MLB DFS picks and pivots September 10: Twins to win

MLB DFS: Tuesday pitching breakdown

We get a huge 14 game MLB DFS slate to dig our teeth into on Tuesday and with no weather concerns and cool weather across nearly every ballpark, it is starting to feel like playoff baseball time in Major League Baseball!

From a pitching perspective, there is one clear high-end arm on this slate that stands above the rest with Walker Buehler ($23.8K) against the Baltimore Orioles. Buehler’s 29.5% K rate is the highest mark on the slate and as a slate-leading -280 road favorite, Buehler would seem like the obvious SP1 however the play does come with risk.

The Dodgers can clinch the NL West on Tuesday and with such a commanding lead and playoff health being paramount, I do not think Buehler will go deep enough to pay off this lofty price tag. In fact, Buehler has failed to top 100 pitches now in any of his last four starts and with the Dodgers actively managing his innings with a World Series in mind, there is serious risk Dave Roberts will pull Buehler early on in this game.

If you look just in the last 30 days, the best pure K arm on this slate is actually Braves LHP Max Fried ($17.3K) whose 31.1% K rate is 11th best in baseball during the last month with an elite swinging strike rate of 13.1%. and has put up 30+ fantasy points in 3 of his last 6 starts.

Now much like Buehler, Fried has not pushed to 100 pitches in any of his last four outings so while he has been super-efficient, the Braves are going to be cautious with his innings as they march towards the playoffs as well.

Rather than pay up for pitching on this slate, it may be a better use of our funds to look for value and that starts with Padres RHP Ronald Bolanos ($13.9K) in San Diego against the Cubs. Bolanos will be making his second start at the big league level after making the jump from AA where he sported a 27% K rate on the back of a solid fastball and loopy breaking pitch which you can see baffled the Arizona hitters his last outing.

Bolanos threw 88 pitches in that first outing and got 4 K’s and gets the benefit of pitching in a massive pitcher’s park against a Cubs lineup without Baez and potentially without Kris Bryant who missed Monday’s game after receiving a cortisone shot.

Now – what if you get to this point, much like I did and you say, honestly NONE of these plays feel like priority options for my builds. There is another way to narrow your player pool tonight at pitcher and it is to simply work backward.

One underrated aspect of late-season MLB DFS is that you have SO much punt value with September call-ups available and just doing a quick scan of the projected lineups will show you we have 7 players tonight that are expected to start at minimum price.

So what if we work backward, lock in two $3.9K bats, grab our favorite stack and see what is left? Hold that thought and I promise we will come back to it!