MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Monday, 6/10 – Everything’s On Sale

MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Monday, 6/10 –

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.

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.

Tonight we have a 9-game main slate on FanDuel and DraftKings that locks at 7:05. I’m going to be extremely picky today and recommend only 4 pitchers for your MLB DFS contests.

I want to take a minute to clear something up. Just because a pitcher isn’t listed, that doesn’t make them a bad play. It simply means they aren’t a pitcher that I am considering at their price point on that slate. In my experience, it does not pay to use more than a handful of pitchers on a slate, even if you are an MME player that makes 150 lineups per slate.

Also, there are times that I will not end up using a pitcher that I recommended in the primer. The nature of this article is that it is a “first look” article, so plenty of things can change between 6:00 AM and 7:00 PM that can take off a pitcher or put me onto one that I hadn’t written up in the primer, such as the opposing team’s lineup, inclement weather, and Vegas line movement.

Alright, now having said all of that, let’s start by looking at all these pitching match-ups tonight. The home pitcher is listed second and the Vegas odds are listed in parenthesis when available. Remember that some pitchers have extremely large home/road splits.  Vegas lines and implied run totals can be tricky to navigate, but they are certainly a great place to start your DFS research as well.

Jason Vargas vs. Masahiro Tanaka (-185)

Taylor Clarke vs. Jerad Eickhoff (-140)

Mike Minor vs. Chris Sale (-255)

Michael Wacha (-125) vs. Sandy Alcantara 

Tanner Anderson vs. Charlie Morton 

Joe Musgrove vs. Kevin Gausman (-165)

Anibal Sanchez vs. Odrismer Despaigne

Yu Darvish vs. German Marquez (-145)

Hyun-Jin Ryu (-165) vs. Griffin Canning

MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Cash Game Ace

Chris Sale (11.8k FD, 10,9k DK) vs. Texas

There are some stud pitchers toeing the rubber tonight, but no one who comes anywhere close to the dominant Chris Sale. The current version of Chris Sale makes you forget all about the other version that struggled through his first four starts. This is prime Sale we are getting now, and he’s fresh off a complete game 3-hit shutout of the Royals in which he whiffed 12 batters.

Sale has been back to his old self lately when it comes to strikeouts, reeling off double-digit Ks in 7 of his last 8 starts and piling up 78 strikeouts in his last 47 innings pitched. Tonight he gets to face a Texas team that I love targeting with lefties. The Rangers are away from their home park and have been without their best hitter, Joey Gallo, for the last week. They’re striking out over 25% of the time vs. left-handed pitching and other than Hunter Pence, they lack any real power from the right side of the plate.

This is an easy play tonight, don’t over think it. Sale is a cash game lock and also my #1 play in GPPs. If the question is “much Sale is too much tonight?” Then the answer is, “there is no such thing.”

MLB DFS Pitching Primer: GPP Pivot

Charlie Morton (10.5k FD, 9.9k DK) vs. Oakland

If Chris Sale wasn’t on this slate, then Charlie Morton would be the clear #1 option. But since Sale is on this slate, I’m making Morton my clear #2. Chuck gets to face a cold Oakland offense at home tonight and has been a nice little heater himself lately. He’s allowed just three earned runs over his last 20 innings while piling up 24 strikeouts.

Morton will face a Oakland lineup loaded with right-handed hitters, and he’s had some great split against righties this season. He uses his hard sinker and big curveball to keep righties off-balance and rack up strikeouts. He was great in Houston the last two seasons but has been arguably even better this year in Tampa with a career-high 30% K rate so far. He’s also holding opposing hitters to a .195 average and keeping his walk rate down in single digits.

The DK price is really appealing here and I’m going to make sure I have some exposure to Morton, who is likely to carry 1/3 or less of the ownership of Chris Sale tonight.

MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Cheap Arm/SP2

Anibal Sanchez (7.3k FD, 8.1k DK)

Can we safely pick on the White Sox tonight? Sometimes it can burn you, but I’ll take a shot on some Anibal Sanchez shares here in this matchup with the North-siders. Sanchez is in good form lately, having allowed only one earned run over his last two starts while striking out 14 hitters.

One of those starts was against these White Sox just last week. Sanchez is a veteran who resurrected his career by learning a cutter and throwing more offspeed stuff. An undisciplined group of hitters (or let’s call them “free-swingers” to be nice) like the White Sox have is a perfect matchup for the crafty veteran as he can work ahead in the count and get guys to chase his off speed pitches out of the zone.

He’s my favorite pay down on FanDuel where he’s really too cheap for his matchup and recent production. He also has some good win equity in his favor as the Nats offense has been much improved this month.

MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Cheap Arm/SP2

Sandy Alcantara (7k FD, 6.9k DK) vs. St. Louis

If you’re not familiar with Alcantara, he’s a former reliever who has now been converted to a starter by the Marlins. He throws hard and has solid movement on his 2-seam fastball, which is his primary pitch. His overall stats won’t wow you, but he has shown that he can pitch at the big league level and seems to be trending in the right direction.

Walks are still an issue for Sandy, but he has started to show more strikeout upside. In the last four-game stretch, he has a complete game shutout against the Mets, six shutout innings against the Giants, and most recently seven innings of one-run ball against the Brewers. He’s tough on right-handers and will see a bunch of them in the Cardinals lineup. He has also shown some better home splits and I like him much better in the spacious park in Miami.

He’s definitely a risky play and not one that I love on FanDuel, but as an SP2 on Draftkings, he’s going to be the path to fitting some good bats in with Sale.

MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Gas Can of the Night

Tanner Anderson vs. Tampa Bay

Anderson has the unfortunate assignment of facing one of the better offenses against RHP in the American League tonight, and his minor league stats suggest he is nowhere close to ready for it.

Anderson is a former Pirates prospect who made a few appearances for the Buccos at the end of last season. He’s been pitching at AAA for the Athletics so far this year with some pretty bad results. He’s only a two-pitch pitcher, throwing a fastball and slider and so far AAA competition has not been kind to him.

He’s sporting only a 14% K rate and a 10% BB walk rate and is also allowing over two homers per game in 10 AAA starts. He’s not being promoted due to his success, but mainly because the A’s need a live body on the mound Monday night. He may end up being a decent MLB pitcher at some point, but this really feels like he’s being thrown to the wolves tonight and I expect the potent Tampa Bay offense to tee off on him.

Whatever you do, don’t roster this sacrificial lamb even if he is cheap because he’s going to get shelled by the Rays.

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. That’s absolutely the case in cash games tonight as both Soroka and Cole are cash viable as the two highest priced pitchers on both sites.

On DK, my preferred cash game pairing is going to be Sale-Sanchez, while my favorite GPP pairing is going to be Sale-Alcantara in order to save a few extra dollars for bats. If I can somehow find the value bats to do it, I may even make a Sale-Morton lineup.

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. It’s tempting when some jerk writes up six pitchers to try to play them all, but use your own research and the trusty ole’ gut to go with who you like best.

Cash Rankings

1. Sale
2. Morton
3. Sanchez

GPP Rankings

1. Sale
2. Morton
3. Alcantara
4. Sanchez

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