Adam Zibuda What is up everyone, happy Monday! Check out the FanDuel MLB 8/30 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. Tough to believe that this will be my last August article as we turn the page to September on Wednesday. We close out August with a nine game MLB slate that locks at 7:05. It sounds like the only game with weather concerns takes place off of the main slate, so we do not have to worry about any of the nine games getting hit with a PPD. With that said, let’s get into the picks!
The Aces
A. We kick things off with yet another example of an ace with a less than stellar matchup where I will be siding with the ace. Corbin Burnes ($11,500) is certainly not getting any type of matchup discount for his battle against the San Francisco Giants, but I expect him to carry much lower ownership than he typically does. The matchup, price point, and availability of other options are the three things that point towards moderate Burnes ownership on Monday night. Burnes is easily the most talented pitcher throwing today, as evidenced by his 2.68 SIERA, 34.4% strikeout rate, and 5% walk rate. MLB teams tend to give players a day off on Sundays, so we should not expect this lineup to look as weak as it did yesterday, but I still love Burnes in all formats on FanDuel.
B. As I mentioned above, there are a few very strong options for us to choose from at pitcher, and my SP2 Luis Garcia ($8,600), is definitely one of them. Garcia draws a better matchup than Burnes, and also gives us an extreme discount off of the top priced arm of the evening. With a 2.83 SIERA, 29.1% strikeout rate, and 5.1% walk rate, it does not seem like we should be getting a $2,900 discount in this spot. While the Seattle Mariners are not a complete joke, they are definitely not in the same tier as the San Francisco Giants. So we have a slightly less talented pitcher, in a better matchup at nearly a $3K salary discount. As long as the ownership does not go crazy on FanDuel, Garcia is an excellent option.
C. It is not often that you will see an arm the caliber of Zack Wheeler ($10,600) slide to my SP3 spot, but that is how many great pitching options there are tonight. Wheeler draws by far the best matchup of them all, as he throws against a Washington Nationals team that is just going through the motions until their season comes to an early and disappointing end. Even star Juan Soto looks like he does not care at all anymore at the plate, yet his price is still sky-high across the DFS industry. While he is always an enticing play from an ownership perspective these days, this Nationals squad is a shell of what it was at the beginning of the season, and I will continue to target them with pitchers down the home stretch as we approach October.
The Bases
A. Typically when we have a lot of strong pitching options, that correlates to a lack of hitting options that are in strong spots. However, that is not the case tonight even though we are missing out on targeting a Jon Lester start due to that game taking place before the main slate locks. Our next best option is to target the San Diego Padres against Tyler Gilbert. Baseball is very weird, and nothing epitomizes that fact more than Gilbert throwing a no-hitter against this Padres team in his first ever career major league start. Whether or not the field will want to admit it, this will definitely result in depressed ownership on these bats. I will be pouncing on that depressed ownership and loading up on Tatis Jr. and his friends tonight.
B. Chris Flexen will be coming off of the IL and his welcome back present is a matchup against the Houston Astros. Flexen will likely not pitch too deep into this game, but the Mariners bullpen certainly would not scare me off of a full stack here. Flexen owns a SIERA of 4.62, which is the second worst mark on the entire FanDuel main slate tonight. While he has been able to limit walks, his strikeout rate is also very low and this Astros team already rarely strikes out, so we should not expect many easy outs. Flexen may have some rust and I expect the Stros to get to the Mariners bullpen early in this one regardless of pitch count.
C. While the Red Sox draw a very solid matchup tonight, I cannot bring myself to write them up or recommend that anyone play that team anymore this season. Instead we should look to the Los Angeles Dodgers against the Atlanta Braves lefty Drew Smyly. Drew has actually pitched pretty well recently, but if there is a team that will bring a pitcher back down to Earth, it is the LA Dodgers. Smyly owns a 4.44 SIERA, 21.8% strikeout rate, and 8% walk rate, which are all pretty average numbers across the board. Drew tends to pitch pretty well against subpar teams, but he can get blown up on occasion by teams with the firepower of LAD. I will side with the Dodgers bats in this matchup and plan to play them wherever I am able to afford them on FanDuel.
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!
