FanDuel Lineup and Picks for Thursday, April 19th

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Welcome into the Thursday edition of the FanDuel daily fantasy MLB column! We have just a small five game slate tonight so let’s continue the hot streak!

Yesterday was a pretty fun day as we cruised by the cash lines in both slates. It should have been a very profitable day as the early line put up a score of 132.8 . That finished in the top 10 of almost all cash games and dipped into the back end of the tournaments as well.

The evening slate put up a monster score of 189.5 thanks to Ryan Zimmerman who eclipsed 50 FanDuel points, Carlos Carrasco who was nasty on the mound, and then the Red Sox stack mostly came through, no thanks to Eduardo Nunez. We’ve been on fire lately and one of the only two slates we’ve missed was because of a late postponement that we couldn’t replace players. Let’s keep the momentum going again through the small five game slate tonight!

PITTSBURGH, PA – APRIL 08: Jameson Taillon #50 of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitches during the game against the Cincinnati Reds at PNC Park on April 8, 2018 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Joe Sargent/Getty Images) /

Starting Pitcher, High End Spend

Jameson Taillon, $9,300

.286(6for 21), 23.8 strikeout rate

It’s going to be a difficult choice tonight between Taillon and Zach Grienke. I can already see I’ll be going back and forth all day tomorrow. Both pitchers are in a tough ballpark, but I’m slightly leaning Taillon right now. The Phillies strikeout a ton against righties and Taillon comes into the game in far better form. His ERA and WHIP are both under 1.00 and he pitched well his last game out, he was just lacking the strikeouts. He’s inducing a ton of ground balls and giving up under 20 percent hard contact. Philly is 23rd in hard contact and some of their numbers(especially at home) are inflated because of a 20 run explosion at the start of the season.

Mid-Range

Chase Anderson, $7,900

.385(10 for 26), 17.2 strikeout rate

If you’re not paying upper one of the top two pitchers, Anderson could be a pretty interesting way to go. He continues to be the kind of player that baffles the metrics. He doesn’t strike out a ton of guys. He gives up more fly balls than is comfortable when you play him. We’re on him tonight because he limits hard contact and Miami is 24th in hard contact made against righties. After that, they are 28th in wOBA, dead last in ISO, and 29th in OPS. They’re also in the top 10 in strikeout rate against righties. There’s a whole lot of factors in Anderson’s corner tonight, despite the poor ballpark factor.

Value

Dillon Peters, $5,600

.571(8 for 14), 12.5 strikeout rate

I can’t stress enough how this is a GPP play only, but there’s a possibility that Peters can actually have a reasonably solid game. Now, the likeliest scenario is Peters gets blasted. I’ll most likely have some Brewers lefty specialists in my main lineup. However, Peters does have a career groundball rate of 55 percent. So far in 2018, the Brewers have the 11th highest groundball rate against lefties at 47.1 percent. They’re 27th in fly ball rate and right in the middle of the pack in hard hit rate. He’s at Miller Park, which should keep almost everyone away from playing him. I’ll certainly have a quarter arcade lineup with Peters as my pitcher.