Million Dollar Musings: Wednesday, August 23
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 Early Split Slate Wednesday! We’ve got baseball all day, starting with an early 7-game slate on DK. I’ll touch on some MLB DFS picks for that pitching-heavy early slate and then be back shortly with a look at the main evening slates, which are slightly different on each site.
Both sites are running 6-game slates, but FanDuel’s will start a bit early at 6:40pm ET, while DK’s will be at the usual 7:05pm ET start time and include the second game of the Reds-Angels doubleheader.
Wednesday Early Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
This 7-game early slate on DK is loaded with pitching, and due to the pricing, I’m going to do things differently today. Generally, I start with the high-end options and then go down the line, talking about everyone I like in every pricing tier. However, even with some spend-up aces, it seems wrong to bury the lead that is Cole Ragans at $5,400 in Oakland.
Cole Ragans has been fantastic since moving into the rotation for Kansas City, with a 33:8 K:BB ratio in 24 innings. He’s also thrown 100+ pitches on multiple occasions and has three quality starts in his last four games. Even in a tougher matchup at a higher salary, he’d be in my primary pool. This is simply a mis-pricing, and I’m not going to overthink it. Now, of course, this is baseball, and it’s still just a 4-game sample size, but if we had any more sample size, there’s no way we’d get this kind of salary. He should be massive chalk, and I for one, do not care.
OK, now that we’ve got that out of the way, even if you’re with me on Ragans chalk, we still need a second pitcher. There are a couple big names up top to start with and no shortage of strong mid-tier choices beyond them:
Shohei Ohtani vs. Reds – 31.4% K, 10.3% BB, 3.17 ERA, 3.65 SIERA
Corbin Burnes vs. Twins – 25.2% K, 8.9% BB, 3.43 ERA, 4.13 SIERA
Kenta Maeda at Brewers – 28.9% K, 6.3% BB, 4.13 ERA, 3.59 SIERA
Andrew Abbott at Angels – 26.9% K, 8.3% BB, 2.99 ERA, 4.14 SIERA
George Kirby at White Sox – 22.4% K, 2.4% BB, 3.23 ERA, 3.72 SIERA
Sandy Alcantara at Padres – 20.9% K, 6.1% BB, 4.11 ERA, 4.07 SIERA
Tarik Skubal vs. Cubs – 28.3% K, 4.6% BB, 3.76 ERA, 3.08 SIERA
Jameson Taillon at Tigers – 19.8% K, 6.8% BB, 5.56 ERA, 4.62 SIERA
Seth Lugo vs. Marlins – 24% K, 5.6% BB, 3.92 ERA, 3.80 SIERA
Michael Lorenzen vs. Giants – 18.9% K, 6.6% BB, 3.57 ERA, 4.63 SIERA
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