Million Dollar Musings: Tuesday, September 12
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 started with an 11-game slate, but with Monday’s rainouts causing doubleheaders, we are down to a 9-game slate on FD and a 10-game (or maybe 9-game) slate on DK. As of the time I’m writing this, DK has excluded players from the Royals-White Sox game, but the Yankees-Red Sox Game 2 is still listed as playable.
The slate is similar to last night. We have a clear top tier of pitchers and the Cubs all alone at the top of the charts on the hitting side, with a whole slew of reasonable targets once we get past those Cubbies. It looks like the weather will be more cooperative tonight, so let’s jump on in and take a look at some MLB DFS picks for this Tuesday night slate.
Tuesday Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
At first glance, this looks like a pretty good pitching slate, but as I dig through, I’m becoming less enamored. But we do get at least a couple strong options up in the top tier, so we’ll start there.
TOP-TIER ARMS
Freddy Peralta vs. Marlins – 30.8% K, 8.7% BB, 3.89 ERA, 3.57 SIERA
Max Scherzer at Blue Jays – 28.6% K, 7.3% BB, 3.91 ERA, 3.73 SIERA
Justin Verlander vs. A’s – 21% K, 7.1% BB, 3.23 ERA, 4.53 SIERA
Joe Ryan vs. Rays – 29.1% K, 4.8% BB, 4.21 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
Lance Lynn vs. Padres – 24.3% K, 7.9% BB, 6.09 ERA, 4.19 SIERA
Freddy Peralta lost his magic touch a bit in his last start, but he’s been so good over the past couple months that he checks in as my clear SP1. He has 9+ strikeouts in five of his last eight starts, and not only the highest strikeout rate on this slate, but a huge increase to 37.5% strikeouts since the All-Star Break. Peralta never lands in the ‘safe’ category, but I have bigger question marks about the others in the top tier. His salary is tricky on DK, but that seems likely to keep his ownership in check, while probably leading to Justin Verlander coming in ahead of him. We’ll talk about Verlander in a second, but I am viewing this salary gap as a good thing in Peralta’s favor. On FD, Peralta is much easier to fit.
Before his last start, I talked about my concerns with Max Scherzer and his forearm tightness that caused him to leave his previous start early. Well, he didn’t leave the game with an injury, but he sure left with an injured ego, allowing 7 runs in 3 innings against the Astros. His stuff looked basically normal, so I’m not certain that he’s injured at this point or even tired. He may just be old and relegated to some level of inconsistency at this point. We had seen a lot of the good version of Scherzer prior to that arm soreness, and I am not at all saying that it’s not coming back. What I am saying is that I have no idea, and I don’t have any level of trust. He ends up no better than my SP4, which at this salary makes him essentially missing my pool.
Want to read more? Sign up for Premium!
