MLB DraftKings Pitching Primer – Tuesday, 4/2

MLB Draftkings: Pitching Primer

Welcome back to the Tuesday Edition of the MLB Draftkings Pitching Primer! I’m Thunder Dan and I’ll be covering pitching for MLB DFS on DraftKings all season long at FantasyCPR.

My goal here is to help you narrow down your pitching options for both your GPPs and cash games on DraftKings. Analyzing pitchers and pitching matchups is something I really enjoy and I hope to give you a detailed analysis of why I think each pitcher makes for a compelling cash or GPP play.

It dawned on me that I don’t have a glossary of terms for some of the sabermetrics that I use to analyze pitching each and every day. Here are some of the stats that I use most frequently and a quick explanation. I won’t include these all year long, but I do want to keep them in the article for the first weeks of the season.

WHIP = Walks/Hits per Inning Pitched

This is a valuable metric when playing Draftkings as pitchers are penalized for hits and walks unlike the scoring system on FanDuel which only penalizes earned runs.

SIERA = Skill-Interactive Earned Run Average

Just using ERA is a thing of the past and doesn’t really capture the effectiveness of a pitcher that well anymore. SIERA is an ERA estimator that attempts to determine whether or not a pitcher’s actual ERA should have been higher or lower than it was based on how well they pitched.

FIP = Fielding Independent Pitching

This metric attempts to estimate what a pitcher’s ERA would be if they got average results on balls that are put into play. Basically trying to strip away the positive or negative effects of good/bad defense behind them or just bad luck on balls hit weakly that fall in for hits.

SS% = Swinging Strike Percentage

The percentage of pitches that a pitcher gets the opposing hitter to swing and miss. Some people don’t love this stat but I do. It generally correlates well with high strikeout percentages and helps us identify pitchers with an arsenal of pitches that can rack up Ks.

GB% = Ground Ball Percentage

Ground balls are good because they can never be home runs. We want to target pitchers with higher ground ball rates whenever possible.

K% = Strikeout Percentage

Percentage of batters that the pitcher has struck out divided by the total number of hitters they’ve faced.

K/9 = Strikeouts per 9 innings

Obviously, strikeouts are one of the most important DFS stats we are looking for. We typically want to target guys who average more than a K per inning or 9 K/9 or better.

There may be some other terms I use this season. I encourage you if you ever want to dive deeper into pitching to check out FanGraphs and dig into as many stats as you want. Your head will spin, it’s so much fun!

MLB Draftkings: First Look

Each day I’ll start off listing the pitching matchups for slate here on the introductory slide, usually accompanied by Vegas odds.

I’ll also include my rankings for both cash and GPP contests at the end of every article. Today we have a 10-game main slate that locks at 7:05.  Here are today’s matchups with the visiting pitcher listed first and the home pitcher listed second. The Vegas line is also in paratheses.

Zach Eflin vs. Max Scherzer (-200)

Andrew Cashner vs. Marcus Stroman (-200)

Kyle Freeland vs. Blake Snell (-140)

Jason Vargas (-115) vs. Jose Urena

Justin Verlander (-185) vs. Shelby Miller

Jose Berrios (-125) vs. Brad Keller

Chris Sale (-166) vs. Mike Fiers

Zach Greinke vs. Eric Lauer (-115)

Trevor Cahill vs. Marco Gonzales (-115)

Madison Bumgarner vs. Hyun-Jin Ryu (-175)

Stroman and Scherzer stand out as solid home favorites, while the other big aces Verlander and Sale are smaller road favorites. After some suspect pitching the last few days, we are back to having some really good arms to choose from tonight.

MLB Draftkings: Cash Game Aces

Max Scherzer (11.8k)

Mad Max lost his first start of the season to the Mets, but only surrendered two runs while striking out 12 hitters in 7 and 2/3 innings. He is always a threat to give up a home run or two with his flyball tendency, but I love him tonight against the Phillies in a matchup that will scare a lot of players off him.

While the Phillies have a solid lineup, they still have the potential to strike out a lot with some big swing and miss guys like Harper. You have to be willing to take a great pitcher even in a bad matchup sometimes and I think good pitching usually wins out over good hitting, especially early on in the season.

Jose Berrios (9.7k)

Berrios is coming off a gem in his first start against the Indians. His price is still reasonable and I’m sure he will be popular today. I like him a lot here against the Royals, a team that he pitched really well against last year. In four starts against the Royals, Berrios went 2-1 with 9 K/9 and a 2.08 ERA. He clearly has the potential to be an ace pitcher in this league. Let’s see if he can consistently find the control he will need in order to take that step and dominate opposing hitters this season.

Hyun-Jin Ryu (9.3k)

Ryu feels like the safest play on the entire slate. He pitched really well in the opener and now gets a home matchup with a really cold Giants lineup that lacks power and any real threats against left-handed pitching besides Longoria and Posey. Ryu’s numbers last season were excellent and he has a nice combination of strikeout upside and control (4.5% walk rate) that makes him a really ideal cash play.

MLB Draftkings: GPP and SP2

Marcus Stroman (8.2k) vs. Baltimore

Stroman had an excellent opening day outing against the Tigers, striking out seven in seven innings without yielding a run. The four walks were a little worrisome, but I think he makes for a really safe SP2 option tonight in a plus matchup against Baltimore. Stroman is primarily a groundball pitcher who limits hard contact and while Baltimore finally busted out offensively last night, I don’t expect them to find much success tonight against Stroman.

Zach Greinke (7.6k) @ San Diego

Wow, look at that price. While Zach Greinke struggled in his first start, I’m willing to cut him some slack since he was facing the awesome Dodgers lineup filled with stud left-handed hitters. We are still talking about a good veteran pitcher here in Greinke, and he’s just way too cheap at this price for a matchup with a nearly all right-handed Padres lineup. I have a ton of interest in him as an SP2 for GPPs.

Marco Gonzales (5.9k) vs. Los Angelas Angels

Marco! Welcome to my bargain bin special of the night. I am all over Gonzales tonight and he’s massively underpriced for this matchup and the amount of talent he possesses. Gonzales is not a big-time strikeout pitcher, but he gets groundballs, limits hard contact, and rarely walks guys. I have been picking on the Angels with left-handed pitching going all the way back to early last season with a lot of success and I will continue to do tonight with Gonzo, who is almost 2k too cheap for his upside in this spot (in my humble opinion.)

MLB Draftkings: Gas Can of the Night

Shelby Miller vs. Houston Astros

Shelby Miller is set to make his Texas Rangers debut tonight at the Ballpark at Arlington. Unfortunately, he has a few things working against him.

For one, he has to pitch in the best hitters’ park in baseball (yes, Coors Field, you heard me right, you’re a close second in terms of park factor)

Secondly, he has to face a formidable Astros lineup that is just waiting for a bad pitcher to explode on after they’ve been cold for the first week of the season.

And third, he’s a terrible pitcher who has been one of the worst starters in all of major league baseball over the last few years.

All kidding aside, Miller has some of the worst numbers on the board as far as wOBA allowed to both lefties and righties, hard contact rates, walk rates – you name it. Anything can happen in baseball, but a scenario where Shelby Miller pitches well against this Astros lineup is not one that I can see happening tonight.

MLB Draftkings: Rankings and Review

I like to wrap things up by giving you my rankings for both cash games and GPPs. Remember, for cash games, we want pitchers who are heavy favorites in relatively obvious spots. A win is helpful, but not always necessary on DK as long as we have strikeouts and 6+ innings pitched without too many hits/walks/runs. Ryu-Berrios is a nice pairing of 9k pitchers with some safety for cash games.

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In GPPs, I’m willing to play guys in riskier matchups and try to leverage ownership where I can. I’m really loving a Scherzer-Gonzales pairing in GPPs tonight that would still allow you some flexibility to get a lot of nice bats in there.

Cash Game Rankings

1. Max Scherzer
2. Hyun-Jin Ryu
3. Jose Berrios
4. Marcus Stroman

GPP Rankings

1. Max Scherzer
2. Jose Berrios
3. Marco Gonzales
4. Kyle Freeland

Thanks for reading my article and make sure you share it with friends and other DFS players if you like what I have to offer. Keep coming back to FantasyCPR for some of the best free DFS content in the industry!