Million Dollar Musings: Tuesday, August 29
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 Tuesday! I am finally back at home after a whirlwind cross-country two weeks. Many thanks to Cards for filling in the gaps for me. While the Live Finals did not go swimmingly, I had a great time getting to see a lot of RG folks and others in the DFS community.
I just want to take a second to say that we have a truly great team of people working for RG. At the end of the day, you are here for the content, and we will always strive to give you our very best, but I am so glad to be working for a site where my co-workers are people that I enjoy spending time with in real life.
We dive into the DFS world tonight with a 12-game slate that is wildly slanted towards Braves bats in Coors Field. I’ll talk about what I’m doing with them when we get to the hitting section, but we’ll start with finding some MLB DFS picks on the pitching side, where we have solid options in all pricing tiers.
Tuesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We have a deep pitching pool on a slate where salary is at a premium due to what we find on the hitting side. I see so much to like below $8k that I am basically skipping the upper mid-range and only have moderate interest in the expensive options. Here are the two tiers sorted into pricing buckets:
Something Like Aces To Spend On
Pablo Lopez vs. Guardians – 29.3% K, 6.1% BB, 3.69 ERA, 3.41 SIERA
Corbin Burnes at Cubs – 24.9% K, 8.7% BB, 3.65 ERA, 4.16 SIERA
George Kirby vs. A’s – 23% K, 2.3% BB, 3.28 ERA, 3.67 SIERA
Clayton Kershaw vs. Diamondbacks – 27.1% K, 6.1% BB, 2.52 ERA, 3.57 SIERA
Justin Steele vs. Brewers – 23.2% K, 5.2% BB, 2.80 ERA, 3.82 SIERA
Jose Berrios vs. Nationals – 22.8% K, 7% BB, 3.55 ERA, 4.21 SIERA
Gavin Williams at Twins – 25.3% K, 9.7% BB, 3.52 ERA, 4.27 SIERA
A Lot Of Savings
Cole Ragans vs. Pirates – 28.7% K, 9.7% BB, 3.66 ERA, 3.71 SIERA
Dean Kremer vs. White Sox – 21.3% K, 7.1% BB, 4.31 ERA, 4.44 SIERA
Alex Cobb vs. Reds – 20.6% K, 6% BB, 3.74 ERA, 3.84 SIERA
Andrew Heaney at Mets – 24.1% K, 9.3% BB, 4.34 ERA, 4.37 SIERA
Jose Quintana vs. Rangers – 17.3% K, 9.8% BB, 3.73 ERA, 5.21 SIERA
Ken Waldichuk at Mariners – 21.8% K, 11.6% BB, 6.05 ERA, 4.84 SIERA
Brandon Williamson at Giants – 21.3% K, 8.6% BB, 4.18 ERA, 4.63 SIERA
Zack Thompson vs. Padres – 28.8% K, 9.2% BB, 3.86 ERA, 3.43 SIERA
Should We Pay For An Ace?
On FD, the short answer for me is no, we should not pay for an ace. On DK, most of my lineups will have, at most, one of the spend-ups, though I will most likely be sticking below the $10k mark.
Because Clayton Kershaw had his last start cut short by rain, he still hasn’t topped 71 pitches since June. I just don’t see the realistic upside to match his salary here. I always expect him to be good for the innings he gives us, but this is not a slate where I’m overpaying for safety.
Corbin Burnes is absolutely playable, and he is going to be in my MME pool, but I just can’t get excited about his tremendous lack of consistency. After a short burst of dominance in July, he’s right back to being just OK, with a 23.5% K rate and a 9.8% BB rate in August. The weather helps him, but the matchup doesn’t.
If I’m going to spend all the way up, I’ll side with Pablo Lopez against Cleveland, but it’s not a likely matchup for the type of ceiling game we’d want at this salary. He’s really just a tad ahead of the next two pitchers, who both have similarly trustable skill sets and good matchups.
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
