FanDuel Top MLB Pitching – Give Me Some German!

Top MLB Pitching – The Breakdown

Welcome Guys! The MLB season kicked off yesterday and boy did it start off with some bombs! We have been excited for the season for awhile now, so let’s take a look at Friday’s Top MLB Pitching!

I’ll be targeting the FanDuel side of pitching for the FantasyCPR team. I’ll be diving in to every slate also as FanDuel (and most DFS apps) break down every slate into the Early, Main, and sometimes Late/Night slate.

We’ll be doing it similar like my NBA DFS articles with three different tiers: Top Tier, Mid Tier, and Low Tiers. Each tier will have three pitchers in it (unless it’s a small slate) to give you multiple options to build around.

Now lets recap the scoring for pitchers on FanDuel so we know what to target. So Pitchers will get points based off innings pitched, strikeouts, earned runs, quality starts, and for wins. Now obviously we want to target pitchers with a high K rate and averages around 85-100 pitches.

Depending on the style of contest you’re shooting for, Cash or GPP, we will try and discuss the ownership with these pitchers also.

The final thing I want to cover is that we can go after the Verlanders, Degroms, Scherzers, and Snell’s but if they are facing off against each other, that win bonus will be difficult to get as both will be in a pitching duel.

I usually focus on more of GPP then a Cash contest but I’ll be sure to tag which pitcher I’ll be using and for what contest. Now lets hop in to this Opening Day Slate and get to researching!

Top MLB Pitching – Top Tier

Gerrit Cole vs. Tampa Bay Rays (Salary: $11,300)

Career: K: 25.1% Rate | BB: 6.6% Rate

2018 Season: K: 34.5% Rate | BB: 8% Rate

We saw how the Houston Astros kicked off their season yesterday with Justin Verlander and boy did the bats give support. We’ll be expecting the same today with Gerrit Cole who had a monster campaign last season. Cole is the only pitcher priced over $10k on Fanduel today and it’s well worth it.

Cole put up 15 wins with 5 losses in 32 starts. He ended the season with a 2.88 ERA while striking out 12 batters with 3 walks per 9 innings. The Rays don’t have the fire power to keep up with the Astros so expect Cole to have a easy outing just like Verlander.

German Marquez vs. Miami Marlins (Salary: $9,800)

Career: K: 24.3% Rate | BB: 6.9% Rate

2018 Season: K: 28.2% Rate | BB: 7% Rate

German Marquez had a career season last year with the Colorado Rockies in his young professional career and he looks to continue it this season. His K rate was a career high and while the ERA isn’t anything pretty to look at, he did lower it. Marquez is in a nice situation to kick his 2019 campaign off and he’s at a great price, being the second highest priced pitcher on this 8 game slate.

Marquez put up a great K rate last season, striking out 28% of the batters he faced while only walking batters a 7%, his career average. In 33 starts though, he ended with 14 wins and 11 losses with the losses being his career high.

Robbie Ray vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (Salary: $8,400)

Career: K: 27.9% Rate | BB: 10.3% Rate

2018 Season: K: 31.4% Rate | BB: 13.3% Rate

Why play a pitcher after what the Dodgers lineup did to Zack Greinke? Well Greinke gave up 7 earned runs in 3.2 innings pitched, something Robbie Ray won’t allow after his season last year. A bright spot to look at with Ray’s season last year is that he only gave up 19 home-runs in 24 starts, pitching 123.2 innings.

Ray finished with 6 wins and 2 losses while holding an ERA of 3.93. He was averaging 12 strikeouts with 5 walks per 9 innings. Ray should be able to hold off this Dodgers power bats but he is one pitcher I’ll have very low exposure to today.

Top MLB Pitching – Mid Tier

Joey Lucchesi vs. San Francisco Giants (Salary: $7,600)

Career (2018 Only Season Logged): K: 26.5% Rate | BB: 7.9% Rate

The San Francisco Giants are my team but they probably won’t be giving their pitchers any help with run support, so starting the opposing pitcher just isn’t a bad idea. Even with Bumgarner’s nice stat line with 2 earned runs, it just wasn’t enough which could boost the W bonus for Lucchesi like it did for Lauer.

Lucchesi logged his first professional season last season with the San Diego Padres and went for 8 wins and 9 losses while holding an ERA of 4.08. He’s averaging 10 strikeouts with 3 walks per 9 innings.

Left handed batters are holding an average of .235 and right handed batters are holding a .235 average. Also with runners in scoring position, Lucchesi holds batters to an average of .217 with 22 strikeouts in 26 innings.

Matthew Boyd vs. Toronto Blue Jays (Salary: $7,700)

Career: K: 19.9% Ratee | BB: 7.7% Rate

2018 Season: K: 22.4% Rate | BB: 7.2% Rate

Mathew Boyd put in his third official season with the Detroit Tigers last season and had a pretty good year, but still has some room for improvement. He gets to face the Toronto Blue Jays who didn’t have the best opening day with Zimmerman being near lights out. He also started a career high of 31 games, finishing with a record of 9 wins and 13 losses while holding a 4.39 ERA.

Boyd was striking out 8 batters while walking 2.6 batters per nine innings. But he also put up a great K rating of 22.4%, his best yet. He does allow more right handed hitters to abuse him but when it comes to the lefty’s, he has held them to 26 earned runs and 6 home-runs while right handed hitters put up 57 earned runs and 21 home-runs.

Yusei Kikuchi vs. Boston Red Sox (Salary: $6,900)

Now typically I would leave a guy below $7k for the low tier plays but we only have 8 games and I’m a fan of Kikuchi even after his bad outing in Japan versus the Oakland A’s. We have very little information to base this play off as Kikuchi is very fresh to the league and just one start so let’s recap what he did in Japan versus the A’s.

Kikuchi pitched 4.2 innings on the 21st, striking out 3 hitters with just 1 walk while giving up one earned run. He also just gave up 4 hits. Now I don’t expect the Mariners to throw him out today for more then 6 innings, but he does face a stacked Red Sox team that is looking to defend their title. Kikuchi may go low owned and I’ll probably target him in a couple GPP contests.

Top MLB Pitching – Low Tier

*I’m only posting two pitchers for the low tier due to the fact that I do not want to chase too much risk. It’s only the second day of the season and it’s not worth it at this time. I would rather see what we get from some low cost, major risk plays like Estrada and Shoemarker. Even Matt Harvey could be considered as a play with the run support he may get but I’m not chancing it with his injury issue and rehab.

Marco Estrada vs. Los Angeles Angels (Salary: $5,900)

Career: K: 21.1% Rate | BB: 7.5% Rate

2018 Season: K: 16.4% Ratee | BB: 8% Rate

Marco Estrada could be a great risk play due to the Oakland A’s having the hitting power to keep him in a comfortable position where he won’t be playing from behind. Estrada is coming off of a bad season with the Toronto Blue Jays where he put up just 7 wins and 14 losses in 28 starts while holding an ERA of 5.64.

Estrada only struck out 6 batters while walking 3 batters per 9 innings. His K rate was a career low last season also with just 16% of batters striking out per 9 innings. Estrada is nothing but a risk play if you’re looking to stack some major bats on this slate. Estrada is also the cheapest pitcher on this 8 game slate so wouldn’t be surprised if he is over-looked today.

Matt Shoemaker vs. Detroit Tigers (Salary: $7,000)

Career: K: 21.7% Rate | BB: 5.7% Rate

2018 Season: K: 25.4% Rate | BB: 7.7% Rate

Like I said, I rarely want to target two pitchers from the same game because it just makes thee lineup build a little more difficult to go through. But if you worry that Boyd won’t be able to hold off the Toronto Bats, who only combined for 2 hits yesterday, then Shoemaker may make for a great pivot.

Shoemaker had a short season last year with just 7 official starts with 2 wins and 2 losses while holding an ERA of 4.94. He did put up his second highest K rate though with 25% while walking just 7.7% on the season.

But it was a very small sample size of just 31 innings pitched. He was averaging 9.58 strikeouts per 9 innings while giving up near 3 walks also. He may see more right handed hitters which he allows to average .284 though so once again, there is risk here with this cheap play.

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