MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Friday, 5/24 – Berrios will bury ’em

MLB DFS Pitching: Friday, 5/24

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.

Tonight we have a massive 14-game slate that locks at 7:05. Considering there are 30 pitchers taking the mound tonight, I find myself interested in a relatively small number of them (and admittedly, I’m picky – but it’s kind of my job to be!) I’ll make sure to include my rankings for both cash and GPP contests at the end like always, don’t worry!

"The goal of the pitching primer 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 usually start by looking at the pitcher vs. pitcher matchups and Vegas lines, but we are missing a lot of that info at the time of this article’s publishing.  Instead of listing all 14 matchups, here are a few quick bits of info I think you may find interesting.

***Jose Berrios is the biggest home favorite at -220 against the White Sox, followed by Daniel Mengden (-170) and rookie Griffin Canning (-158).

***The two lowest game totals are Cleveland-Tampa and San Francisco-Arizona. That should put Shane Bieber, Blake Snell, and Robbie Ray into the discussion today as they have some of the lowest implied totals against them.

***We have several teams using openers (Pittsburgh, New York Yankees) and a few others using young pitchers in their first start of the season (Washington, Colorado).

MLB DFS Pitching: Cash Game Ace?

Blake Snell (11.2k FD, 11.4k DK) @ Cleveland

Snell is the highest priced pitcher on the slate, but probably for good reason. I’m off the other aces (Sale – tough matchup, Syndergaard – mediocre form) tonight and if I am going to pay up, I’m going all the way up to last year’s AL Cy Young award winner in a good spot against the Indians.

Snell happens to be in excellent form, allowing only 11 hits and 3 earned runs over his last 21.2 innings while striking out 30 and walking only 3 hitters. Those are some impressive stats and go to show you just how dominant he can be when he gets locked in.

While the Indians offense has been better since the return of Francisco Lindor, they are still struggling badly against left-handed pitching. Look no further than last night’s game for evidence of this as Tampa lefty Ryan Yarborough blanked them over 7 innings.

If they struggled with Yarborough, they’re likely to struggle against the superior Snell tonight. They’re sitting in the bottom third of offenses tonight in both wOBA and ISO against lefties and check in with a 23.7% K rate.  I think Snell handles the Tribe easily and picks up a win, QS, and between 8-12 strikeouts while he’s at it.

MLB DFS Pitching: GPP Pivot #1

Jose Berrios (9.9k FD, 10.2k DK) vs. Chicago White Sox

It’s tempting to want to use Berrios in cash games on FanDuel at this price as that 1300 savings is really going to help find some better bats. But as much as I like Berrios tonight, I think he’s best reserved for GPP contests.

He’s got two really good things going for him tonight. First, he is on the right side of his home/road splits. It’s not a stat I look at all that often, but it’s been a pretty significant drop off for Berrios on the road in his short career. Second, he has absolutely dominated the White Sox in his career. He’s 7-1 with a 2.12 ERA and 67 strikeouts over 59 innings. We usually like attacking the White Sox with right-handed power pitchers, so Berrios fits the bill.

The only thing holding me back is his current form. Over his last two starts, he’s only lasted 10 innings and yielded 20 hits and 9 earned runs. It’s enough to give you pause in making him your cash game guy, but not enough to keep me from having a ton of exposure in GPPs.

MLB DFS Pitching: GPP Pivot #2

Griffin Canning (7.6k FD, 8.6k DK) vs. Texas

FanDuel continues to be slow to price up the impressive Angels rookie Canning and that’s primarily where I want most of my exposure to him tonight. This matchup is going to be the toughest test that Canning has had yet, as the Rangers are one of the best offenses in baseball. Vegas has some respect for Canning here at home, however, as Texas only checks in with a modest 4.2 run total in this game.

Canning will face Texas away from Arlington which definitely helps him out here. We are looking at super small sample sizes, but the potential for a big strikeout performance is there when you consider that Canning has a ridiculous 17.7 swinging strike rate and Texas whiffs nearly 24% of the time.

It’s a boom/bust spot that is definitely a GPP-only type of play, but as you know I’ve been high on this rookie since he made his debut last month and I think he’s got the kind of stuff to be a really good major league pitcher. We will find out what he’s made of tonight, and I want some shares in case he shows out.

MLB DFS Pitching: Cheap Arm/SP2

Trent Thornton (7.1k FD, 7.6k DK) vs. San Diego

The rookie is my favorite cheap pitcher on this slate. He’s in great form, allowing just 3 earned runs over his last two starts and in a positive matchup tonight against a San Diego team that continues to struggle against RHP.

Thornton has been markedly better against righties this season, and this is the perfect lineup for him to match up with tonight as he should see 7 of them. He’s striking out over a batter per inning and the Padres have a slate-high 27% K rate.

He’s not without his warts (high walk rate, some home run issues), but at this price, I am going to have a lot of Thornton. I’ll have most of my exposure on FanDuel where his price is a steal, but I think he makes for a solid SP2 for GPPs over on DraftKings, too.

MLB DFS Pitching: Cheap Arm/SP2

Pablo Lopez (7.5k both sites) @ Washington

My last pitching pick of the night is going to be a guy that I have been on for the last month and has been either really good or really bad in his last five outings. Pablo Lopez is showing signs of breaking out this season as another member of the talented young rotation in Miami. His 5.06 ERA looks bad, but it’s mainly inflated by the 10 ER he surrendered over 3 innings to the Mets two weeks ago and his FIP and xFIP are in the mid 3’s, suggesting he’s much better than that.

So bear with me here, but if you ignore the 10 ER game against the Mets and the 4 ER he surrendered to Philly in late April, he has made three excellent, scoreless starts against Cleveland, Atlanta, and New York. The point of that exercise is simply to show you how good he can be, but also how inconsistent he’s been, too.

I like him tonight even on the road against a Nats team that has been hitting the ball better lately. They are still whiffing 25% of the time and Lopez has good strikeout stuff as well as a 53% groundball rate. He should be low-owned in this matchup and I don’t see him gaining a lot of traction during the day with other touts and sites. If he pitches like we know he can, he could help you win a tournament at single digit ownership.

MLB DFS Pitching: Gas Can of the Night

Kevin McGowin vs. Miami

This was a tough choice today as there are a number of questionable pitchers being called on by their respective teams tonight. To be fair, McGowin may not be a total “gas can” as we have seen very little of what he can do against major league hitters. But he fits the profile of a pitcher we want to pick on in DFS for a few reasons.

For one, he’s a classic two-pitch pitcher, throwing a low 90’s fastball and mid 80’s slider. The lack of a third pitch (he technically has a changeup, but has barely used it) is usually what causes young pitchers to struggle at the MLB level. He’s making his second career start tonight, having made only one start for the Nats last season.

Secondly, I don’t see him pitching deep into this game. His only MLB appearance this season was three innings in long relief and his average start at AAA was only 5 innings. Miami is a team people love to pick on with pitchers, but lately, they have been starting to hit. Instead of picking on them, I like them as a low-owned stack tonight because if they can get McGowin out early they will face one of the worst bullpens in all of baseball!

MLB DFS Pitching: Troll of the Night

John Means @ Colorado

I was tempted to write up Means are a super contrarian, low-owned play but I don’t think you need to get that creative with all the other options on this slate. However, I do think he’s a pitcher who can have some success tonight at Coors and frustrate owners who automatically roster Trevor Story, Nolan Arenado, Ian Desmond, and/or Mark Reynolds anytime they see a lefty at home.

Means has been Baltimore’s best starter (which hasn’t been that hard, considering all their other starters have been pretty terrible) since entering the rotation. He’s not overpowering anyone with his 92 MPH fastball, but he’s keeping hitters off balance with a solid changeup as his second pitch.

He’s also not walking batters or giving up that much hard contact (28%). His other secondary pitch is a slider, and he’s not throwing a curveball much at all, which is good because curveballs and sinkers are two of the pitches that flatten out the most in the thin air of Coors Field.

Again, I don’t see him pitching a gem tonight, and perhaps you still want to target Rockies bats against this terrible Baltimore bullpen, but I think fading the Rockies bats is a viable GPP strategy based on how solid Means has been this season.

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.

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 Snell-Thornton, while my favorite GPP pairing is going to be Berrios-Lopez.

If you play mainly on FanDuel try not to spread your ownership out too much among different pitchers guys, otherwise, you are probably hurting your chances at winning a GPP by getting the right stack with the right pitcher.

Cash Rankings

1. Blake Snell
2. Jose Berrios
3. Trent Thornton (SP2)

GPP Rankings

1. Jose Berrios
2. Griffin Canning (FD)
3. Pablo Lopez (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