Million Dollar Musings: Friday, September 15
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 have ourselves a tricky-looking 13-game slate that is absolutely loaded with good pitchers. But for the most part, they are all just good enough to not love playing against them but not so great as to have a lot of clarity with how to sort through them all as DFS options.
We will find a few top MLB DFS picks on both sides of the ledger, and then I’ll do my best to narrow down to some of my other favorites around those more obvious top plays. Just know going in that this is one of those slates with a lot of room for varied opinions, so don’t fret if you land on a different pool than me.
Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We have a crazy ton of good pitchers, though the vast majority of them are just not great enough to love as DFS options, and more a big MME tangle. This will be one of those slates where you could quite reasonably have a pitcher pool of 15+ if that’s the way you want to play it, but I’m going to be narrowing my pool considerably. It’s not clear where to draw the lines between tiers, but I’ll start with this big group, all clustered between $8,200 – $10,400 on DK:
THE BIG TOP TIER
Aaron Nola at Cardinals – 25.6% K, 6.1% BB, 4.64 ERA, 3.81 SIERA
Justin Steele at Diamondbacks – 24.5% K, 5.1% BB, 2.49 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
Tarik Skubal at Angels – 30.2% K, 5.2% BB, 3.47 ERA, 3.01 SIERA
George Kirby vs. Dodgers – 22.8% K, 2.4% BB, 3.48 ERA, 3.71 SIERA
Zach Eflin at Orioles – 25.7% K, 3.6% BB, 3.53 ERA, 3.40 SIERA
Hunter Greene at Mets – 30.2% K, 10.8% BB, 4.43 ERA, 3.92 SIERA
Lucas Giolito vs. Rangers – 25.3% K, 8.6% BB, 4.89 ERA, 4.18 SIERA
Cristian Javier at Royals – 21.9% K, 8.9% BB, 4.78 ERA, 4.92 SIERA
Bobby Miller at Mariners – 22% K, 6.7% BB, 3.98 ERA, 4.16 SIERA
Seth Lugo at A’s – 22.8% K, 5.7% BB, 3.80 ERA, 3.96 SIERA
Griffin Canning vs. Tigers – 26% K, 6.5% BB, 4.34 ERA, 3.76 SIERA
Logan Webb at Rockies – 23.2% K, 3.8% BB, 3.40 ERA, 3.21 SIERA
I guess I would say Aaron Nola is the best pitcher here? Eh, I don’t know, would I? It’s more like I would say he’s supposed to be the best pitcher here, and he’s in the discussion, but officially, there is nothing about his skill set this season that is standing out. The matchup is not great, and his big starts have been few and far between. I’m certainly happy to play him in any lineup, but even with just a slight salary gap, I don’t see any reason to go out of my way to spend up for him.
Between the skills and the matchup, without even considering salary, Tarik Skubal is jumping off the page for me as the SP1. He has far-and-away the best K-BB% on this slate, he’s in top form with 7+ strikeouts in five straight starts, and his pitch count has not been a concern, up over 95 in his last three outings. All this against the Angels offense makes him my first pitcher in on all sites in all formats. Being $1,400 cheaper than Nola on DK makes this an even easier choice.
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