Welcome to the July 5th 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
will be posted in slack later on!
Main Slate
Pablo Lopez (5.5k FD) (7k DK) (13.7k FD2) @ WSH
Before you freak out, this pitching slate is not very good tonight. Outside of Justin Verlander, it’s all very shaky. Lopez is a guy who just made his MLB debut last week. He impressed with a 37 fanduel point night, going 6 innings with 5 K’s and the win. The Nats have been scuffling a little bit of late and have a 22.3% K rate over their L14. He isn’t a huge strikeout guy (just 18% in AAA, but 29.5% in AA), but limits the walks and baserunners. Lopez showed a 55.6% groundball rate in his first start and has been around 40-43% in the minors this season. If he is able to keep the ball down and limit baserunners, at min price on fanduel he could bring some value. Deep GPP play today and a great MME option.
Justin Verlander (12.2k FD) (13.4k DK) (25.4k FD2) vs CWS
Verlander is your chalk tonight, but it not cheap at all. He does have a wonderful matchup though. Coming off of two rough starts, Justin faces the White Sox at the perfect time to turn his mini skid around. The White Sox have actually been heating up of late but are still striking out at a 24.4% clip in their L14. Verlander is one of those pitchers where you don’t really care how hot a team is, he is still in play. Chicago does have 116 at-bats against him and 4 of the hitters have more than 10. Abreu has some very good BvP going 15-38 (.395), with 5 HR and then the rest is just “meh”. They have a .241 average with a 31% K rate against him. Despite the two bad starts, he still isn’t getting hit hard (27.9%) and has a 3.02 SIERA this year. Verlander is your chalk for the slate tonight in cash games, but he isn’t cheap. I love him in all formats, let’s hope we can find good value.
Max Fried (5.9k FD) (7.5k DK) (14.7k FD2) @ MIL
I’m not in love with this matchup for Fried, but he has been very good in his last two starts. Fried usually relies on two pitches, his fastball, and curve. The Brewers can hit fastballs, but they are shaky against the curve. They have just 1 hitter who makes contact more than 70% of the time against curveballs and most are in the upper 50s or 60s. They also are showing a high whiff rate against curveballs too. Fried is very risky because the Brewers can be dangerous, but they can also fall flat in good matchups. Tonight is a risky slate and not too safe for cash outside of Verlander. I definitely do not expect Fried to go out and get us 60 fanduel points again, but If he can get us 25-30 for his price that is plenty. In his short stints with the Braves, he has shown 32.9% strikeout rate but also a high walk rate. His SIERA is 3.46 which is very good for a young guy and he’s getting 54% groundballs. Definitely worth a share or two if you are playing multiple lineups tonight.
Shelby Miller (6.4k FD) (6.7k DK) (12.8k FD2) vs SD
Well, a pitcher against the Padres is happening tonight and he has looked bad since coming back from Tommy John. Miller has had his velocity up, but his command is struggling right now. Yes, his two starts have been brutal, but he still has a 3.47 SIERA in those two starts and has gotten 48% groundballs. This play is more that the Padres are terrible than Miller is good. Their projected starting lineup has a TON of red in it. They have an xwOBA of .274, an ISO of 0.094, and a strikeout rate of 23.31%. They have some guys who can hit, but they just aren’t doing it right now. Miller is a decent -140 favorite right now and I think that’s more because Lauer is starting for the Padres. The Padres do have 46 at-bats against him and are only hitting .174 with a 28.2% K rate. Miller is strict GPP/MME play only, and I would limit my exposure to him.
Marco Gonzales (7.3k FD) (7.3k DK) (14.7k FD2) vs LAA
This kid has looked really good lately and has high upside stuff. He scored 55 fanduel points last time out against the Royals, tossing a complete game. I don’t think this happens tonight, but he has been consistently getting at least 6 innings in his starts. He faced this Angels team twice this year and scored 27 fanduel points in both those starts. The big thing I like there is he got 7 K’s in both starts against a team that doesn’t strikeout a ton. He does have a 3.68 SIERA and has gotten 46% groundballs this year with a 21.2% K rate and a low 5% walk rate. He has been better at home so far this season and his strikeout rate is almost 6% higher at home than the road. The Angels are dangerous, yes, but their projected lineup doesn’t look all that good advanced stats wise. They have a .284 xwOBA and just a .078 ISO over their L14. We still know how good the Angels are and they could just be slumping right now, but Gonzales is a decent GPP play tonight.
Luke Weaver (6.2k FD) (7.9k DK) (15.4k FD2) @ SF
The Giants are coming out of Coors to face the Cardinals at home tonight. Weaver had an absolutely terrible start last time out, but he has shown us upside against good teams. Last year he was striking out a ton of people, but now he just has a 21% K rate and elevated walk rate from last season. The Giants could feel the Coors effect tonight after having some good games there, and that’s making their numbers look very good. As a team, they have a 63.61 average DFSA Grade which is fairly low. I was very interested that he was rated so high at 86.90. For the most part this year he has been pretty good and has been able to get 40 fanduel points multiple times. I don’t think he will get that much tonight, but I think he can still get us 30. He’s cheap and has the upside of 40+ which makes him good for tournaments.
MAIN SLATE RANKINGS
- Justin Verlander (all formats)
- Marco Gonzales (GPP)
- Luke Weaver (GPP)
- Max Fried (GPP)
- Shelby Miller (GPP)
- Pablo Lopez (GPP)
Bats to Use
Nationals (Anthony Rendon, Juan Soto, Bryce Harper, Daniel Murphy) vs Pablo Lopez
Nick Castellanos vs Yovani Gallardo
Astros (all) vs Carlos Rodon
Jose Abreu (BvP, he owns Verlander)
Twins (all) vs Andrew Cashner
Diamondbacks (all) vs Eric Lauer
Mariners (all) vs Jaime Barria
