Million Dollar Musings: Friday, August 4
CheeseIsGood, a two-time winner of a $1,000,000 first-place prize in DFS, 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 an 11-game slate that looks to be pretty jumbled with a bunch of everything. I’m going to end up with a fairly condensed pitcher pool, but there are at least 15 pitchers that are viable if you are in a spread-it-out kind of mood. It’s similar on the hitting side where we can find a bit of a top tier, but you could easily find MLB DFS picks to like at least 15 teams deep.
There are some potential weather issues to keep an eye on in the Astros-Yankees and Blue Jays-Red Sox games (and in my backyard?), but for now I’ll just assume these all play cleanly.
Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We’ve got no shortage of pitching options in different pricing tiers. On DK, there is no one priced above $10,200, and the top dozen pitchers, all of whom are at least moderately viable, are $7,500 and above. Essentially, this means that salary is not the overriding factor today, at least until we get down to the cheap nonsense, which is more nonsense than it is cheap.
A BIG OL’ TOP TIER
Aaron Nola vs. Royals – 24.7% K, 5.9% BB, 4.43 ERA, 3.85 SIERA
Luis Castillo at Angels – 28.3% K, 6.3% BB, 2.88 ERA, 3.51 SIERA
Jesus Luzardo at Rangers – 28.6% K, 6.8% BB, 3.38 ERA, 3.52 SIERA
Reid Detmers vs. Mariners – 29.3% K, 9% BB, 4.35 ERA, 3.75 SIERA
Yu Darvish vs. Dodgers – 25.9% K, 8.4% BB, 4.53 ERA, 3.97 SIERA
Hunter Brown at Yankees – 27% K, 7.9% BB, 4.12 ERA, 3.57 SIERA
James Paxton vs. Blue Jays – 28.4% K, 7.1% BB, 3.34 ERA, 3.59 SIERA
Bailey Ober vs. Diamondbacks – 24.3% K, 4.6% BB, 3.19 ERA, 3.96 SIERA
Logan Allen vs. White Sox – 23.1% K, 8.1% BB, 3.70 ERA, 4.25 SIERA
Jordan Montgomery vs. Marlins – 21.2% K, 6.9% BB, 3.42 ERA, 4.29 SIERA
Merrill Kelly at Twins – 25.3% K, 9.5% BB, 3.23 ERA, 4.15 SIERA
Bobby Miller at Padres – 23.8% K, 6.5% BB, 4.37 ERA, 3.94 SIERA
Dean Kremer vs. Mets – 21.8% K, 6.9% BB, 4.66 ERA, 4.32 SIERA
There are a few stragglers on either end, but for the most part, it’s remarkable how close all these skill sets are. There are no 30% strikeout pitchers on this slate, with seven of these guys between 25-29% and another four between 23-25%. They are similarly bunched with decent control, as not a single one of these 13 pitchers are over a 10% walk rate.
If we take long term skill set and matchup, Aaron Nola would jump out as the ace here against the Royals. I feel like I type this same sentence every day when talking about the top pitchers – he’s been allowing a lot of runs and homers recently, but so has everyone. This is simply the world we live in right now, where I’m not going to avoid pitchers because they’ve allowed some runs. If I avoided pitchers who were giving up homers, well then I wouldn’t be playing any pitchers at all.
What I see from Nola is something close-ish to who he’s always been. He is a steady, well-above-average pitcher who is not going to beat himself and has occasional ceiling games. I’m never going to expect some huge strikeout game, but I do expect good control with moderate strikeouts in 6-7 good innings. That’s enough for me here at his salary to say I understand why most people would call him the SP1. This is a slate where things are so bunched, that I will be keeping closer tabs on projected ownership, and I have a hunch that Nola ends up more popular than he deserves to be.
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