Welcome to the July 31st 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
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Masahiro Tanaka (9.4k FD) (10.3k DK) vs BAL
Baltimore being hot in the last series does not worry me at all. They still aren’t that good. Tanaka was absolutely amazing in his last start, and the Yankees need that from him for the rest of the season. The O’s do have some history against him, but he has 2 pretty good starts against them. This will be his first start at home against them this year though. He was able to get 9 strikeouts last start and this Baltimore matchup is just as good as his Rays one. Home runs are hurting him like usual, but he still has a 25% strikeout rate with a low 6% walk rate on the season. He has allowed a .324 xwOBA this year, which is not horrible. Despite allowing a ton of home runs, he still has a 47% groundball rate and has about an average SIERA of 3.60. His splits favor RHH, which is good because the O’s will likely have 6+ righties in their lineup tonight. It also helps out that Tanaka is our top-rated pitcher on our very own Research Station too. Tanaka can have another game with 7+ strikeouts tonight against a bad Orioles team.
Tyler Skaggs (9.8k FD) (11.3k DK) @ TB
I don’t like picking on the Rays too much anymore, they are a pesky team who are not striking out a lot lately. Skaggs has been very good this year and has a 25.5% strikeout rate this season while lowering his walk rate by over 1%. Outside of his start against Houston, he has given us 40+ fanduel points in 6 of his last 8 starts. Skaggs has also been able to go 6+ innings in 7 of his last 8 starts, which gives him more chances to get a quality start. Normally, he gets hit rather hard (38% Hard%), but does have a 47% groundball rate this season. The fact that he has been mostly healthy this year is amazing to see and he has shown tremendous upside. He’s getting a career-high 11.4% SwStr% while allowing just a .300 xwOBA on the season to opposing batters. Tyler has actually been better on the road this season, allowing a tad lower wOBA on the road and lower average too. The Rays normally have just 2 lefties in their lineup against LHP, but Skaggs has only allowed a .306 xwOBA vs RHH this season which is still below the league average. Skaggs could be considered in all formats tonight.
Trevor Bauer (11.8k FD) (13.3k DK) @ MIN
Bauer has just simply been amazing all season and is definitely a Cy Young candidate this season. There are not many flaws with him this whole entire season either, so it’s hard to find bad things to say about him. He comes into this start with a 31.6% strikeout rate on the season, with a great SIERA of 3.14. The Twins have been “okay” of late, but Bauer locked down the Pirates when they were on a heater, and he can stop any offense. The Twins have a ton of at-bats against him and don’t hit THAT bad. Bauer has one of the best xwOBA’s too at just .273 this year. The Twins will have a much harder matchup tonight then they had last night with Shane Bieber. Bauer is allowing less than a .220 batting average against both sides of the plate, and he will likely be the chalk of this slate. I do like this matchup for him though, and he’s pitching amazing this year.
Jack Flaherty (7.7k FD) (9.4k DK) vs COL
The Rockies are a much different team on the road than they are at home, and Flaherty has been great for most of this season. First, about Colorado’s advanced stats, they have the highest K% in the L14 vs RHP at 28.8% and simply are not the same team away from home. They have a low 69 wRC+, with a .273 wOBA in that time span as well. Carlos Martinez was pitching great through 4.2 innings before he got hurt, but he did have 9 strikeouts. Flaherty has done nothing but impress this season in the MLB. He has a 29.7% strikeout rate with a great 3.40 SIERA and doesn’t get hit that hard either (33.7%). I love that his WHIP is just 1.12, and he allows a .208 average to opposing hitters. Surprisingly, Flaherty has been better against LHH all season, allowing a .295 xwOBA against lefties, and a solid 24% strikeout rate. His strikeout rate against RHH is an amazing 35.4%, and he does only allow an xwOBA of .285 against RHH. Why is this important? It is because his wOBA vs RHH is .312 and it is .271 vs LHH. Meaning he should be getting better results vs righties. Flaherty is cheap and has shown us 60 point upside more than once this season. I love him for tournaments tonight, and he becomes an excellent SP2 on DK.
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Jon Gray (8.3k FD) (9.6k DK) @ STL
After some rough outings, but after getting sent down, he has been very great in two starts since coming back. All he did was go out and toss 14.1 innings with 12 K’s and just 2 ER. Good for 47 and 40 fanduel points, against very tough opponents (SEA and HOU). Gray comes into this start with a very good 28.2% strikeout rate with a decent 7% walk rate on the season with COL. His WHIP is a bit high for cash games on DK, but his SIERA sits at just 3.23 with a great 48.5% groundball rate. Gray has allowed just a .293 xwOBA to opposing hitters this season too. The Cardinals come into this game with a pretty low 20.1% strikeout rate, but their wOBA is just .290 and their wRC+ sits at 81. Some of his advanced stats are not pretty and he’s actually been better at home in Coors. His July starts, (2) have been much better than his prior June starts. He has allowed just a .159 wOBA in those two starts, with an xwOBA of just .231. That is one of the lowest xwOBA’s in the month of July of all starters on today’s slate. I love Gray for tournaments tonight against the Cardinals, which we all know can put up goose eggs.
Danny Duffy (8.5k FD) (7.7k DK) @ CWS
His second start against this White Sox team in his last 3 starts, and he totally crushed them last start. He was able to go 7 innings, striking out 8, scoring 55 fanduel points. Duffy has been the perfect GPP pitcher this season. Either he’s REALLY bad, or REALLY good. Since May 24th, he has had 12 starts. 8 of those 12 starts he’s scored more than 30 fanduel points and has had 7 or more strikeouts in 5 of those starts. He has done a great job increasing his strikeouts over this last couple of months and has finally shown us some upside. The White Sox roll out a ton of righties usually, but they have been absolutely horrible vs LHP of late. They have the 3rd highest strikeout rate at 29.1%, hitting just .218 and have an atrocious wRC+ of just 49. In July, CWS has just 1 hitter with an xwOBA above the league average. Duffy is a great GPP play on tonight’s slate and will likely be low owned.
MAIN SLATE RANKINGS
- Trevor Bauer (all formats)
- Masahiro Tanaka (all formats)
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QUICK PICK ON FANDUEL PITCHING TIER RANKS
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Good Luck Everyone!
