Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks for Thursday, May 2nd
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 Thursday! We’ve got a very early start today, with a 5-game slate starting at 12:10 PM ET. It’s rare for east-coasters to be able to watch baseball during lunch, so enjoy it! It’s a slate without a lot of good pitching, so we end up fairly condensed with the arms and spread all over the place with bats. I’m going to dive right in and get straight to the point in order to get this out early enough to be useful.
Thursday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
I’ve got the pitching sorted into these three buckets:
TOP-TIER DUO
Edward Cabrera vs. Rockies – 31.3% K, 9% BB, 5.28 ERA, 3.00 SIERA
Nathan Eovaldi vs. Nationals – 24.3% K, 11.5% BB, 3.00 ERA, 4.09 SIERA
MID-TIER TRIO
Carlos Rodon at Orioles – 22.1% K, 10.3% BB, 2.48 ERA, 4.45 SIERA
Kyle Bradish vs. Yankees – 1st start of season
Kyle Harrison at Red Sox – 22.6% K, 3.7% BB, 4.09 ERA, 3.59 SIERA
BOTTOM-TIER QUARTET
Ben Brown at Mets – 23.7% K, 6.5% BB, 4.30 ERA, 3.54 SIERA
Mitchell Parker at Rangers – 22.6% K, 3.2% BB, 1.69 ERA, 3.22 SIERA
Adrian Houser vs. Cubs – 12.3% K, 14% BB, 8.37 ERA, 6.05 SIERA
Peter Lambert at Marlins – 20.8% K, 8.3% BB, 4.67 ERA, 3.49 SIERA
Edward Cabrera has been banged around a bit in his last couple starts, but he has the highest strikeout rate on this slate by a wide margin. And that is not just in the small sample this season but over the long run as well. He’s also at home against the Rockies. On a lot of slates, I’d have concern about Cabrera chalk, but this slate just doesn’t have enough options, so I’m not going to overthink him as the SP1. I will probably have something like 75-80% Cabrera on both sites, if not more.
The other top-tier arm is Nathan Eovaldi, but it does concern me quite a bit to see 11 walks in his last 2 starts. Poor control is a problem for a lot of pitchers on this slate, but it’s a little more concerning for me with a guy like Eovaldi, who has historically been very stingy with the walks. It’s probably just a short-term blip, and the lack of patience in the Nationals lineup should help with that. But it’s just enough to leave him clearly behind Cabrera on my list. He’s still my SP2, and where salary doesn’t matter, I’ll pair them together on DK.
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