Adam Zibuda What is up everyone, happy Monday! Check out the FanDuel MLB 5/24 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. Taking a near total 180 from my Friday article, we now only have six games on the main slate with lock striking five minutes later than usual at 7:10. With that said, let’s get into the picks!
The Aces
A. This is an interesting slate because there are not any expensive bats that we really want to stack up, and there are also no pitchers priced above $10,700 on FanDuel. Due to this, I will be looking to just target the best three pitchers on the night here. The first of those three is Brandon Woodruff ($10,700) who will be facing off against the San Diego Padres on Monday night. While I typically do not want to target pitchers against this Padres offense, Woodruff is the best pitcher on the night in terms of the combination of run limitation and strikeout upside. With a 2.41 ERA and a 30.8% strikeout rate, Woodruff is a fine option if we have the salary to spend up at pitcher.
B. For my SP2 tonight, I will be looking to Blake Snell ($9,300) who just reached a new season-high total of 97 pitches. I am only expecting this price to go up from here, and a matchup against this Brewers squad is much more palatable than the matchup on the other side of this game. Snell owns the highest strikeout rate of any pitcher on the slate of 31.9%, although he does allow free passes at a concerning rate of 11.2%. While the run prevention is not as elite as Woodruff, Snell is still very solid and comes at a significant salary and ownership discount. While I am listing Snell as my SP2, he will likely end up being my highest owned pitcher on FanDuel tonight.
C. My final pitcher for Monday night is John Means ($9,100), who will be throwing against the Minnesota Twins. The Twins are really banged up and do not have many strong bats left that are healthy in this lineup. Means surprisingly owns a 2.91 ERA, 25.8% strikeout rate, and only a 4.6% walk rate. At this price and likely minimal ownership levels, I like Means quite a bit as a tournament option for FanDuel GPPs tonight.
The Bases
A. Tonight is very strange when it comes to bats, as the two clear best options for our stacks are not teams that we typically look to get exposure to. The first of these two teams is the Baltimore Orioles. You can start to see why salary will not be much of a concern on FanDuel for Monday night. Matt Shoemaker has really struggled lately, as his ERA has ballooned to 5.50 and his strikeout rate is down at 17.3%. He is statistically the worst pitcher taking the mound tonight, so we are essentially forced to get some exposure to Baltimore, even with how bad their offense has looked this season.
B. The second team that I referred to above is the Detroit Tigers, who will be taking swings against Sam Hentges and the Cleveland bullpen. Sam sports a rough 6.46 ERA, and the highest walk rate on the day at nearly 12%. He does not really do anything very well on the pitching mound, and this Tigers team should be able to get traffic on the base paths easily here. You know that the slate is ugly when these are two of our best options, but that is how things shake out on Monday.
C. While ownership will be more concentrated in general due to the smaller slate tonight, I do expect the Orioles and Tigers bats to be pretty chalky. Due to that, I will look to target a lower-owned team with my third stack in the New York Mets. I have heard rumblings that indicate that Austin Gomber may be a popular value option at pitcher, and whenever a subpar pitcher is expected to be popular I immediately have interest in the bats facing him. While I cannot say many positive things about this Mets offense, this is a great leverage spot for FanDuel tournaments.
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!
