Million Dollar Musings: Thursday, May 25
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 Thursday! We’ve got a bit of an unusual day with some difference in the split slates between the sites. I’ll start with a quick peek at the early 4-game slate, which starts at 12:35pm ET on both DK and FD. Then for the main slate, we have a 5-gamer on DK at the usual 7:05pm start, while FD adds in an extra game and starts a little earlier at 6:40pm.
The early slate is a chalkity mess with Blake Snell on the mound and a Coors Field game, as well as high totals for the Cardinals and Padres on the hitting side. Snell chalk already has me feeling queasy, but let’s jump on in and see what happens as we sort through some MLB DFS picks for these Thursday games.
Thursday Early Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
Zach Eflin vs. Blue Jays – 28.4% K, 2.7% BB, 3.45 ERA, 3.01 SIERA
Blake Snell at Nationals – 23.8% K, 13.4% BB, 5.40 ERA, 4.85 SIERA
Alek Manoah at Rays – 16.9% K, 13.9% BB, 5.15 ERA, 5.78 SIERA
Miles Mikolas at Reds – 17.6% K, 5.7% BB, 4.77 ERA, 4.59 SIERA
Luke Weaver vs. Cardinals – 22.1% K, 5.7% BB, 6.54 ERA, 4.08 SIERA
YUCK! The only thing worse than Blake Snell being chalk is Blake Snell being good chalk. This is truly ridiculous. But is he actually good chalk?
The first thing I’ll say is that Zach Eflin is a better pitcher than Blake Snell. Certainly, using 2023 data there is no comparison. If we bring in 2022-2023 data, you could make an argument for Snell with the higher strikeout rate. But personally I’d still take Eflin in a vacuum. That sounds like a fun Christmas toy. It’s no Elf On A Shelf, but what kid doesn’t want an Eflin In A Vacuum.
Anyhoo, Eflin is facing the Blue Jays, while Snell is facing the Nationals. So, yeah, Snell looks good. But you know what, I prefer Eflin…and kind of by a lot. Washington is the 2nd lowest strikeout team in the league against lefties, and while it’s fluky, they actually rank 5th in wOBA. I’m not trying to pretend like the Nationals are some great team against lefties, but they are at least kind of OK. Meanwhile, Blake Snell is at least kind of not OK. Seriously, nine starts into the season, he has a 13.4% walk rate and 4.85 SIERA. I don’t see any way around him being massive chalk on DK, and it does look wonky that he’s almost $2,000 cheaper than Eflin. It is wonky, and that is exactly the point.
