Adam Zibuda What is up everyone! Happy Masters Friday. Check out the FanDuel MLB 4/9 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. The main slate has six games on it tonight and locks at 7:07 PM, so let’s get to it!
The Aces
A. The first ace to discuss on the slate today is Joe Musgrove ($9,700). This is a tricky spot for him as the Rangers have been raking to start this season, but Joe owns the lowest SIERA on the entire day today at 3.26. For those that are new to baseball metrics, SIERA stands for Skill-Interactive ERA, which attempts to take out the fielding aspect of ERA and get at the true ERA of a pitcher regardless of fielding. The other top pitcher that I touch on next does not exactly have a cakewalk matchup either, so I prefer Musgrove at the slight discount.
B. As I mentioned above, the other top pitcher, and the highest priced on as well, is Zack Wheeler ($10,500), who is priced up quite a bit above Musgrove. As you will see when building lineups, the savings we get off of Wheeler, not to mention the potential ownership discount, will really come in handy tonight. Wheeler is facing off against the Atlanta Braves who always have a few scary bats at the top of their order. Wheeler does a great job at limiting runs, but his K rate, price, and ownership leave him way behind Musgrove for me tonight.
C. As usual with my third pitcher, I will be looking to save some salary cap so that we can find someone to pair with expensive stacks. For me today that pitcher is Taylor Widener ($8,000). Widener had a great first start of the season, posting 43 FanDuel points accompanied by five strikeouts through six innings, including the quality start bonus. The Reds have been scorching hot and putting up serious run production to start the season, but Widener is the guy I feel the most comfortable with down in this price range.
The Bases
A. My favorite stack of the main slate is the Cleveland Indians, who will be taking swings against Julio Teheran. Teheran owns a 6.0 flat SIERA over the last 2 seasons, which is good enough for dead last on the entire day. His ERA is somehow even worse, sitting at 8.92, and he does not strikeout batters at all, with just a 13.6% K rate. Outside of Jose Ramirez ($4,100), all of the Indians bats are reasonably priced and we can stack them up in all formats tonight.
B. The Padres are another hot team that I will be looking to get exposure to tonight as they face off against Kohei Arihara who I honestly had not heard of before. He is the cheapest pitcher on the entire day for a reason, as his advanced metrics are pretty ugly. We should like this stacked Padres team even when they are facing mediocre pitching, so when they get to tee off against guys like Arihara, we really need to load up.
C. Last but not least, I will be looking to keep things rolling with the red-hot LA Angels. The Angels and Mike Trout are facing another little-known pitcher T.J. Zeuch, who sports a 5.38 SIERA, but has been able to keep his ERA extremely low. This is why it is important to look at metrics outside of ERA, as ERA can be very misleading and is often impacted by luck. Zeuch is not a great major league pitcher and I expect the Angels to keep the offense rolling on Friday night.
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!
