Million Dollar Musings: Thursday, June 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.
Happiest of Thursdays to you and yours! We’ve got ourselves a manageable 7-game slate tonight with mostly middling totals and a bunch of decent pitching. If you’re playing the early 3-game slate, we’ve got some expert tags in LineupHQ to point you in the right direction, with mine telling you that direction is towards the Phillies.
One important note for the main slate tonight is with the weather in the Rockies-Braves game. Roth has given us an Orange/Yellow to start the day, which is troublesome considering this game has the best offense on the slate and one of the best cheap pitching options. For now, I’m just writing this as if that game plays clean once it starts, but be sure to tune into Crunch Time to get the final word if you’re using players from that game.
And now, on with the analysis to see what we can find in the way of MLB DFS picks for this Thursday night.
Thursday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
This is a tricky pitching slate, with the best pitchers at higher salaries in tougher matchups, followed by some good pitchers in better matchups, and then some cheap pitchers with moderate upside. There are even more quality pitchers who just completely miss my cut but are talented enough that I wouldn’t yell at you for playing them. I start with these three buckets:
SOMETHING LIKE FIVE ‘ACES’
Shohei Ohtani at Rangers
Cristian Javier vs. Nationals
Nathan Eovaldi vs. Angels
Sonny Gray vs. Tigers
Marcus Stroman vs. Pirates
SHAKY BUT CHEAP
Matt Boyd at Twins
AJ Smith-Shawver vs. Rockies
Johan Oviedo at Cubs
PROBABLY NOT TODAY
MacKenzie Gore, Dylan Cease, Michael Grove, Logan Allen
PICKING SOMETHING OUT OF THE BAG FROM THESE FIVE GUYS
Shohei Ohtani at Rangers – 33.3% K, 11.1% BB, 3.32 ERA, 3.49 SIERA
Cristian Javier vs. Nationals – 24.8% K, 6.4% BB, 3.13 ERA, 4.11 SIERA
Nathan Eovaldi vs. Angels – 24.9% K, 5.1% BB, 2.49 ERA, 3.52 SIERA
Sonny Gray vs. Tigers – 25.2% K, 8.6% BB, 2.25 ERA, 3.95 SIERA
Marcus Stroman vs. Pirates – 21.7% K, 9.2% BB, 2.42 ERA, 3.94 SIERA
On FD, these five pitchers are all priced over $10k and none are over $11k, so essentially, Stroman and Gray have been priced accordingly for the matchup advantage. But on DK, Eovaldi, Ohtani, and Javier are up over $10k, while Gray and Stroman are at $8,700 and $9,300, respectively. I’m going to start by just looking at these five as if the salary doesn’t matter, and if you’re playing a cheap SP2 on DK, that’s kind of how it ends up anyway.
Shohei Ohtani clearly has the highest upside skill set, but he’s making it tough to trust, as the control issues are just not ironing themself out. He has multiple walks in 11 of his 13 starts, and when you add in some home runs, he just hasn’t quite been a DFS ace. In any matchup, the upside is there if he comes out with his best stuff, but I can’t bank on it, so I can’t make him a priority tonight.
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