Million Dollar Musings: Monday, April 3
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 Monday! And Happy April if you skipped out on the weekend fun. Because I know some people may not be up in time to read the Sunday Musings, I want to re-post what I said at the top of yesterday’s article. One thing I am going to attempt to do is to make more big-picture observations this season. I often times write about certain strategies or ways of looking at slates as if you are going to understand what I’m saying even if I don’t explain it. So this season, I’ll attempt to pre-emptively explain things so that when you start reading them later, you’ll know why I’m saying things the way I am.
If you go back to Saturday’s slate, the Braves were a mega-chalk offense in a great spot. This is my note from yesterday:
While it’s fresh in our minds, I want to take this opportunity to point out an often over-looked reason to fade chalk stacks in MLB. What you usually hear is ‘well, the chalk can fail’, and yeah, that’s true. But much more than that, the chalk can be good, but other things can be better. You don’t need to dislike the chalk or expect them to fail to find a reason to fade it. Yesterday, the Braves chalk was pretty good with 7 runs, 11 hits and 4 HR. That’s not a fail. But it also wasn’t a slate winner, as we had teams like the Rays, Angels and Red Sox blowing past them. I’m pointing this out now, as particularly when we get into Coors Field slates, you’re going to hear me talk about this a lot. Sure, the chalk can fail, but let’s assume it doesn’t, and then figure out how to beat it anyway.
And there you have it, now you haven’t missed anything if you slept in on Sunday. Let’s get on with the show and see what MLB DFS picks we can find for this 11-game Monday night slate.
Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
Similar to yesterday, we have no true aces on the mound, but unlike yesterday, we don’t have that one clear underpriced best option like Springs. I can make more of a case to spread out further tonight, but the matchups start to get tough enough for some middling pitchers that I settle on just 10 options for my primary pool. Let’s take a look:
Top Tier
Nestor Cortes vs Phillies – 26.5% K, 6.2% BB, 2.44 ERA, 3.48 SIERA
George Kirby vs Angels – 24.5% K, 4.1% BB, 3.39 ERA, 3.32 SIERA
Hunter Brown vs Tigers
Charlie Morton at Cardinals – 28.2% K, 8.7% BB, 4.34 ERA, 3.48 SIERA
Drew Rasmussen at Nationals – 21.4% K, 5.3% BB, 2.84 ERA, 3.74 SIERA
Jon Gray vs Orioles – 25.7% K, 7.5% BB, 3.96 ERA, 3.56 SIERA
Reid Detmers at Mariners – 22.6% K, 8.5% BB, 3.77 ERA, 4.12 SIERA
Cheaper With Better Matchups
Zach Plesac at A’s – 17.6% K, 6.7% BB, 4.31 ERA, 4.46 SIERA
Michael Grove vs Rockies – 18% K, 7.5% BB. 4.60 ERA, 4.56 SIERA
Kutter Crawford vs Pirates – 23.1% K, 8.7% BB, 5.47 ERA, 4.11 SIERA
Kirby Your Enthusiasm
If we just take the 2022 numbers at face value, or add on more past data, Charlie Morton would be the ace. But it’s hard not to notice that Morton is yet another year older, and he’s facing a scary good Cardinals lineup. Officially, all I can say about the ageless wonder is that until his skills actually do start to deteriorate, all I can do is assume he is still going to be a great pitcher up around 28% strikeouts. For today, it’s not that I don’t trust his talent, I just don’t want to pay for a high-priced pitcher against the Cardinals as my primary option.
Projections like Nestor Cortes the best, and it’s tough to argue with, as he has the best control of the pitchers over 25% strikeouts. This Phillies offense is watered down enough this season that it’s something like a neutral matchup. What I don’t love about Cortes, other than the salary is a relatively low swinging strike rate with a bunch of fly balls. He’s early enough into his career that we don’t know for sure if there’s more growth here, but I see no reason to expect anything other than a small dip in his strikeout rate and a jump up in his HR/FB%. That would still leave him basically as good as anyone else on this slate, and I’d tell you he’s fine for a cash game SP1, but this is not a guy I’m going to try and get over the field on.
