Adam Zibuda What is up everyone, happy Monday! Check out the FanDuel MLB 8/16 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 a pretty solid 10 game slate that locks at 7:05. With no weather concerns to worry about and a game in Coors, there are plenty of interesting angles for us to analyze. With that said, let’s get into the picks!
The Aces
A. Typically this is the spot where I go to the top of the pitching pricing tier on FanDuel and select my favorite expensive arm, but not today. Gerrit Cole was clearly cheating to an extreme amount, since his performance has really tanked after the MLB crackdown on the “sticky stuff”, so I will continue fading him as his price has not dropped at all. Instead, I will save a ton of salary here and take a shot on Justin Steele ($5,700) who will be making his second start for the Cubs. While I do not expect Steele to pick up the win, he should go at least five innings and has very solid pitching stats, albeit as a reliever. Steele owns a 3.29 SIERA, 28.6% strikeout rate, and a 10.4% walk rate. While his strikeout rate should be expected to drop as a starter, this is still an absolute steal (sorry I had to), of a price tag for a pitcher that has shown promise when pitching an inning or two.
B. If Steele is a bit too risky for you, then come on down to my SP2, Kevin Gausman ($10,300). KG will save us over $1,000 of salary cap off of Cole, and I also expect him to be low owned as even more icing on the cake. Gausman has also not seen the extremely steep drop-off in performance after the league started checking pitchers for foreign substances, so I trust him much more in his matchup against the Mets than I do Cole against the Angels. Not to mention, KG owns a lower ERA than Cole on the season, and although his SIERA is a bit higher and his strikeout rate is a bit lower, if we look at those metrics over a more recent timeframe, Gausman has outperformed Cole. Give me the salary and ownership savings over a pitcher in much better form on FanDuel tonight.
C. To be honest, the pitching gets pretty bad after those two, but our next best option appears to be Frankie Montas ($9,400), who will be throwing against the White Sox. I definitely do not love this spot for him, which is why he is my SP3, but he does sneak into the top five in terms of strikeout rates on this slate with a 26.4% mark. His SIERA of 3.73 is outside of the top five, but he has been able to limit hard contact this season. This game is essentially listed as a coin flip, but if you insist on getting exposure to a third pitcher then Montas is your man.
The Bases
A. It is always nice to see Matt Harvey pitching, because that makes my job of picking a top stack on the night so much easier. While there is a game taking place in Coors Field with a massive total, that will serve to take some ownership off of the Tampa Bay Rays, who have a much more pitcher-friendly home ballpark of Tropicana Field. It does not really matter to me what ballpark a team facing off against Matt Harvey is pitching in, because his 4.88 SIERA, 16.5% strikeout rate, and 6.8% walk rate are pretty bad in any location. His 6.10 ERA is exceptionally bad, and I expect the Rays to outscore both teams playing in Coors despite the massive disparity in hitting environments.
B. While the Padres and Rockies are obviously solid plays tonight, that is too easy so I will avoid writing up the teams playing in Coors Field. Looking at other teams in a solid spot tonight, the Oakland Athletics jump out in their matchup against Dallas Keuchel. Dallas is nearing the end of his MLB career, and his metrics are pretty rough this season. He owns a 4.80 SIERA, only a 14.4% strikeout rate, and a 7.9% walk rate. While he is a groundball pitcher that is still able to limit hard contact, there are some serious flyball hitters for us to target in this Oakland lineup, and most of them have reasonable price tags on FanDuel.
C. To close things out, I will be targeting the Cleveland Indians who will be taking swings against a pitcher that is essentially the opposite of Keuchel, Griffin Jax. Jax is more of a flyball pitcher that does allow a ton of hard contact, as his 40.9% hard contact rate is good for the second highest mark on the entire evening, trailing only Steven Brault of the Pirates. If you are unable to keep the ball on the ground or limit hard contact, you give up a lot of homers, which is what results in Jax’s 4.79 SIERA and 5.45 ERA. His strikeout and walk rates are pedestrian, and although the Indians are second in their division, they are 10 games back and essentially have no hope of catching the White Sox. While this is a team I would typically try to avoid, they draw a solid matchup here at what will be nearly nonexistent ownership.
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!
