Welcome to the June 21th Edition of Painting the Black, an MLB Pitching Breakdown for Fanduel, DraftKings, and Fantasydraft!
In case you all didn’t know, my name is Matt, mdellagnese14 on twitter. I am currently a student at Springfield College with a love and passion for sports, mainly baseball.
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I am mostly a Fanduel player, so the content in my articles will be for geared mainly towards Fanduel. However, I will include pricing from all three sites (Fanduel, Draftkings, FantasyDraft). Some plays may be better off for the two pitcher sites and I will mention that when needed about a pitcher.
Pitching is one of the most, if not the most important position in your MLB lineups and selecting the right one will help you tremendously. Go check out the MLB Pitching Strategy article to get my thought process on picking these pitchers each slate!
NOTE: most of the stats I used are from a 14-game sample to the handiness of pitchers. If I reference season numbers, I will mention that!
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BULLPEN REPORTS
MAIN SLATE
Max Scherzer (12.2k FD) (14.5k DK) (28.5k FD2) vs BAL
I don’t care what his price is, in cash games tonight, he is the best play and don’t think twice about it. Max comes in to face the lowly Baltimore team who can’t hit righties for the life of them. While their numbers are looking better of late, it is still Max freaking Scherzer and he’s one of the best pitchers in baseball. Baltimore still has a 23.3% K rate over their L14 and Max has a 39% K rate this year, yes you read that right, 39%! Factor in his low 6% walk rate and 0.84 WHIP, .171 BAA, and low 2.19 SIERA this season. Baltimore or any other offense really does not scare me when Max takes the hill. Let’s look at the Orioles BvP against Scherzer. They have a .207 average, .268 wOBA, and a 40.2% K rate. Again, you read that right, over 164 at-bats, they have a 40.2% K rate. Please do not get cute with this one, build your cash lineups around Max.
Zack Godley (7.9k FD) (7.2k DK) (14.7k FD2) @ PIT
I have been going back and forth with Godley this morning but ended up liking what I’ve seen about him and the Pirates. Godley’s home/road splits are not pretty, but this road game is in a pitcher-friendly park today. The Pirates don’t have a high K%, just 17.4%, but they have not been doing a ton lately. Godley also profiles well against the Pirates. He has a decent 22.5% K rate and in 3 of his last 4 starts he has recorded 7 or more strikeouts. When he’s on, and getting groundballs he can have 40+ fanduel point upside. Godley gets hit rather hard (36%), but also has a 51.1% groundball rate. Their hitters have a 54.3% groundball rate against his sinker which he throws 33% of the time. His curve is something else too. He throws it almost 39% of the time and has gotten almost a 42% whiff rate on it. The PIT hitters have a low 63% contact rate on curve’s as well. If Godley can keep the ball on the ground, there is no reason why he cannot score 40 fanduel points again here tonight.
Kevin Gausman (7.2k FD) (6.6k DK) (12.7k FD2) @ WSH
I don’t love this play, but Gausman has actually been decent of late for Baltimore. He has 3 straight starts of 28 or more fanduel points and only has 4 starts all season under 20 fanduel points. This Washington team is no walk in the park, but they did get shut out last night, and Gausman has some type of strikeout upside. Over his last 3 starts, he has 7, 6, and 9 strikeouts. Before his blowup game against the Rays, he struck out 10 against the White Sox. He has a 22.6% K rate and low 5.6% walk rate which is 3% lower than last year. Despite everyone hating on him, he still is pitching to a better than league average 3.62 SIERA and has been able to increase his GB% this year to 48.2%, 6.5% more than last season. Gausman has been able to lower his FB% 4% as well. He’s been showing a career-high 12.8% SwStr% on the year and getting 69.6% O-Swing%. This does not mean he won’t blow up, but other than a few starts he has put up okay fanduel points for his numbers. His WHIP is a bit high for me to use on any other site, but he still is cheap and has K upside.
Madison Bumgarner (8.6k FD) (9.4k DK) (17.8k FD2) vs SD
At first, I was not going to write up Mad Bum. His matchup is too good to not talk about though. He has been pretty bad since coming back from his broken pinky but is trending in the right direction at least. Bum gets to face a Padres team that can always cure cold starts. Against LHP in their L14, the Padres have just a 55 wRC+ with a .251 wOBA and 23% K rate. Their current roster has seen Bum 119 times and have just a .218 average against him with a 23.5% K rate. Bum needs to start to get it going and no one better to pitch against than the Padres. He did not have a Spring Training but now has had 3 starts to warm up. This start should be that blowup game we have been waiting for from Bum. This slate is small, and outside of Max, the pitching is not that great. I don’t mind Bum in cash games, but I will prefer him in tournaments tonight.
Tyson Ross (7.4k FD) (7.8k DK) (14.9k FD2) @ SF
Ross is an interesting play tonight. He has been pretty good this season, but some advanced stats do not look that good. He’s been very good against RHH this season allowing just a .226 wOBA and .158 average. Lefties are the ones hitting him, and the Giants do have a few that can do damage. His wOBA is lower on the road and pitching in San Francisco could help out a little. He does have a 28% K rate on the road and has a 27% K rate vs RHH too. His top pitch and strikeout pitch is his slider, and the Giants roster has an average of 66% contact rate and a 33.38% average whiff rate. Ross has gotten a 44.8% GB rate this season and already has two great games against these Giants. In his first start in San Diego against them, he went 6 innings with 5 K’s, good for 43 fanduel points. His second start was in San Fran where he went 6 innings again, but this time with 9 K’s, good for 46 fanduel points. I wouldn’t mind taking a shot at him in tournaments tonight.
MAIN SLATE RANKINGS
- Max Scherzer (all formats)
- Zack Godley (lean GPP)
- Madison Bumgarner (all formats for the matchup)
- Tyson Ross (GPP)
- Kevin Gausman (GPP)
Bats to target
Cubs (all) vs Matt Harvey
Reds (lefties) vs Kyle Hendricks
Brewers (lefties) vs Carlos Martinez
Angels (all) vs Aaron Sanchez
Diamondbacks (prefer lefties but like Goldy too) vs Chad Kuhl
Cardinals (Molina, Pham, Ozuna) vs Brent Suter