Covering The Bases: MLB DFS Picks for Sunday, July 21st
Long-time grinder, stlcardinals84, 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 favorite MLB DFS picks.
Happy Sunday, everyone! We have a larger than usual Sunday slate today, with 11 games on the DraftKings docket. FanDuel is even adding the SF/COL game at Coors Field to make it a 12-game slate. Amazingly, we don’t have much weather to worry about, with a “yellow” rating in that Coors Field game being the only seemingly major issue reported by Kevin Roth this morning. You can keep an eye on our MLB weather page for updates leading up to lock.
There’s a lot to break down today, so let’s get right down to it and see what this Sunday slate has to offer!
Sunday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
TOP TIER ARMS WITH QUESTIONS
Joe Ryan vs. Brewers
Seth Lugo vs. White Sox
Shota Imanaga vs. Diamondbacks
Michael King vs. Guardians
This pitching slate is eerily similar to what we saw last night. The top arms are solid real life pitchers, but there’s not a lot separating the projections — and every one of them has some sort of question mark. As usual, let’s start with a look at the 2024 data:
Ryan – 3.53 ERA, 3.44 xFIP, 27% K, 4% BB
Lugo – 2.48 ERA, 3.70 xFIP, 23% K, 6% BB
Imanaga – 2.97 ERA, 3.76 xFIP, 25% K, 4% BB
King – 3.41 ERA, 3.59 xFIP, 28% K, 9% BB
Again, all of these pitchers are quality arms, with xFIP marks between 3.44 and 3.76 for all of them. However, we don’t necessarily have elite upside with these hurlers. In fact, Joe Ryan is the only pitcher on this slate who has a strikeout prop above 5.5 as of the time I am writing this. It’s a bit of a scary matchup for Ryan today against a Brewers team that has hit well all season, but we did see Pablo Lopez keep them in check yesterday. I don’t think you need to spend up for Ryan today, but I do think that he has the most GPP upside on the slate.
You could make a similar argument for Michael King that I did for Dylan Cease yesterday. Cease proceeded to pitch seven innings with ten strikeouts against a generally low strikeout Cleveland team. King could very well do the same, but I don’t think King has the same quality as Cease just yet. I think King is fine in multi-entry GPP builds, but I prefer Ryan for ceiling today.
Seth Lugo benefits from the always fun matchup against the woeful White Sox, but it’s not like he brings huge strikeout potential to the table. I do not have a strong take here, and I would likely fade him entirely in a more difficult matchup. However, since it’s the White Sox, I can’t really make an argument not to play him. I just don’t love the upside potential for the salary.
Shota Imanaga was great at the start of the season but has struggled a lot more over the past month and a half. I do like the fact that we have good pitching weather at Wrigley Field again today, and that’s enough to keep Imanaga in my multi-entry GPP pool. He’s nowhere near a priority though.
In short, you don’t NEED any pitcher from this tier today. I prefer Joe Ryan for upside and will merely sprinkle the others into multi-entry GPP builds.
SECONDARY PITCHING OPTIONS
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