Million Dollar Musings: Friday, July 28
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.
Updates to Friday’s MLB DFS Picks
5:10pm ET – The Cubs are swapping starters, and calling Hayden Wesneski back up to the majors. As bad as Wesneski’s surface numbers were with a 4.75 ERA, I actually see this as a bit of a downgrade for St. Louis bats. In particular, the power righties were some of my top plays on the slate, but specifically for the matchup with Smyly. Against Wesneski, the stack still has slate winning upside, but I’m less focused on individual right-handed bats.
Happy Friday! We’ve got a big, old-fashioned barn burner, with 14 games featuring a bunch of everything. We’ve got loads of aces, we’ve got Coors Field, we’ve got weather…we’ve got it all.
The first thing I want to be sure to mention is that we start the day with an Orange rating from Kevin Roth in the Phillies-Pirates game, where Zack Wheeler is one of the better pitching options on the slate. For now, I’m just assuming everything plays cleanly, but be sure to check back in later or watch Crunch Time to confirm.
No time for shenanigans today, so let’s jump right in and try to narrow down all these strong MLB DFS picks that are available tonight.
Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We’ve got a ton of pitching, but while you can make a case to play any or all of these guys, I’m going to make some quick cuts to my player pool on this huge slate. Here’s the bird’s eye view of the aces:
Gerrit Cole at Orioles – 27.6% K, 6.9% BB, 2.78 ERA, 3.67 SIERA
Kevin Gausman vs. Angels – 32.9% K, 5.9% BB, 3.18 ERA, 3.00 SIERA
Shane McClanahan at Astros – 26.1% K, 9.6% BB, 2.89 ERA, 4.11 SIERA
Max Scherzer vs. Nationals – 27.4% K, 6.7% BB, 4.20 ERA, 3.81 SIERA
Logan Webb vs. Red Sox – 25.4% K, 4.5% BB, 3.48 ERA, 3.17 SIERA
Zack Wheeler at Pirates – 27.1% K, 4.6% BB, 3.88 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
Joe Musgrove vs. Rangers – 24.5% K, 5.1% BB, 3.25 ERA, 3.72 SIERA
Mitch Keller vs. Phillies – 25.4% K, 6.9% BB, 4.01 ERA, 3.83 SIERA
Cristian Javier vs. Rays – 22.2% K, 7.8% BB, 4.32 ERA, 4.72 SIERA
Sonny Gray ay Royals – 23.4% K, 9.3% BB, 3.15 ERA, 4.24 SIERA
Logan Gilbert at Diamondbacks – 24.4% K, 4.4% BB, 3.88 ERA, 3.74 SIERA
That is a ton of good pitchers, more than I’m going to be willing to play in my primary pool. You can absolutely play all these guys in MME, or have a different pool than me, but I’m going to make some quick cuts here:
Logan Webb as a lower-strikeout ace against Boston is a cut at his salary. Officially, I give him a pass on his last start, but this is not the time I’m jumping back on board.
Shane McClanahan is still red-flaggy enough that I’m going to avoid him on an ace-filled slate against an Astros lineup that is getting healthy.
Cristian Javier has lost his strikeout ability, and now the control has gone wonky too. The guy has just a 15.5% K rate since the start of June. I would need a bigger discount than this.
I like Mitch Keller, but he’s also seen the strikeouts dip and the control go a little wonky. With a discount, maybe, but at this salary on this slate, I don’t see the need.
The matchup might make this one look like a tougher cut, but I am just not on board with Sonny Gray on this kind of pitching slate. He has more than 5 strikeouts just once in his last 10 starts, with an 18.6% K rate and 9% walks over the past two months. Like Javier, he’s gotta show me something before I’m interested at this salary.
Logan Gilbert is another guy in this same realm of strikeouts, down below 20% over the past two months and relying completely on BABIP and HR/FB. I still like the control, but goodness gracious, where have everybody’s strikeouts gone? Arizona is a tough enough matchup that he looks too pricey for me.
The last guy who is right on the borderline between the cut-line and the pool is Joe Musgrove. Musgrove is a steadier pitcher in better current form than all these other guys I’ve cut. This one is really just about the matchup and the salary. He is not officially getting cut, but he’s going to be the last guy in the primary pool.
Now, let’s look at who I do actually like out of this group of aces:
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
