Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks for Friday, August 16th
CheeseIsGood, a winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize on both DraftKings and FanDuel, is here to give you his musings on the upcoming MLB DFS slate. Whether you are looking for the top pitchers or the best stacks, Cheese has you covered with an extensive deep dive into his MLB DFS picks.
Happy Friday! We’ve got a significant difference between the sites tonight, with FD adding an additional 5 games to their slate and starting at 6:40 PM ET. DK is running an 8-game main slate starting at the usual 7:05 PM ET.
The extra games on FD have a ginormous impact on both the pitching and hitting side of things and also brings the one weather concern into the slate.. We have a pitchers duel between Paul Skenes and Logan Gilbert in Pittsburgh, which has a Yellow/Orange rating from Roth to begin the day on our MLB weather page. Be sure to check the afternoon weather report before going with one of those aces.
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Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
With the addition of the 5 extra early games on FD, we have an entirely different pitching landscape. What I end up with is a top tier of five aces that are not on the DK slate, followed by a group of five guys (!) who make up the top tier on DK and become viable cheaper pivots on FD. From there, we’ll see if there is anything cheaper worth throwing some darts at.
FANDUEL ACES
Paul Skenes vs. Mariners – 32.3% K, 5.6% BB, 2.25 ERA, 2.77 SIERA
Logan Gilbert at Pirates – 25.3% K, 4.6% BB, 2.91 ERA, 3.42 SIERA
Gerrit Cole at Tigers – 25.9% K, 7% BB, 4.70 ERA, 3.71 SIERA
Aaron Nola vs. Nationals – 23.1% K, 6.2% BB, 3.60 ERA, 3.80 SIERA
Even as Paul Skenes has sort of ‘struggled’ recently, he’s still awesome. He had his first career start allowing more than 3 runs, but he still came out with 8 strikeouts and 30 FD points. Tonight, he gets the best strikeout matchup he’s had in months, and if salary is not an issue, he’s my clear SP1. But I will say that because we have so many good pitchers on FD, I don’t see it as a complete necessity to spend $11,200 at pitcher.
Gerrit Cole bounced back in a big way last start with 10 strikeouts, and he looks to have settled in the same range as what we saw last season. He still has the upside to be the 30%+ K pitcher he used to be, but we shouldn’t expect to see that every start. His matchup is excellent, with similar strikeouts to Skenes’ matchup and less power to contend with. He looks underpriced at $9,800, and while I prefer Skenes for raw points, with salary considered, I’m calling Cole my SP1.
Because we have the upside of Skenes and the discounted Cole in good matchups, I’m going to be very picky with these other aces. Aaron Nola is out of my primary pool in a low-strikeout matchup, so he is just an MME leftover. If I’m looking to pivot off of Cole and can’t quite get to Skenes, Logan Gilbert is my preference. He’s been steadier than Nola with both his strikeouts and control and has a slightly better matchup in a better ballpark.
Essentially, it’s just Skenes and Cole from this top tier with Gilbert as a pivot, and then we’ll see what we might add into the pool from here.
DK TOP TIER
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