Million Dollar Musings: Tuesday, May 9
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! We’ve got a nice looking 10-game slate, with a fairly even mix of everything. There are pitchers in every pricing tier, as well as both stacks and individual bats to like on the hitting side. We’ll get some moderate chalk here and there, but at least on the hitting side, I don’t see anything that is likely to get too far out of bounds with ownership.
I’m going to jump right into it and look through these pitchers to find some MLB DFS picks, starting with the greatest of all humans, Mr. Ohtani.
Tuesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
I see a few different groups of pitching options on this slate. You could come to a bigger pool than what I have, but officially, I end up with just nine pitchers that I personally am considering on this slate. The bird’s eye view looks like this:
The Upside Ace, But Priced Like It
Shohei Ohtani vs. Astros
The Three Real-Life Aces
Framber Valdez at Angels
Logan Webb vs. Nationals
George Kirby vs. Rangers
Riskier Upside
Andrew Heaney at Mariners
Jesus Luzardo at Diamondbacks
Lucas Giolito at Royals
Small Sample Savings
Clarke Schmidt vs. A’s
Brandon Pfaadt vs. Marlins
Is The Ace Worth The Spend?
Shohei Ohtani still has a bit of a high-looking walk rate from his slow start to the season. But the control has come around, while the strikeouts remain elite. His 38.6% K rate so far this season dwarfs everyone else on this slate, and his 34.2% K rate and 7.6% walks dating back to last year are also the best marks on this slate. The matchup is certainly not ideal. But as we continue to see, the Astros are basically two great hitters, a few low-strikeout righties, and some random dudes with stars on their jerseys.
For me, there is no question at all that Ohtani has the highest upside on this slate, but he also doesn’t have a strong likelihood of being a top points-per-dollar option. On FD, he is not a priority for me at first glance, where he is all the way up at $11,600. He’s the same $11,600 on DK. And there, we are most likely choosing between him and a cheap SP2 or going with a Kirby/Webb combo (or something similar). Let’s look at these other options before deciding how to rank them.
These Three Dudes Are Good
Framber Valdez at Angels
Logan Webb vs. Nationals
George Kirby vs. Rangers
Framber Valdez is awesome. There is no pitcher in the league with this kind of consistency, and he has underrated upside with both innings and a recent uptick in strikeouts. Just like with Ohtani on the other side of this game, the matchup isn’t ideal, but there is no matchup where Valdez isn’t likely to get a quality start. The problem here is that I have to assume a lower strikeout game, with this Angels team being one of the lowest strikeout teams in the league against lefties. He’s priced well ahead of Kirby and Webb on DK and ahead of both on FD as well. This makes him just an MME leftover.
