Million Dollar Musings: Friday, September 8
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 an incredibly spread-out 11-game slate with a lack of clarity on both sides of the ledger. There are ton of good, but not elite pitchers, which in turn gives us a jumbled mess of bats as well. I will be talking about this throughout the article, but this is the most spread-out player pool that I’ve had in a long time, probably all season. If you’re looking for strong conviction and some must-play MLB DFS picks, you are about to be disappointed. Enjoy!!
Friday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
Pitching is extremely deep, but without a single clear must-play option. I’ll start with the two high-priced strikeout pitchers who lack control before moving on to the muddy upper mid-tier.
ACE UPSIDE WITH WONKY CONTROL
Blake Snell at Astros – 31.1% K, 13.8% BB, 2.50 ERA, 4.17 SIERA
Kodai Senga at Twins – 29.3% K, 11% BB, 3.08 ERA, 3.96 SIERA
The two high-priced aces on this slate also happen to be two of the highest walk pitchers on the slate. We have seen them both wiggle out of a lot of jams, but both of these guys are living on the edge, as shown by the gap between their ERA and SIERA.
In particular, Blake Snell has been remarkably lucky with baserunners and the timing of hits in the second half, as his walk rate is all the way up at a goofy 16.8%, but his ERA is held down by a .240 BABIP and 89% left-on-base rate. As I’ve said in previous starts, you can give him some of the credit for this, as his wildness also tamps down on his hard hits, but we can’t pretend like the risk isn’t high here. Because he has a tough matchup in Houston, my hunch is that this is one of those slates when we will be able to get a big ownership discount on Snell. There is no matchup where he doesn’t have slate breaking upside, so as much as I hate to do it, I do have to stick with the plan of playing Snell anytime he is not chalky. My lean in primary lineups is not to worry about spending this salary on an SP1, so Snell lands more in MME territory.
Kodai Senga is really quite similar to Snell. He has elite strikeout ability, a high pitch count, but also control concerns that give him a small margin for error. I don’t want to put too much stock in seeing back-to-back double-digit strikeout games, but it’s hard to ignore given the fact that he is now facing the highest strikeout team in the league against right-handed pitching. I prefer Senga ahead of Snell straight up tonight, and even more with the matchup. But this will also be a spot where I’ll be ownership-conscious. My hunch is that Senga is also not overly popular, so while I don’t love spending up tonight, if I’m also being different by doing so, then I’m on board with Senga in the primary pool
A WHOLE BUNCH OF GOOD PITCHERS
Griffin Canning vs. Guardians – 26.8% K, 6.4% BB, 4.30 ERA, 3.68 SIERA
Jordan Montgomery vs. A’s – 21.2% K, 6.5% BB, 3.46 ERA, 4.27 SIERA
Kyle Bradish at Red Sox – 24% K, 6.9% BB, 3.03 ERA, 3.925 SIERA
Kyle Harrison vs. Rockies – 32.8% K, 7.8% BB (15 IP)
Eury Perez at Phillies – 29.9% K, 7.9% BB, 2.86 ERA, 3.73 SIERA
Hunter Brown vs. Padres – 27% K, 8.1% BB, 4.53 ERA, 3.67 SIERA
Logan Allen at Angels – 22.4% K, 8.6% BB, 3.77 ERA, 4.44 SIERA
Yusei Kikuchi vs. Royals – 25.2% K, 7% BB, 3.63 ERA, 3.95 SIERA
Bryce Elder vs. Pirates – 17.3% K, 8.3% BB, 3.42 ERA, 4.78 SIERA
This is a lot of good pitchers, and while none are elite, there are some very good matchups mixed in here as well.
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
