Adam Zibuda What is up everyone, happy Monday! Check out the FanDuel MLB 5/17 breakdown below.
As usual, I will be going over 3 pitchers and 3 teams that we should be looking to stack in our FanDuel lineups. We have one early game today with eight games following on the main slate that locks at 7:10. With that said, let’s get into the picks!
The Aces
A. On a bit of a shorter slate, it becomes more and more difficult to fade the best pitcher on the night. For Monday night that is of course Gerrit Cole ($12,300). While that price is really getting steep, Cole draws a juicy strikeout matchup against the Texas Rangers and it would be pretty surprising to see his K’s land in the single digits. Cole is one of the best pitchers in all of baseball, and while he can let up homers due to his slightly low ground ball rate, that should never worry us when we have strikeout upside to the moon.
B. Unlike most of my articles, I will be going with three high-priced aces on Monday night because we have three arms that are so substantially above the rest of the field. My SP2 for FanDuel MLB lineups that we do not pay all the way up for Cole on is Yu Darvish ($11,100) facing off against the Colorado Rockies. Any time that the Rockies are outside of Coors Field, I never hesitate to target the pitcher throwing against them as they are just not an offense that produces a lot of runs. Darvish owns the second-best spot for nearly every pitching metric behind only Cole on Monday night and he will likely carry much lower ownership as well.
C. To close out my FanDuel aces for Monday night, I will be mixing Walker Buehler ($9,900) into lineups, as he carries an even steeper ownership and salary discount off of Cole. This Arizona Diamondbacks lineup is looking pretty weak currently as they are dealing with a few injuries, and the Dodgers are huge -215 favorites. As I mentioned, Buehler is right up there with the other two aces for tonight, yet he is priced significantly lower and will have a fraction of the ownership. Buehler is my favorite pitcher for GPPs due to this, and I think you could even go there in cash as well if you are willing to take on a bit more risk than usual.
The Bases
A. I would be remiss if I did not have the New York Yankees as my top stack of the day, as they are massive favorites facing off against Rangers gas can Jordan Lyles. Lyles owns a rough 6.87 ERA and 5.22 SIERA, which is good for the worst marks on the slate. Couple this with a low 16.4% strikeout rate and a massive fly ball rate, and we have a recipe for success for the NYY bats. With Luke Voit back in this lineup and potentially Stanton making his return as well, the Bronx bombers are ready to inflict serious pain on Lyles.
B. My second favorite stack when looking to pivot off of the inevitable Yankees chalk is the Chicago Cubs. Jon Lester is really far past the prime of his career, as he owns a 5.08 SIERA and an extremely low 15.7% strikeout rate, which is the second lowest of the entire slate. While he has managed to keep the free passes to a minimum, this Cubs offense should be able to showcase significant run production given that strikeouts are one of their only major weak points.
C. To close things out for Monday night, I will be mixing in Seattle Mariners bats as part of mini stacks and one-off plays. Casey Mize is a pitcher that has done a decent job of limiting hard contact at the major league level, but with a SIERA approaching 5.0 and a strikeout rate that is not even double his walk rate, he is very attackable with opposing bats. While I do expect the Mariners to carry some ownership, they will not be nearly as chalky as the Yankees, so they are a great team to load up on for FanDuel GPPs.
That is it for me today! Please also check out our projection model by clicking here. If you have any questions, I will be in our expert chat in Discord leading up to lock, so feel free to shoot me a DM or @ me in chat!
