Covering the Bases: Saturday, August 12
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! Thanks to Cheese for covering last weekend so that I could get away for a few days. I am refreshed and ready to roll as we head into the second weekend of August. It’s crazy to think that we now have less than two months of regular season baseball remaining for 2023. We’ll try to make that time count!
We have the usual split slate Saturday on tap for us today. DraftKings is rolling a five game early slate that starts at 1 PM Eastern, while FanDuel is ignoring Game 1 of the ATL/NYM doubleheader and rolling a four game early docket that starts at 3 PM Eastern. Both sites have large evening slates, with FD ignoring the ATL/NYM doubleheader once again.
Let’s see what this Saturday slate has to offer for MLB DFS picks!
Saturday Afternoon Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
Justin Steele vs. Blue Jays
Sandy Alcantara vs. Yankees
Brayan Bello vs. Tigers
Chris Bassitt vs. Cubs
Gavin Williams vs. Rays
If we’re being totally honest, this afternoon slate isn’t really exciting. I can’t even try to pretty it up very much. None of the pitching options are must-watch hurlers these days, and it feels like we are just trying to pick which one will have the “most passable” fantasy score of the bunch. Alas, everyone is dealing with the same player pool. As usual, here’s a peek at the 2023 data:
Steele – 2.68 ERA, 3.73 xFIP, 23% K, 6% BB
Alcantara – 4.28 ERA, 3.91 xFIP, 20% K, 6% BB
Bello – 3.64 ERA, 4.05 xFIP, 20% K, 6% BB
Bassitt – 3.87 ERA, 4.39 xFIP, 22% K, 8% BB
Williams – 2.90 ERA, 4.49 xFIP, 24% K, 10% BB
Yeesh. Yikes. Yowza. Which of these words came first? Why did someone decide to invent the others? Is there a reason the “shock and exasperation” words generally all start with the letter Y? These are the questions we need to answer rather than discussing these pitchers.
If we have to discuss these pitchers, you’ll see the lowest xFIP of the group belongs to Steele at 3.73. The highest strikeout rate you will find is basically a league average one.
(And before I go further, these quite literally are the only viable pitchers on the slate unless you want to play one of the fill-in pitchers in the ATL/NYM game on DK or if you want to take your chances on Matt Manning against the Red Sox. There are no other options.)
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