Covering the Bases: Saturday, April 29
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 Saturday, everyone! I’m ready for the calendar to turn to May, as perhaps a new month will spark my Cardinals into a little bit of life. It probably won’t, but I can dream. We have a weird split slate Saturday today, as there are games starting all over the place in terms of first pitch times.
DraftKings is offering an eight game early slate locking at 12:10 PM ET. FanDuel has split up their early slates into two offerings, with both of them having small prize pools. As such, I will focus the early slate analysis on the eight game DK slate. Both sites have a solid five game “main” evening slate, so I will spend a little more time on that. I’ll be a bit more brief with the early slate today in order to get this out in a timely fashion with the very early start.
Let’s get to some of my favorite MLB DFS picks for this Saturday! Have a great weekend everyone!
Saturday Afternoon Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
The Top Options
(NOTE – All statistical references for pitchers now show 2023 season data).
Spencer Strider vs. Mets – MONITOR WEATHER
Kevin Gausman vs. Mariners
If we’re just looking at talent and upside, it’s hard to argue against Strider as the SP1 on this afternoon’s slate. He came within five outs of a no-hitter in his last start, and he made a great pitch on the one that was golfed into the outfield for Miami’s first hit of that game. Strider owns a 1.80 ERA and 2.59 xFIP so far on the season with a mammoth 43% strikeout rate. The walks are still a mild issue at times, but he has clearly grown into a top five starter in baseball. He’ll benefit from pitching in ugly hitting conditions today, which offsets the issue of facing the Mets to some degree. We’ll need to monitor the weather forecast here, but he’s the SP1 on the slate if the game is a full go.
Kevin Gausman is next in line and is coming off a dominant start against the Yankees where he tossed seven shutout innings with 11 strikeouts. He has now allowed zero earned runs in three of his five starts this year and has a 41/5 K/BB ratio in 31 2/3 innings pitched for a 32% strikeout rate of his own. His peripherals aren’t quite as strong as Strider’s, but he’s not far away. If you have top dollar to spend, Gausman is a fine option — even against Seattle.
The issue is that both of these pitchers are quite expensive on DK, and Strider has the weather concern. We have a lot of viable secondary pitchers on the mound today, so I don’t really thinky ou need to prioritize spending top dollar given the context of this slate.
Other Viable Options
Hunter Greene vs. A’s
Dean Kremer vs. Tigers
Eduardo Rodriguez vs. Orioles
Even though it is not very deep, this secondary tier of pitching is very intriguing today. This is especially true when you consider some of the matchups. Let’s take a quick look at how these hurlers have fared in 2023 so far:
