Million Dollar Musings: Wednesday, September 20
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 Split Slate Wednesday! We’ve got a busy day with games spread out all over the place. DK has made their main slate early with a 12:20pm ET start time and a pitching-heavy 9-game slate. FD has split those early games up into three smaller slates, so I’ll just be focusing on the DK slate for these early games. Because we have such an early start, I’m going to try and be less wordy than usual in order to get this posted early enough to be useful. (Good luck to me on the ‘less wordiness’)
For the evening slate, DK has a smaller 4-gamer, while FD will start a few minutes early at 6:40pm ET to include a 5th game. I’ll add some analysis for that later FD slate after we get through the early MLB DFS picks for DK.
Wednesday Early Pitching: MLB DFS Picks on FanDuel & DraftKings
We are loaded with good pitching on this early slate, and I see very little separation between the top 8-10 pitchers. There are some different styles of pitchers here, but essentially they are all close enough in skill set and salary that I’ll be playing the matchup game.
Aaron Nola at Braves – 24.9% K, 6% BB, 4.62 ERA, 3.87 SIERA
George Kirby at A’s – 23% K, 2.6% BB, 3.57 ERA, 3.72 SIERA
Merrill Kelly vs. Giants – 26.5% K, 9.5% BB, 3.45 ERA, 4.05 SIERA
Kyle Bradish at Astros – 24.4% K, 6.3% BB, 3.12 ERA, 3.82 SIERA
Hunter Greene vs. Twins – 30.1% K, 10.5% BB, 4.45 ERA, 3.90 SIERA
Seth Lugo vs. Rockies – 23.1% K, 5.7% BB, 3.83 ERA, 3.93 SIERA
Lucas Giolito at Royals – 26.1% K, 8.4% BB, 4.69 ERA, 4.07 SIERA
Logan Webb at Diamondbacks – 23.2% K, 3.7% BB, 3.31 ERA, 3.20 SIERA
Bailey Ober at Reds – 24.4% K, 5% BB, 3.67 ERA, 4.00 SIERA
Cristian Javier vs. Orioles – 22.1% K, 8.8% BB, 4.74 ERA, 4.88 SIERA
Josiah Gray vs. White Sox – 20.3% K, 11.5% BB, 4.07 ERA, 5.11 SIERA
I have no interest in Aaron Nola against the Braves, even if he were cheaper, but especially as the highest priced pitcher on the slate. Of course, you’re allowed to play Nola anytime you want, but this Braves team is just too good for me to want to mess with him on this good of a pitching slate.
I’ll take the steady George Kirby with his elite control in the far better matchup over Nola every time. Kirby is my SP1.
We saw some crazy good starts from Merrill Kelly in the not too distant past, but while the strikeouts and pitch count are still there, his control has gone completely wonky, and it’s harder to believe in his strikeouts as compared to someone like Hunter Greene, who has shown the elite strikeout ability his entire career. Both Kelly and Greene have risk and upside, but I strongly prefer Greene, and I don’t have much interest in pairing the two of them together in the same lineup. Both are completely viable, neither are top of the line must plays, but personally, I’ll be heavily invested in Greene and just hoping this is not one of the days his home run issues pop up. It’s a risk/reward matchup for a risk/reward pitcher against a high strikeout Twins team who also has power.
I would say that with the matchup against the Rockies and the control, Seth Lugo is a safer option that guys like Greene and Kelly. He has moderate upside against Colorado, but we’re really playing for a 6-inning, 6-strikeout kind of start. At $8,600, he looks completely fairly priced, and a Kirby/Lugo combo would be where I would go if I playing cash games.
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