Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks for Monday, August 26th
CheeseIsGood, a winner of a $1,000,000 1st-place prize on both DraftKings and FanDuel, 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! We’ve got an interesting Monday on tap, which includes a different number of games on each slate. DK is starting at the usual 7:10 p.m. ET with a 6-game slate, while FD is starting earlier at 6:40 p.m. ET to add additional games. But there is more difference than just the earlier games, as DK will include the TOR/BOS game, while that game is not a part of the FD slate. Yippee!!! This makes it tough to break things down between the sites, but we’ll sift through it all as best as possible.
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Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
There is a sizeable difference between the sites, with Zack Wheeler, Nestor Cortes, and Mitch Keller being added to the FD slate. This is how my top tier looks:
TOP TIER PITCHING
Zack Wheeler vs. Astros (FD Only) – 27.7% K, 7% BB, 2.73 ERA, 3.45 SIERA
Nestor Cortes at Nationals (FD Only) – 22.6% K, 4.8% BB, 4.00 ERA, 4.00 SIERA
Mitch Keller vs. Cubs (FD Only) – 21.3% K, 6.4% BB, 3.76 ERA, 4.08 SIERA
Bryce Miller vs. Rays – 23.5% K, 5.8% BB, 3.32 ERA, 3.85 SIERA
Bailey Ober vs. Braves – 26.3% K, 6.2% BB, 3.54 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
Max Fried at Twins – 22.3% K, 8.6% BB, 3.57 ERA, 3.80 SIERA
Ryan Pepiot at Mariners – 26.2% K, 8.3% BB, 3.65 ERA, 3.81 SIERA
Jose Berrios at Red Sox – 19.1% K, 7.1% BB, 3.79 ERA, 4.43 SIERA
Kyle Gibson vs. Padres – 21.9% K, 9% BB, 4.22 ERA, 4.25 SIERA
This is a lot of good pitchers for a small-ish slate, but there is also a lack of clarity among this group.
The first thing to note is that the addition of Zack Wheeler to the FD slate changes things up quite a bit there. We also have Nestor Cortes and Mitch Keller added in, who end up falling right in the middle of all these viable options.
While Zack Wheeler doesn’t have the best matchup, the right-handed nature of the Houston lineup is a big plus for him, as he’s up at an elite 30.3% K% to right-handed hitters with just 3.6% walks, 51% GB, and an .086 ISO. Because he’s only priced at $10,000, he’s my SP1 on FD.
Nestor Cortes has been excellent recently with back-to-back 7-inning shutouts, but we haven’t seen a lot of the strikeout version of Cortes outside of strong matchups. Washington is a very low strikeout team against lefties, which is going to push Cortes down into the MME bucket for me.
Mitch Keller bounced back in a big way last week with his best start of the season, going 7 scoreless innings with 9 strikeouts in Texas. He had been struggling badly prior to that last start, and my view on it is that he is still the decent pitcher that his overall numbers show. I don’t think he’s as good as he looked last start or as bad as he looked before that. The Cubs are good enough that he gets pushed down into the MME dart-throwing range for me on a one-pitcher site.
Once we get past Wheeler, almost everybody in this tier has a similar skill set. The exceptions are…
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