MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Friday, 6/28 – Clevinger Rocks!
By Dan Palyo
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Friday, 6/28
Welcome back to this 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.
Yesterday, I did what every DFS player (and writer/analyst) needs to do sometimes – took a day off! I really hated the way the games were split up and I thought it was going to be two pretty chaotic slates that I didn’t want to have to deal with and guess what? I was right! So by not playing yesterday, I was able to spend more time preparing for today, didn’t tilt my lineups all night and I found it refreshing to watch those box scores without worrying about who was performing well or not.
"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."
The primer is back for today’s 14-game main slate on FanDuel and Draftkings. I don’t have time to break down every pitcher and every matchup, and you likely don’t have the time to read that much analysis anyway. I’m here to give you a place to start your research or at least trim down the list of pitchers to a more manageable number.
Since we have so many pitchers to choose from, I am going to go ahead and list all of our options on the next slide so we can have a big picture view of tonight’s pitching options.
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: First Look
Here are tonight’s pitching match-ups. 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 at times and they do change throughout the day, but they are certainly a great place to start your MLB DFS research. For cash games, I am often looking for large home favorites, while anything goes for GPPs.
Mike Clevinger (-165) vs. John Means
Danny Duffy vs. Sean Reid-Foley (-115)
Mike Soroka vs. Jacob deGrom (-130)
Cole Hamels (-105) vs. Sonny Gray
Vince Velasquez (-130) vs. Elieser Hernandez
Lance Lynn vs. Yonny Chirinos (-130)
Anibal Sanchez (-145) vs. Daniel Norris
Jose Berrios vs. Justin Nicolino
Chris Archer vs. Jhoulys Chacin (-145)
Hyun-Jin Ryu (-185) vs. Antonio Senzatela
Mike Fiers vs. Felix Pena
Michael Wacha vs. Eric Lauer (-115)
Merrill Kelly vs. Shaun Anderson (-105)
We really only have one ace (DeGrom) on the slate and I don’t really want to pay up for him in a tough spot against Atlanta, even in cash games. I am going to concentrate most of my ownership in the upper mid-tier of pricing today in both cash and GPP as that is where most of the arms I really like are priced today.
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Cash Game Arm
Merrill Kelly (8.6k FD, 9.1k DK) @ San Francisco
Saving some salary for bats tonight is going to be imperative in my opinion. Not only do we have the Dodgers in Coors again, but we also have a number of other high-octane offenses with some lofty Vegas totals. To that end, paying down for some reliable mid-tier arms in cash games makes a lot of sense.
Kelly has been a consistently good pitcher this season, especially in the last month. He continues to pitch 6-7 innings almost every time out and give his team a chance to win. Tonight he has a great matchup against the Giants, a team that ranks second lowest in wOBA on this slate even with their bats being better lately. Kelly just faced these Giants last week and struck nine over six frames while allowing only two runs on four hits.
He’s not a name that most DFS players know, but Kelly is a quality MLB pitcher and I think he has a safe enough floor for cash games. He’s facing a weak offense in a good park for pitchers and has a great chance at putting up a quality start and getting the win today – two really important stats if you’re playing on FanDuel.
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Top GPP Pivot
Mike Clevinger (9.4k FD, 9.6k DK) @ Baltimore
He’s baaaaaack! Clevinger teased all of us with his return from injury a few weeks ago only to go back on the IL for another stint, a much shorter one this time. His injury was to his ankle, not his elbow or shoulder so I don’t see any reason to be too worried about him not being his usual dominant self.
Clevinger is a strikeout pitcher, plain and simple. I love watching this kid pitch because he has a Mad Max type attitude of trying to strike every hitter out. In the past, it has been his one weakness as it can lead to high walk totals and elevated pitch counts, but it’s also the reason he is such an awesome play in DFS.
He was rolling through his first two starts back in April, racking up 22 strikeouts in 12 innings. He throws in the high 90’s and has a wicked slider. The matchup here is a good one as Baltimore strikes out nearly 25% of the time against right-handed pitching and they have very few lefties to worry about for Clevinger. I am going to use him a lot tonight and I hope that others will be scared off by his health struggles or his sub-par outing against Texas last time out.
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: 2nd GPP Pivot
Lance Lynn (9.1k FD, 10.1k DK)
I never thought there would come a day when I converted to “Team Lance Lynn” but lately it’s been hard to deny that he has figured it out and finally become the starter that St. Louis thought he could be. Lynn gave up five early runs to the White Sox in his last start but battled back to make it through seven innings and still got the win. He continues to pitch deep into games, eating up innings for the Rangers and is striking out hitters at a 26% clip.
This is not a matchup I would usually target as I respect Tampa’s lineup, but I like Lynn in this spot tonight. The Rays have been cold at the plate for several weeks now, and the lefties to fear in this lineup (Lowe, Meadows, Choi) are all slumping right now. Lynn gets a major ballpark upgrade pitching on the road here in Tampa which should help him keep the ball in the park.
He’s just a really solid pitcher these days and facing an offense that is slumping. I think he’s a tad overpriced on Draftkings, but on FanDuel he’s priced very fairly and another really solid pivot in the 9k range.
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: FanDuel Cheap Arm
Yonny Chirinos (6.3k FD) vs. Texas
Chirinos is priced at 8.4k on Draftkings which takes him out of consideration over there for me. But at this price on FanDuel, I think you have to consider him, especially if you want some bats in your lineup from the Coors Field game.
He hasn’t been dominant lately, but Chirinos has been eating innings and keeping his team in games. He’s pitched six innings in each of his last three starts and allowed three runs or fewer. Texas is a team with some powerful lefties, but as I mentioned with Lynn this game is in Tampa today, not Texas, which means much more pitcher-friendly conditions.
Texas has a 24% K rate on the season and we know they had been had for strikeouts. It’s a boom/bust type spot for Chirinos but at this ridiculously low price, he’s certainly worth a shot for your FanDuel GPPs.
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: Draftkings SP2
Elieser Hernandez (6.5k DK) @ Philadelphia
It’s time to admit that sometimes (and I mean rarely) Brian Tulloch gets a pitcher right. I was not a believer in Elieser when he first came up this season based on his poor MLB numbers last year, however, he has proven me wrong and showed that he has some staying power.
Editors note: Take that L on Elieser my friend – TAKE IT – Sincerely, Brian Tulloch
He’s been solid in all three of his first starts this year, striking out 7, 6, and 6 hitters in those three games. Those strikeouts are key because he hasn’t pitched very deep into any games yet, with six innings against the Cardinals being the deepest he’s gone. Today he has a rematch with this Phillies team that faced last week but gets them at home, in a much better venue for pitchers.
I never seem to get the Philly offense right, they have been all over the place lately, but I do like that Hernandez will face 6-7 righties in this lineup. He’s cheap enough on DK that we are only looking for about 15 DK points out of him to make value, so another 5-6 innings with 6 strikeouts and a few runs is perfectly fine with me.
MLB DFS Pitching Primer: 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. Tonight is an exception as I think you can pay down to Kelly or Lynn pretty safely and save a few thousand in salary cap.
On DK, my preferred cash game pairing is going to be Kelly-Hernandez while my favorite GPP pairing will probably be Clevinger-Hernandez.
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
- Merrill Kelly
- Lance Lynn
- Elieser Hernandez (DK)
- Yonny Chirinos (FD)
GPP Rankings
- Mike Clevinger
- Lance Lynn
- Yonny Chirinos (FD)
- Merrill Kelly
Next. MLB DFS Value Plays - Friday, June 28. dark
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