Adam Zibuda What is up everyone, happy hump day! Check out the FanDuel MLB 8/18 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. There are five games on the early slate today which leaves us with a 10 game main slate that locks at 7:05. We have a lot of games that are outside without a roof but it looks like we will not have any PPD concerns. With that said, let’s get into the picks!
The Aces
A. For a slate of this size, the pitching is definitely a bit rough, which has me gravitating towards the top arm on the slate, Freddy Peralta ($9,800), an excessive amount. Peralta has the clear-cut top spot of the day when it comes to both strikeout rate (34.5%), and SIERA (3.46). While Ranger Suarez does rival him in SIERA with the exact same figure of 3.46, most of that work came as a reliver. Freddy will be slinging it against the St. Louis Cardinals tonight and while they do have a winning record on the season, the Brewers are clearly the better team and Peralta should be in line for the win in this spot.
B. As I mentioned above, you can take a flyer on Ranger Suarez, but there is a definite chance that he does not even go five innings, which makes him ineligible to earn the win bonus. He will save you some serious salary, but I prefer to save on a few bats and pay up for Charlie Morton ($9,200) as my SP2 on FanDuel tonight. Morton draws a cake matchup against the Miami Marlins who have turned their sights on next season at this point. Charlie sports a 3.65 SIERA, along with a 28% strikeout rate and an 8.3% walk rate. These numbers are more than enough to excel against the Marlins and with the Braves offense backing him up, this has win written all over it.
C. The final pitcher that I will look to sprinkle into some GPP lineups tonight is Lance Lynn ($9,500) who will be throwing against the Oakland Athletics offense. Lynn is having another solid season of limiting runs and provides us decent strikeout upside, albeit definitely a tier lower than Peralta. He is not exactly priced down for a somewhat threatening matchup against the A’s, but I still love the 2.26 ERA, 28.1% strikeout rate, and 7.6% walk rate that double L provides. As usual, I expect my SP3 to be the lowest owned of the three, which is always intriguing for tournaments.
The Bases
A. With limited pitching options comes a plethora of hitting options, as there are plenty of spots for us to target bats from on FanDuel Wednesday night. We start things off with a hot team that find themselves in a great spot again tonight, and no I am clearly not talking about the dumpster fire that is my Boston Red Sox. The Tampa Bay Rays have the pleasure of matching up against Spenser Watkins and the Orioles bullpen. First of all, what type of parents spell Spenser like that? Anyway, Spenser is not a very good MLB pitcher, as evidenced by his 5.47 SIERA, 14.6% strikeout rate, and 8.9% walk rate. When your walk rate is nearing your strikeout rate level, you know you are going to have problems limiting runs. The Rays are looking to run away with the division and will stay motivated to roll the Orioles tonight.
B. Unfortunately, our old pal Chi Chi is pitching earlier in the day so we cannot target hitters against him on the main slate. However, we do have another very solid spot with the Seattle Mariners matching up against Mike Foltynewicz. This is definitely not a Mike that you want to be like, as his 4.96 SIERA and 16.3% strikeout rate are both significantly worse than the major league average. The Mariners are listed as huge favorites in this spot and I love laying the half run on their first five bet at -120 or better. Folty cannot keep the ball on the ground, so we can expect these Seattle power bats to crush some homers tonight.
C. To close things out I will be looking to the offense that is backing up my SP2, the Atlanta Braves. One of the top offenses in the majors draws a matchup against an arm with a 7.52 ERA in Jesus Luzardo, so this is clearly a juicy spot for runs to be plentiful. While Luzardo’s 4.79 SIERA is quite a bit better than his ERA, that is still an inflated SIERA, supported by a 21.6% strikeout rate and an 11% walk rate. The Braves are huge favorites and have one of the highest implied team totals on the night so let’s not overthink this one.
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!
