Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks for Tuesday, June 11th
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 Tuesday! We’ve got a big 12-game slate with a ton to love on the offensive side. I am quickly finding a narrowed-down pitcher pool, and while that is likely to lead to some chalk, there are so many paths to differentiate with bats that I am not going to be overthinking it with the arms. I don’t know how anyone could overthink anything with their arms. You could probably overthink something with your brain, but your arm? I don’t know, it’s one of those days. Let’s dig into some baseball!
Tuesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
Unless I dig up something unexpected as I dig through these pitchers, I see a very clear primary pool. That pool consists of the obvious top three and then a handful of cheap darts in good matchups. I’ll list a few of the other mid-tier options, but at first glance, I don’t see a lot of reason to goof around today.
TOP TIER TRIO
Zack Wheeler at Red Sox – 28.5% K, 8.2% BB, 2.23 ERA, 3.31 SIERA
Paul Skenes at Cardinals – 35.5% K, 5.6% BB, 3.00 ERA, 2.29 SIERA
Bryan Woo vs. White Sox – 20.2% K, 1.7% BB, 1.07 ERA, 3.67 SIERA
OTHER GOOD PITCHERS IF YOU WANT TO SPREAD OUT
Jesus Luzardo at Mets – 22.5% K, 7.8% BB, 5.30 ERA, 3.99 SIERA
Yusei Kikuchi at Brewers – 23.7% K, 5% BB, 3.48 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
Ronel Blanco at Giants – 22.8% K, 10.4% BB, 2.78 ERA, 4.27 SIERA
Kutter Crawford vs. Phillies – 22.8% K, 7.7% BB, 3.51 ERA, 3.99 SIERA
CHEAP WITH UPSIDE AND/OR GOOD MATCHUPS
Tylor Megill vs. Marlins – 27% K, 10.1% BB, 3.00 ERA, 3.82 SIERA
Louie Varland vs. Rockies – career 23.1% K, 6.7% BB
Drew Thorpe at Mariners – MLB debut
Randy Vasquez vs. A’s – 14.3% K, 3.4% BB, 5.40 ERA, 4.44 SIERA
Miles Mikolas vs. Pirates – 17.8% K, 4.7% BB, 5.32 ERA, 4.13 SIERA
Just Play These Three If Salary Allows
If we were playing in a world of no salary cap, my pool would consist of Zack Wheeler, Paul Skenes, and Bryan Woo. That’s it. And really, my pool would mostly just be Wheeler and Skenes.
Wheeler just keeps piling up innings at an elite level, and he has plenty of ceiling with the massive pitch count. If you want to pick holes in his game, you can find them with his unusually high 10.9% walk rate to lefties this season. He is as amazing as ever and basically unhittable against righties. If we assume the Red Sox send up 5 lefties against him, I’m willing to say he’s not a lock button on either site, and arguably not even a priority on FD at $11,000. But even with a few more walks than in the past, he is still the most trustable pitcher on this or any other slate. I’m thrilled to play Wheeler in any lineup in any format on any site, but I want to dig into the next couple of guys first before deciding how much of a priority he is.
Paul Skenes has now made 5 career starts, and only one of them has come with fewer than 7 strikeouts. His pitch count is not quite Wheeler level, but it’s no concern either, going 93+ pitches in his last 4 games. Even if he backs off a little from his 35.5% K rate, he would still be easily the highest strikeout pitcher on this slate, and so far, his control is even better than Wheeler’s. When adding in above-average ground balls to both sides of the plate and a matchup with a St. Louis team that has only two batters with any sort of power this season, I can’t find any reason not to love him. I can easily argue that he’s a better DFS pitcher than Wheeler right now, and he is a little cheaper. I expected to vastly prefer Wheeler, but I don’t. Even without the discount, I’m calling Skenes my SP1.
I haven’t played Bryan Woo yet this season because I was waiting for him to get to an acceptable workload. He finally got there in his last start, so I can get him into my pool now. He threw 85 pitches in 6 scoreless innings against Oakland last week, and that was his 3rd scoreless 6-inning game in 4 starts. The guy is really good with only 2 walks in 33 innings and no walks in his three Triple-A rehab starts. The issue here is that he is still not likely to get even up to Skenes’ level of pitch count. As great as he’s been, he’s not going to maintain a .165 BABIP and 2.4% HR/FB rate. His strikeouts are also nowhere near the level of Skenes and Wheeler, but like Wheeler, he’s extremely splitsy. Combining with his 2023 numbers, he has a 29.6% K rate to righties with 52% ground balls vs. an 18.1% K rate and no ground ball lean to lefties. The White Sox are not just a bad team, they are also a heavily right-handed team. They likely only have 3, maybe 4 lefties against him, and only Gavin Sheets is any sort of power threat. He should see at least 4 high strikeout righties, and with that matchup, I can’t find any reason not to love him. If the salaries are no issue, he’s a somewhat distant 3rd after Skenes and Wheeler, but he’s equally as far ahead of everyone below this tier.
You Can Do Whatever You Want
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