DFS Pitching for 5/13: Berrios your Competition

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As usual, today is a light day on the MLB schedule as teams have wrapped up their weekend series and many are traveling to the next series. Monday’s and Thursdays are generally the days of the week with not many games, so nothing is unusual on this seven game (six if you do not include the game that is starting early in New York) DFS slate.

Top Tier Options:

Jose Berrios, Angels at Twins ($10,400 FD, $9,400 DK): I was nearly scared off Berrios because his last start was on the road in Toronto. Not that the Blue Jays are tearing the cover off the ball, but Berrios pitches much better at home than away historically. Well, it may not matter this year thanks to him being a Cy Young contender. Simply put, his numbers are fantastic this year home or away: 53.1 innings pitched, 41 hits allowed, only eight walks (that makes for a WHIP under one), 51 strikeouts, a 2.53 ERA and a .209 batting average against. And his advanced statistics support his ace status: a 87.4% strand rate and line drive rate of only 20% are a pair of stats that look very nice. I think no matter his price, ballpark or opponent he may be a cash candidate in your DFS lineup this season.

Matthew Boyd, Astros at Tigers ($9,900 FD, $8,800 DK): Boyd is another pitcher who has been around a few years like Berrios and has suddenly taken a turn upwards into an ace. Again like Berrios, he is a cash candidate every time out for me because of his superb strikeout rate (31.3%), stingy walk rate (5.5%), 36.1% hard hit rate, 0.93 WHIP, 42.9% fly ball rate and 72.7% strand rate. Not many people are getting on base against him nor hitting the ball hard in the air. And he is striking out a ton of batters and basically walking no one. How is a team supposed to score against a guy like this? Well if anyone can do it, it is the red-hot Astros. He is a GPP only target for me tonight because of that.

Middle Tier Options:

Robbie Ray, Pirates at Diamondbacks ($8,800 FD, $10,000 DK): Ray seems to have his high strikeout ways back. In his last three starts, covering 16.1 innings, he has struck out 25 batters. In that span, he has walked seven batters, which is part of his problem in going deep in games. He has not pitched six innings in any of those three starts and only twice in his eight starts (and those two times he went exactly six innings, no more). So we can see that this pitcher is a GPP-only target. One of these times he is going to get it all together and get a 12 K, eight inning appearance. Willing to bet it is going to be this one? He seems to be overpriced on DK, so add FD-only to GPP-only.

Mike Fiers, Athletics at Mariners ($8,100 FD, $8,000 DK): Well, I am willing to bet you he will not pitch a no-hitter! Seriously though, after coming off one of the strangest no-hitters of all-time (his start was delayed by over 90 minutes because of light issues in Oakland), Fiers gets a Mariners team that has not hit well recently in series in New York and Boston. A GPP-only option, Fiers has been inconsistent on the 2019 season. Maybe he discovered something that helped him pitch a no-hitter, or maybe Reds batters could not see his pitches in a park that was not as brightly lit is at it should have been.

Bargain Basement:

Reynaldo Lopez, Indians at White Sox ($7,100 FD, $6,800 DK): Sometimes you pick a pitcher because of his opponent. And even though Lopez has potential and has pitched some very good games this year and in his career, the Indians are scuffling offensively this year. The Indians’ lack of offseason moves in the off-season may have caught up to them, as they rank 29th in baseball in overall OPS (.646) and are in the bottom five against both righties and lefties in that category. Once you get past Lindor and Ramirez, the rest of their bats are not scaring anyone.