MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Friday 4/26

MLB DFS Pitching: Friday, April 26

Welcome back to the Friday edition of the MLB DFS Pitching Primer! I’m Thunder Dan and I’ll be covering pitching for MLB DFS on all season long at FantasyCPR. I’m including both FanDuel and DraftKings pricing and will be covering my favorite pitching options for both sites.

It’s been a crazy week for me and my writing schedule, but I am happy to be able to break down this pitching slate for you tonight with a huge 15 game slate on FanDuel and DraftKings! That’s 30 pitchers!

My goal here is to help you narrow down your pitching options for both your GPPs and cash games. 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.

I’ll also include my rankings for both cash and GPP contests at the end of every article.  With 30 pitchers in action, it’s tempting to use a lot of different pitchers but I think the best strategy is to narrow your options down to 5-7 pitchers that you are going to consider for your DFS lineups tonight.

I was able to narrow down my player pool to 9 pitchers for this article, and I’m not likely to play everyone who I write up this morning by 7:00 tonight.

MLB DFS Pitching: First Look

With a full 15 game slate on tap, let’s first take a look at our pitching matchups.  I always try to include the Vegas odds for each game. I always glance at these matchups to see who the favorites are and who is pitching at home vs. on the road. Some pitchers have serious home/road splits. Vegas lines always move during the day and we should pay attention to any sharp line movement or reverse line movement, but for now, it’s a good starting point.

Here are today’s matchups with the visiting pitcher listed first and the home pitcher listed second, Vegas odds are listed in parenthesis.

HOME FAVORITES

Matt Strahm vs. Max Scherzer (-185)

Jose Urena vs. Jerad Eickhoff (-180)

Mike Fiers vs. Marcus Stroman (-125)

Charlie Morton vs. Mike Shawaryn (-140)

Chase Anderson vs. Jacob DeGrom (-190)

Antonio Senzetela vs. Max Fried (-162)

Daniel Norris vs. Carlos Rodon (-130)

Alex Cobb vs. Martin Perez (-200)

Corey Kluber vs. Colin McHugh (-135)

Anthony DeScalfani vs. Miles Mikolas (-140)

Kyle Hendricks vs. Robbie Ray (-105)

Shelby Miller vs. Yusei Kikuchi (-165)

Chris Archer vs. Hyun-Jin Ryu (-170)

ROAD FAVORITES

Tyler Skaggs (-115) vs. Danny Duffy

James Paxton (-110) vs. Madison Bumgarner

As you can see most of our home pitchers are favored today, but we don’t see any real massive favorites with Martin Perez of all people being the biggest favorite on the slate.

We have the return of a few pitchers from the disabled list, some intriguing aces, and a bunch of left-handers that pique my interest. Without any further ado, let’s take a look at my favorite top tier plays for cash games!

MLB DFS Pitching: Cash Game Aces

James Paxton (11k FD, 9.6k DK) @ San Francisco

Paxton is my favorite ace of the night for cash games. When you combine his excellent form (24 strikeouts and no earned runs over his last two starts spanning 14 innings) with the matchup here against the weak-hitting Giants, I think you end up with the safest play on the board.

With Max Scherzer and Jacob DeGrom both coming back from stints on the DL, I think Paxton is likely to be the most popular option of the big three and for good reason. His price is really fair on DK at 9.6k where he’s cheaper than both the other two aces. The Giants only strike out about 22% of the time this season, but Paxton gets to face their pitcher since they’re in an NL park today for interleague play and his 32% strikeout rate shows us he’s got upside for double digits.

Max Scherzer (12.3k FD, 10.4k DK) vs. San Diego

Between DeGrom and Scherzer, you could argue that DeGrom has been the better pitcher statistically this season. However, DeGrom has a tougher matchup against the Brewers and I’d rather pick on the Padres with Mad Max than pick on the Brewers and Christian Yelich!

Scherzer is pretty much priced out of consideration on FanDuel, but on DK he makes for a compelling play considering how bad the Padres have been against right-handing pitching this year. Max hasn’t quite been himself this season, but he still has the potential for a ton of strikeouts any given night and his fly ball tendency that leads to home runs should be less of a problem against a lineup that has struggled to produce many long balls this year. The Pads have the lowest implied run total today at 2.8 runs so Vegas still believes in Max.

MLB DFS Pitching: GPP Pitchers

We have a really strong mid-tier tonight, and these are the guys I’ll be mainly targeting in GPPs since they will allow us a little extra salary cap to spend on bats. I have five pitchers that I really like from 7.8k-9.5k and the first two are both lefties in positive matchups.

Carlos Rodon (9.4k FD, 8.1k DK) vs. Detroit

Rodon got price hike after another solid performance against the Tigers last week. I’m not sure many will want to pay this price for him on FanDuel, but you should definitely consider him. The results speak for themselves, as allowed more than two earned runs just once in five starts and has piled up 35 strikeouts in 28 innings.

He doesn’t have overpowering stuff, but he’s mixing his pitches well this season. He’s a reverse splits pitcher who is going to face a lineup full of right-handed hitters. The Tigers are a team we want to target often in DFS as they’ve been one of worst offenses in baseball this season. Rodon’s walks are always a cause for some concern, but so far his control has been somewhat improved and the Tigers lack the plate discipline to really force him to hit the plate.

Hyun-Jin Ryu (9.5k FD, 8.2k DK) vs. Pittsburgh

Ryu has a better long-term track record than Rodon, so with both these guys being about the same price on each site, I think he’s likely to gain more ownership. I also trust him more, since he’s got better control and more strikeout upside.

The Pirates have been dominated by left-handers so far this season and right now their lineup is decimated with injuries to Marte, Dickerson, Chisenhall, and Gonzalez.  Ryu has a positive park factor working for him at home as Dodger Stadium is a solid pitchers’ park and other than his injury-shortened outing against the Cardinals, he’s been super solid this season. He’s even a cash consideration as an SP2 on DraftKings today for me.

MLB DFS Pitching: GPP Pitchers

Max Fried (8.6k FD, 8k DK) vs. Colorado

It’s now four straight quality starts for Max Fried since entering the rotation for the Braves. This kid can pitch and national league opponents are finding out quickly that he’s legit. He faces a Rockies team tonight that he shut out of six solid innings in Coors. I like picking on the Rockies outside of Coors and they’ve been abysmal offensively this year against left-handed pitching in particular. Fried has shown excellent control so far (which was a big concern coming into the season) and while he doesn’t have big-time strikeout stuff, he does have an excellent ground ball rate that has allowed him to be efficient enough to pitch 6+ innings in all four of his starts.

Marcus Stroman (8k FD, 7.6k DK) vs. Oakland

Stroman is likely to get lost in the shuffle today with so many options to pick from. When you actually look at what he’s done so far this season, you have to admit that he’s been really good. He’s known as a master ground ball inducer, with a massive 60% ground ball rate. But he’s also striking out about a batter per inning this season and has not allowed more than three earned runs in any of his five starts.

Today he gets the same matchup that he dominated last week, a date with a right-handed heavy Athletics team. Stroman pitched 8 innings of one-run ball against the A’s last time out and while I sometimes hesitate to use a pitcher against a team they just saw, I think this particular matchup is too good to ignore even on such a big slate. Fire up the underrated Stroman tonight at low ownership.

Jerad Eickhoff vs. Miami (7.8k FD, 7.9k DK)

After pitching fairly effectively against the Rockies in Coors in his last outing, it appears Eickhoff is going to stay in the rotation for the Phillies as their fifth starter for the time being.  After being a promising young starter for the Phillies several years ago, Eickhoff missed nearly all of 2018 with an injury. He’s primarily a fastball-curveball pitcher with an excellent deuce that he gets a lot of swings and misses with. Of course, we have to consider him today because he’s facing the Marlins, a team that is striking out nearly 30% of the time against right-handed pitching.  I like him today a good bit and while Aaron Nola was 50% owned chalk last night in this same spot, I’m willing to bet you can get Eickoff for single-digit ownership tonight.

MLB DFS Pitching: Cheap Arms and SP2s

Danny Duffy (7.1k FD, 6.5k DK) vs. Los Angeles Angels

Happy Danny Duffy Day! You can probably see where this is going, as you know that I love picking on the Angels with left-handed pitchers. Let me just say that I love this play but it’s absolutely ONLY a GPP play considering the fact that Duffy is making his season debut and the Angels have actually been hitting the ball the last few days.

Sounds like Duffy pitched well in his lone rehab start at AAA and we know he can be an effective pitcher at the big league level He’s battled some walk issues and hard contact issues in the past, but I’m willing to take a shot on him at this price and in this matchup.

Daniel Norris (6.8k FD, 6. 9k DK) @ Chicago White Sox

Norris has earned himself another start with a solid performance against these Chi-Sox last time out. He was pitching out of the pen for the first few weeks, primarily as a long man, but threw five scoreless innings against Chicago in a spot start last week. The White Sox have been very vulnerable to left-handed pitching so far this year and going back to last year, too. While Norris isn’t an overpowering pitcher, he does mix four different pitches well and nibbles at the corners to the tune of a 23% K rate. An average strikeout pitcher against the above average whiff rate of the Chi-Sox is a situation I want to attack tonight. He’s my favoring SP2 on DK for GPPs tonight.

MLB DFS Pitching: Gas Can(s) of the Night

Shelby Miller vs. Seattle Mariners

Welcome back, Shelby! I’ve featured Miller here a few times this year already and I see no reason why I shouldn’t spotlight him again.

To be fair, Miller pitched into the sixth inning in his last start against a good Houston offense and picked up a win against Gerrit Cole, so perhaps he’s trending up. But I’m going to chalk that one up as a fluke and go right back to picking on him again tonight.

There are some bad pitchers on the slate tonight, but no one has worse numbers than Miller across the board. He should have his work cut out for him tonight as he faces a Mariners team that is loaded with power, speed, and just put up 14 runs last night.

The Mariners have been one of my favorite teams to stack so far this season and they won me some money last night. You better believe I’ll be stacking them up tonight again, and making several different variations of stacks, not just targeting the top of the order guys.

MLB DFS Pitching: Rankings and Review

This is where I give you my final rankings for both cash games and GPPs. Remember, rankings for cash are based on safety, while rankings for GPP are based on their ceiling and point-per-dollar upside.

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Remember on DK, I prefer to pay up for at least one high-priced pitcher in cash and on FanDuel I prefer to pay up in cash more often than not.

On DK, my preferred cash game pairing is going to be James Paxton and Hyun-Jin Ryu.

My favorite GPP pairing is likely going to be Max Scherzer and Daniel Norris.

One thing I might do on DK is roll out a bunch of GPP lineups with 2 guys from the mid-tier (Ryu, Eickoff, Stroman, Rodon, Fried) and just load up on bats.

If you play mainly on FanDuel try to spread your ownership on your pitchers out among 4-5 guys, I wouldn’t recommend using more than that on a one-pitcher site, otherwise, you are probably hurting your chances at winning a GPP by getting the right stack with the right pitcher.

Cash Rankings

1. James Paxton
2. Max Scherzer
3. Hyun-Jin Ryu
4. Marcus Stroman (SP2)
5. Jerad Eickhoff (SP2)

GPP Rankings

1. Max Scherzer
2. Max Fried
3. James Paxton
4. Carlos Rodon
5. Daniel Norris (SP2)

Thanks for reading the MLB DFS Pitching Primer and be sure to come back for more great FantasyCPR content for MLB and all other sports! Good luck in your contests today!