Million Dollar Musings: Monday, September 18
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! We’ve got a solid looking 8-game MLB slate with a good bit of everything, to be followed by a glorious Monday Night Football game featuring the first 300-yard rushing game of the season from Nick Chubb. But before we get to that, we’ve got some MLB DFS picks to sort through, including a chalky Lance Lynn, which seems like the scariest of chalk in any lineup.
Monday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We have an interesting pitching slate, with three expensive aces in tough matchups followed by a sizeable price gap on DK down to a group of mid-range pitchers in much better matchups. The pricing is a bit more condensed on FD, but let’s start with a glance at the three salary groupings using DK pricing:
THREE ACES
Freddy Peralta at Cardinals – 31.2% K, 8.4% BB, 3.79 ERA, 3.48 SIERA
Zack Wheeler at Braves – 27.3% K, 4.9% BB, 3.70 ERA, 3.49 SIERA
Justin Verlander vs. Orioles – 21.2% K, 6.7% BB, 3.39 ERA, 4.48 SIERA
SOLID UPPER MID-TIER
Michael Wacha vs. Rockies – 21.9% K, 8.5% BB, 3.43 ERA, 4.58 SIERA
Lance Lynn vs. Tigers – 23.8% K, 7.9% BB, 5.94 ERA, 4.25 SIERA
Jordan Montgomery vs. Red Sox – 21% K, 6.3% BB, 3.47 ERA, 4.29 SIERA
Mike Clevinger at Nationals – 21.1% K, 7.9% BB, 3.61 ERA, 4.78 SIERA
Bryan Woo at A’s – 24.1% K, 7% BB, 4.16 ERA, 4.09 SIERA
JP Sears vs. Mariners – 21.6% K, 6.7% BB, 4.45 ERA, 4.65 SIERA
CHEAP DARTS OR NONSENSE
Kutter Crawford at Rangers – 24.6% K, 7.1% BB, 4.26 ERA, 4.07 SIERA
Kyle Wright vs. Phillies – 20.7% K, 10.8% BB, 7.48 ERA, 4.53 SIERA
Joan Adon vs. White Sox – 19.2% K, 9.3% BB, 5.92 ERA, 4.93 SIERA
IS THERE ANY NEED TO SPEND UP?
The short answer here is no. I would certainly say that Freddy Peralta has the most upside, and in any kind of multi-entry build, he is in my primary pool. But St. Louis has an extremely low-strikeout lineup, with six batters in the projected lineup below an 18% K rate and no one above 24%. They also have enough power and patience to cause him trouble if he’s not all the way at the top of his game. We’ve seen him in elite form often enough in the second half of the season that I’m still calling him my SP1 in a no-salary-cap world, but especially on DK where he’s $11,300, I’m not sacrificing my entire roster to get to him.
Zack Wheeler is off my board for this slate. He’s absolutely good enough to beat anyone, including the Braves, but there’s just no reason to mess with it on this type of slate.
Justin Verlander has a slightly better matchup than Peralta or Wheeler, but it’s still far from ideal, and he doesn’t have the type of strikeout stuff to make me want to pay top dollar when there are similar pitchers in better matchups at a discount.
Basically, for these top three, Peralta is in my primary pool, Verlander is in my MME pool, and Wheeler missing my cut. But none of the three are priorities in any way.
I think the primary decision point on this slate comes with Lance Lynn.
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