Jared Levitt 
TGIF! I don’t know about you, but the weekend could not have come soon enough. It’s Friday and that typically means we have a larger slate to play with. We’ll have a 10-game slate of MLB DFS tonight. Outside of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, this slate lacks any real true ace. We have some solid pitchers, but no one on this slate is going to be a must-play in terms of pitching. Yamamoto gets the daunting task of throwing against the Yankees. I am more than likely out on him due to that. I’ll let others go to him.
Let’s Dig in and make some money!
MLB DFS Aces – Main
Garrett Crochet ($8.9k on DK) vs. Boston Red Sox
The Red Sox are an interesting bunch. We saw them put up a 14-spot last night on this same White Sox team. That was against a bad righty and White Sox bullpen. Tonight should be different as I’ve been targeting them with solid lefties most of the year with a bunch of success. They are a strikeout-prone team against southpaws. Against lefties this season, they own a 28% k rate. That’s pitiful. We’ll target them tonight with a pitcher in Crochet that has the highest K rate over the last month of anyone on the mound today.
Over the last 30 days, Crochet has a nearly 36% k rate. The 4th year pitcher is turning into an ace and he needs to be treated as such. He’s coming off back-to-back starts that saw him strike out a combined 19 Brewers and Orioles. 2 very good offenses. Look for him to have another high strikeout game tonight against a team that strikes out a turn vs. his handedness.
Cooper Criswell ($7k on DK) vs. Chicago White Sox
If your team name has Sox in it, I’m attacking you with pitching tonight. We already touched on the Red Sox, now it’s the White Sox team. This is a bad White Sox lineup and their “star” player Tommy Pham is currently on the IL. We saw Tanner Houck throw a gem vs. this same White Sox team last night, striking out 9 along the way. While Criswell is a clear step below Houck, the White Sox are terrible vs. righties and Criswell is also significantly cheaper than Houck.
Criswell for his part has pitched rather solidly this season. Through 9 starts, he owns a very respectable 3.92 ERA and xFIP even lower than that. He’s not a high strikeout pitcher, but at this price point we don’t need a ton of K’s. I plan on using both pitchers in this game, knowing I’m sacrificing a W for one of them. I expect this to be a boring game with a ton of K’s.
Other pitchers I like this afternoon will be Michael King vs. Arizona and Chris Bassitt against his former team, the A’s. This is a slate without many glaring options for pitching. I’m not spending a ton on this spot tonight. The two guys I mentioned up top will give us $4.3k per batter on DK. That’s going to help us put together a strong lineup.
MLB DFS Stacks – Main
Houston Astros vs. Griffin Canning
I’m going to be all over the Astros tonight as they takenon Griffin Canning. Canning is nothing more than a gas can IMO. Yes, his ERA is just 2.54 over the last month. His SIERA and xFIP both tell a different story though. They are both a full 2 runs higher than his ERA. They are both pushing 5 and that has me thinking there’s going to be major regression coming his way. What better team to target him with than the Houston Astros.
When you target Canning, you target him with lefties. Lefties have a massive .568 slugging % vs. him this season and a wOBA of .399. 9 of the 11 homers that Canning has given up this season have been to lefties. Houston happens to have 2 of the best-hitting lefties in the game in Alvarez and Tucker. Tucker has missed a couple of games with a bruised shin but he should be back in there this evening.
Core Bats: Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez
Secondary Bats: Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman, Jeremy Pena
Value Bats: Victor Caratini, Jake Meyers, Jose Abreu
Cincinnati Reds vs. Justin Steele
Justin Steele has only made 7 starts so far. Through the 7, he’s already had 4 atrocious starts. While his last start only 1 run was earned, he still allowed 5 to cross the plate. Errors or not, you can’t allow 11 runners to reach base through hits or walks across 5 innings of work. A WHIP over 2 is just bad. There’s no way to splice it. Until Steele figures it out like he did the last 2 seasons, I’m going to stack against him.
Compared to last season, he’s statistically worse in almost every sense of the word. Walks are up, K’s are down, HR/9 are up, GB% is down. If there’s a stat, it’s worse this season than last. It could be due to missing the start of the year, but it also could just be that he’s regressing to the pitcher that he is. He’s been especially bad against righties this season as they have a .341 wOBA and a .469 slugging % vs. him. 5 of the 6 bombs he’s given up have also been to righties. That’s where I’m going to use hitters against him tonight.
Core Bats: Spencer Steer, Jonathan India, Jeimer Candelario
Secondary Bats: Elly De La Cruz (worried about his inconsistency), TJ Friedl
Value Bats: Stuart Fairchild (amazing value if he leads off), Tyler Stephenson
Other stacks I like tonight will be the Yankees vs. Yamamoto, Marlins vs. Logan Allen, Padres vs. Brandon Pfaadt, and Mariners vs. Daniel Lynch. I’m not expecting the Royals/Guardians to play. If they do, I love the Mariners side of things.
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