Covering the Bases: Sunday, May 28
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 Sunday, Grinders! We have eight games on the main FD and DK slates on this Sunday, and I wish they would have included the Coors Field game that starts an hour after the final game on the main slate. That would have added some really interesting strategy elements to this slate. Alas, we don’t have that game available, so we must forge ahead with what we have.
I am on vacation at the moment and will be attending the Cardinals game in Cleveland this afternoon. The golden rule is that you need to stack the games you attend, but I’m not used to the Cardinals being chalky in these spots. What should I do? I’ll dig in more later in the article. Let’s get to work!
Sunday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
The Top Options
Gerrit Cole vs. Padres
Yu Darvish vs. Yankees
Dylan Cease vs. Tigers
Eduardo Rodriguez vs. White Sox
As usual, let’s take a peek at the numbers for these four pitchers so far in 2023:
Cole – 2.53 ERA, 3.82 xFIP, 25% K, 8% BB
Darvish – 3.67 ERA, 3.94 xFIP, 26% K, 8% BB
Cease – 4.60 ERA, 4.44 xFIP, 23% K, 10% BB
Rodriguez – 2.19 ERA, 3.57 xFIP, 26% K, 6% BB
If you covered up the stats and just looked at the names, many would question the inclusion of Eduardo Rodriguez in the “ace” tier.
Well, among these four pitchers:
Best ERA? E-Rod.
Best xFIP? E-Rod.
Highest strikeout rate? E-Rod.
Lowest walk rate? E-Rod.
Yes, Eduardo Rodriguez has been better than Cole, Darvish, and Cease in 2023. Baseball! He’s still priced at a relative discount (particularly on DK) and is a very strong option against the White Sox, who are middle of the pack in most categories against LHP this year.
Cole is still going to grade out as the overall SP1 in terms of overall projection, and I do expect the strikeouts to pick back up as the season goes along. The Padres have been very disappointing compared to expectations this year, and Machado is likely still going to be out today. Darvish is fine on the other side as well, but a road matchup against the Yankees worries me — especially since he has struggled against weak offenses in his last two starts.
Even in a matchup against the Tigers, we can’t consider Cease as a must start option. The command is simply not there. He’s a risk/reward GPP option only.
I have Cole and Rodriguez as the clear top two in this group, and I will be underweight on the other two.
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