and is over-priced for me. I’m out.
Snell will never meet the definition of safe, but he is on the radar tonight and is my favorite risk/reward arm. He will always walk too many batters and frustrate the heck out of us, but he matches up interestingly well against the Boston lineup. Many of their better hitters (Verdugo, Devers, Yoshida) all hit from the left side, and Snell’s swing and miss stuff should play well against this group. Will he give us a ceiling game? Probably not. Could he be the highest scoring pitcher on the slate? Sure. Ignore him in cash games; keep him in the MME tournament pool.
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