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Covering ALL the Bases: MLB DFS Advice for Fanduel and Draftkings

It’s Saturday morning, I just make some awesome cold-brew iced coffee, and I’m ready to break down 11 baseball games for you! Welcome back to Covering ALL the Bases, which should be where you start your weekend MLB DFS research. I go by “Thunder Dan” around here and you can find me @ThunderDanDFS on twitter.

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This article is by no means a comprehensive list of who to play or fade in today’s contests. Always pay attention to weather and lineup changes/updates throughout the day that may affect which direction you want to go on the slate.  Today, we have a split slate, with 5 games at 4:10 and a 6-game main slate at 7:15. Both sites have an all-day slate at 12:35 but I rarely recommend playing those slates with games spread out 10 hours apart from each other.

4:10 Slate (5 games)

PITCHING

On Fanduel, it’s really a binary option for me whether you’re playing cash games or GPP contests. Aaron Nola and Gerrit Cole are the two aces on the slate and there’s absolutely no one else I would consider. Nola has actually been the better pitcher over the last month and he would be my first choice based on the 500 dollar discount and dominant current form. That makes Cole as a prime GPP target against the right-handed heavy Tigers at home. Again, on a one pitcher site like FD, choose one of these all-stars and find some cheap bats to make it work.

On Draftkings, you’ll never fit both of these guys, so I would probably go all the way down to Luis Castillo or Trevor Richards as my SP2. Both are volatile pitchers but have the ability to get you 15+ DK points if they have their good strikeout stuff today. Game theory might suggest using Michael Fulmer to leverage against the Houston bats if you’re really feeling frisky.

BATS

The Mets will look to take advantage of Nationals rookie Autin Voth in his major league debut. I’m usually interested in Brandon “finding” Nimmo, Asdrubal Cabrera, and Michael Conforto at the top of the lineup. Let’s just not go crazy because, despite the fact they are facing a 26-year old mediocre rookie, the Mets are still road underdogs today in Washington.

The Cardinals-Reds game is one we will need to consider grabbing some bats from. The left-handers from both teams will have the platoon advantage today with righties Luis Castillo and Jack Flaherty on the mound. The Cardinals will likely be more popular, but the Reds have shown this season that they can hang a crooked number on a good pitcher like Flaherty.

I also think you should consider targeting a few bats from the Arizona-Atlanta game. Zach Greinke is no longer the dominant starter he once was and Atlanta’s offense can be formidable when they are seeing the ball well (last night they certainly were NOT against Godley). Arizona is a boom/bust offense as well that could erupt on rookie Sean Newcomb, who after a great April and May has really struggled this summer. He has shown some pretty serious reverse splits, so you don’t have to avoid lefties like Jake Lamb, Jon Jay, or David Peralta either.

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7:15 Slate (4 games)

PITCHING

The evening slate provides us with a little more choice at pitcher, but not much. The top three arms should soak up a good bit of the ownership today and probably for good reason. Mike Clevinger, Andrew Heaney, and Alex Wood are all in play tonight and are all priced under 10k on both sites.  It shouldn’t be too hard fitting the bats you like around any of these guys tonight, so I’m not that interested in looking elsewhere.

I expect Heaney to be the most popular, since he is coming off back to back 10-strikeout games, his most recent start being against these same Dodgers. He’s your cash game guy, for sure. Alex Wood will save you some cap and certainly could outperform Heaney if hits his spots tonight and Heaney gets hit, but he just doesn’t have the strikeout upside that Heaney does. He is a nice game theory pivot off Heaney’s ownership on this small slate and we’ve seen the Angels struggle against lefties most of the season.

Clevinger is a guy I am always a sucker for. He has massive strikeout upside every time out but also has a high walk rate and can get hit hard. He struck out 11 Reds in his last start but also gave up five runs on seven hits. He should come with reduced ownership today since DFS players will likely be scared away by the matchup with the Bronx Bombers, but keep in mind that Clevinger put up 50 FD points against them earlier this season when he limited them to one hit and four walks with ten strikeouts over seven frames.

Jon Gray making his return the majors is an interesting spot. He’s only 7k and gets a Mariners team that can strike out and loses their DH. I’m definitely more interested in him than a guy like Kyle Hendricks, who has the best matchup on the board against the Padres but rarely strikes anyone out. I’m sure he will be popular today as players will chase that 8-strikeout gem he tossed against the Giants, but that could easily be his best game of the season, no thanks.

BATS

The Orioles have a huge team total tonight, which should tell you what kind of slate we are dealing with. They face lefty Martin Perez and are loaded with right-handed hitters. I would recommend getting some exposure and my favorite targets are probably Tim Beckham, Mark Trumbo, and Danny Valencia at their salaries. But even Jonathan Schoop, Trey Mancini, and Manny Machado have good career numbers vs. Perez, too. It feels weird to have interest in that many Orioles hitters.

I’m not as enthused about the Texas side of that game. Yefry Ramirez is a decent young arm who I’d rather not pick on with the boom/bust Rangers offense.  I’d rather target the game in San Francisco tonight, where we get the corpse of Jeff Samardzija against journeyman Brett Anderson. Oakland’s entire team is in play as the former Notre Dame wide receiver Samardzija has been hammered by lefties and righties alike, while it’s the San Fran righties I’m more interested in against Anderson (Hernandez, McCutchen, Posey/Hundley).

The Cubs get Luis Perdomo and finally have Kris Bryant back in the lineup. Fire up some Cubs stacks today as Perdomo is about as hittable of a pitcher as you can get. Maybe Anthony Rizzo is finally out of his horrible July slump as he went 3-5 last night with two doubles.

Oh and there’s a game at Coors tonight? I guess you should probably consider the Rockies’ Nolan Arenado, Trevor Story, and Ian Desmond at home against a soft-tossing lefty like Wade LeBlanc. But you didn’t need me to tell you to play the Rockies at home against lefties, right?

That’s all I got today, I hope I’ve given you somewhere to start when making those lineups today.  As always, thanks for reading. Please share this article with friends, retweet, and if you are doing well with my advice in these free articles, imagine what you could be doing with all our premium content!

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