Jared Levitt 
TGIF! It’s Friday and that means we have a full slate of MLB DFS ahead of us. Tonight we have a massive 12-game slate to work with. As we approach the trade deadline, we’ll start to see the good teams get better and the bad teams get worse. The Marlins bullpen took a huge hit yesterday as they traded away AJ Puk. While they gained some decent prospects, a bad team just got worse. Early Friday morning, the Rays flipped Aroz to Seattle. Not sure how much this will impact an already terrible lineup for the Seattle. Back to tonight’s slate. It looks to be a solid one with good pitchers throwing against bad teams and good offenses facing bad pitchers.
Let’s Dig in and make some money!
MLB DFS Aces – Main
George Kirby ($9.6k on DK) vs. Chicago White Sox
Over the last 4 days, we’ve seen pitchers like Jon Gray, Michael Lorenzen, Nate Eovaldi, and the aging Max Scherzer throw gems vs. this White Sox team. After seeing what those 4 did vs. them, I can only imagine what a pitcher like George Kirby could do. Nothing in life is guaranteed and occasionally a blind squirrel will find his nut, but I just don’t see that happening tonight. Kirby is coming into this matchup in peak form.
Over the last month, he’s pitched to an ERA 2.37 and he has an xFIP nearly identical to it. He also has a pretty solid 28% K rate over that month. Kirby gets to take on a terrible White Sox team that has only scored 17 runs while striking out 30% of the time over the last 2 weeks. Kirby is my SP1 and it’s not even close tonight.
Drew Thorpe ($6.6k on DK) vs. Seattle Mariners
Because of Thorpe’s price, I’m willing to sacrifice the 4-point W here. Yes, I’m planning on using 2 pitchers from the same game here. Why you ask? They are 2 of the worst offenses in the game right now. Over the last 2 weeks, the Mariners have struck out 31% of the time and scored just 19 runs. This is a lineup that has lost both Julio Rodriguez and JP Crawford to injuries over the last week. While there’s a chance that Aroz suits for them tonight, he’s not going to be one to move the needle enough to make this lineup any better. He’s having the worst season of his career and by quite a bit.
Drew Thorpe is also someone who is pitching well. Over his last 5 starts, he’s been at 19 DK points or greater in 4 of them. With facing the team with the highest strikeout rate in baseball, we’re chasing a ceiling-type game from a pitcher that is pitching well and is dirt cheap.
The other pitchers that I’ll be interested in tonight will be Freddy Peralta vs. Miami, Grayson Rodriguez vs. San Diego, and Sonny Gray vs. Washington.
MLB DFS Stacks – Main
Baltimore Orioles vs. Adam Mazur
I said it in Discord yesterday that the Orioles were a smoking time bomb that was ready to go off. They proceeded to put up 7 runs vs. the fish yesterday and if it wasn’t for some terrible baserunning in the tenth, they would have scored more. They get another great matchup today that plays into the strengths of the Orioles, a pitcher that is terrible vs. lefties. Lefties have really been Mazur’s weakness.
They have a .239 ISO and a .442 wOBA vs. him this season. They also have a 1.032 OPS vs. him. The way this Orioles lineup is built, it’s going to be a very challenging start for the Padres rookie. He’s now made 7 starts in the bigs and has given up at least 3 ER in all but 2 of them. In his last 3 starts, he’s given up at least 4 ER in all of them.
The bat that I’m going to be most interested in here tonight will be Anthony Santander. He’s been incredible this season and especially of late. He has 5 homers over the last 2 weeks and 10 RBI. With him being a switch hitter, I much prefer to use him when he’s hitting as a lefty as 22 of his 28 homers have come from the left side. He’s my priority here.
After him, I’m going to look to include Gunnar Henderson, Colton Cowser, and Ryan O’Hearn. Cowser is my next priority after Santander as he’s still cheap and hitting the ball well. He has 10 hits in his last 27 AB and 9 RBI. That’s a lot of production for someone who is just $3.5k tonight.
Oakland A’s vs. Carson Fulmer
Carson Fulmer gets to take on the freight train otherwise known as the Oakland Athletics. Of the teams in action tonight, no one has scored more runs over the last 2 weeks than the Oakland A’s. Their offense is really clicking right now and it’s helped them bring their run differential down to just -66. I say “just” because a few weeks ago it was well over 100. They’ve been putting up a serious number of runs game in and game out when they face a non-ace level pitcher.
They face that tonight with Fulmer. While Fulmer hasn’t pitched that badly, he’s also someone who really hasn’t gone long into games. The longest he’s gone all season has been 4.2 innings. His last outing was against this same A’s team and he gave up 3 runs in his 4 innings of work. The Angels bullpen has a 4.51 xFIP over the last 2 weeks, the 4th highest number in baseball.
I’m starting off this stack with the next best thing since sliced bread, Lawrence Butler. Butler has 19 hits in his last 37 AB, including 6 homers and 17 RBI. He’s also added 13 runs scored and 7 other XBH. The dude has been on fire and he’s still priced under $4k. It’s only a matter of time before his price catches up to his performance.
While I normally don’t like to play too many hitters out of the 9 hole, I’m in on Max Schuemann today. Over the last 2 weeks, Max (I’m not trying to spell his last name again) has 13 hits in 34 AB, but more importantly, he’s scored 14 runs thanks to Butler’s ability to knock in runs. He’s an amazing value at $2.7k tonight. Other guys I like here are going to be will be MVP candidate Brent Rooker, Miguel Andujar, Seth Brown, and Zack Gelof.
Other Bats
I’m replacing my ‘other stacks’ sections with one-off bats that I like in today’s matchups. Nestor Cortes and Shtick have become overrated. He’s really struggled with righties this season, especially over the last month. That’s going to lead me to guys like Rob Refsnyder, Tyler O’Neill, and Romy Gonzalez from the Red Sox.
Next up, I like some Royals lefties vs. Kyle Hendricks. Guys like Vinnie Pasquantino, Michael Massey, and Kyle Isbel get to take on a pitcher who is giving up a .364 ISO and a .482 wOBA to lefties over the last month.
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