Diving into today’s MLB DFS slate to uncover your best pitching plays.
If you’ve been reading this column since the start of the year, you’ll know that we’re a big proponent of sticking to the core principles that came out of a deep analysis of 2020 data. Don’t be afraid to pay up for pitching (both sites), and spending around $15,000 to $18,000 is often the optimal range in that department (DK).
We have a nice 9 game slate to work with on Monday evening, with a pretty interesting set of pitchers to target.
Head and shoulders above the rest
Brandon Woodruff sits at the top of the slate with a great set of skills – particularly over his last month of work. His 3.30 SIERA, 10.8 K/9, 46% ground ball rate and 34% chase% set the foundation nicely for a stud arm in this matchup. He opposes rookie Tylor Megill for the Mets who has looked solid in his first couple MLB outings, but won’t stand up well facing a guy like Woodruff in particular. For a team that is on the weaker side of the coin vs RHP this year – the MIL righty is an elite target this evening.
Great recent numbers, but a high Vegas total
Dylan Cease has been arguably even better over the last month of action, rocking a K/9 at 11.7 and a SIERA of 3.29 in his last 5 starts. Vegas really likes this MIN/CHW tilt to feature plenty of scoring though, as they’ve laid the line down at 10.0 runs at the moment and left it pretty much dead even in terms of win probability. Cease does bring some nice price-value upside to the table though, and has 14 Ks vs MIN in his last 11 IP against 5 ER. Lots to like here nonetheless.
Two others – both lefties – are worth mentioning on this slate
Max Fried faces off against PIT in what is always an attractive split to get the Pirates, but one that doesn’t often yield massive strikeout numbers. He leads the slate in GB% over the last month though amongst qualified starters (51.6%) and chase% in that time as well (36%). He’s been productive lately with 3 ER or less given up in 8 of his last 9 outings, and went 7 IP vs PIT when they last faced off with just 1 ER allowed. He’s very fairly priced on DK in particular as the fifth most expensive name (vs being #3 on FanDuel).
Lastly, we have Kolby Allard in a great situation vs DET. This is a team that continues to scuffle hitting against left-handed pitching, rocking a near 28% K% in the split – albeit one where the wOBA and ISO are starting to improve a little bit (no longer the worst in the league for those categories). Allard however, has a 3.54 ERA (4.14 SIERA), miniscule 1.3 BB/9 and slate-best 24% hard hit rate in his last month of action, averaging a near 6.0 IP/GS in the process. He’s intriguing for SP2 purposes on DK.
That will do it for our version of the Pitching Primer today. Best of luck in your contests!
