Million Dollar Musings: MLB DFS Picks for Wednesday, July 31st
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 Wednesday! We have another split-slate Wednesday with an early start at 12:10 p.m. ET. I’ll touch quickly on that early pitching-heavy 7-game slate and then be back shortly with analysis for the 5-game evening slate, which begins at the usual 7:10 p.m. ET.
For the early slate, we will also have some Expert tags in our MLB lineup optimizer, LineupHQ, to get you pointed in the right direction.
Editor’s Note: Looking for more places to play? Check out our PrizePicks promo code and Underdog Fantasy promo code, two of the best DFS apps available today.
Wednesday Early Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We have a very strong pitching slate, and I would love to be able to set some of these guys aside and use them another time when we need more choices. But alas, they are all pitching today. Have you noticed that I don’t say ‘alas’ very often in the Musings? Seems like an oversight and something we will work on moving forward.
THE ACES -FIVE GUYS FOR LUNCHTIME BASEBALL
Chris Sale at Brewers – 32.7% K, 5.5% BB, 2.68 ERA, 2.66 SIERA
Taj Bradley vs. Marlins – 30% K, 8.4% BB, 2.43 ERA, 3.32 SIERA
Freddy Peralta vs. Braves – 29.5% K, 8.9% BB, 3.94 ERA, 3.47 SIERA
Grayson Rodriguez vs. Blue Jays – 26.3% K, 7.1% BB, 3.82 ERA, 3.58 SIERA
Pablo Lopez at Mets – 27.7% K, 5.1% BB, 4.73 ERA, 3.22 SIERA
This is a fantastic group of pitchers for a smaller slate. You can absolutely play any one of these five guys (!) anytime for any reason, but there are still some dividing lines here.
Basically, while Grayson Rodgriguez and Pablo Lopez are good enough to succeed in any matchup, they are a step below the other three aces in overall strikeout ability, plus they have lower strikeout matchups on top of that. For me, they aren’t at enough of a discount to make up that difference, so they both get tossed into the MME leftover bucket.
That leaves three aces in the 30% strikeout range with Chris Sale, Taj Bradley, and Freddy Peralta. Among these three, Taj Bradley has the best matchup and has also been basically unhittable since early June. He has allowed just 5 runs in his last 9 starts and now gets a home matchup against a Marlins team that has traded away most of its good hitters. The only knock here is that Bradley doesn’t have an extremely high pitch count but with his efficiency and this matchup – whoop dee doo! He’s my SP1.
Chris Sale has been a far more consistent ace than Freddy Peralta. Either of these guys can break a slate when at their best, but Sale’s best is much more common. In his last 15 starts, he has only allowed more than 2 runs one time. That is incredible, especially when adding in all the strikeouts.
Meanwhile, Peralta’s control is always more of a question mark, which also leaves his innings a bit all over the place.
This is a very clear top two with…
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