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.
I was brought to the DFS Army to write pitching articles for all members of the DFSArmy! If you are not a member, join the DFSArmy and use promo code “DFSMATT” to get 10% off your subscription!
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 both sites (Fanduel and Draftkings) 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 added later or posted in our VIP Slack Chat!
**Note, the rankings are all the way at the end of this article, don’t forget to scroll ALL the way to the end!**
Main Slate
Max Scherzer (12k FD) (12.6k DK) @ PHI
Tonight’s slate is LOADED with pitching options. I’ll warn you now, there are plenty of options and many that I like tonight. It will be hard to pick just 1 guy to go with. Scherzer is an elite pitcher, we all know that, but the matchup is great too against the Phillies. Scherzer has one of the best xwOBA’s this season of starters on tonight’s slate at .259. The Phillies have an average xwOBA at .310 over their L14 vs RHP, but they do have a 21.4% strikeout rate too, which is lower than usual but still decent. Philly has horrible numbers against Max in their career and the sample is 247 at-bats. They are hitting just .194 with a high 27.9% strikeout rate and just .251 wOBA. Having over 200 at-bats is a considerable sample size where I really look into it. There are 4 hitters with more than 24, and none are hitting better than .224. Max comes into this start with 7 consecutive 40+ point fanduel games and just went 7 innings with 10 K’s in his start against these same Phillies. Just like last game, this one is definitely going to be a pitcher’s duel and I LOVE both sides of it again.
Aaron Nola (11.2k FD) (10.6k DK) vs WSH
Just like I said, I LOVE both sides of this game. Both are pretty expensive, but they both have 50/30 FD/DK point upside. Nola has been phenomenal this season, and even better at home. He comes into this game with two straight 61 point fanduel games with 15 total IP, a 2-0 record, 20 strikeouts and just 1 ER. Nola has a 25.6% strikeout rate this season with an amazing .265 xwOBA this season. Washington comes into this game with a low strikeout rate to RHP and decent xwOBA, but Nola just struck out 9 in 8 innings against them. The Nats have 161 career at-bats against Nola with a .230 average and 32.3% strikeout rate. At home this season, Nola has just a 2.00 ERA, allowing a .244 wOBA, .210 average, 28.4% strikeout rate and 5.7% walk rate. This season, Nola has faced the Nationals 3 times this year. In those three starts, he has thrown 21.2 IP, with a 3-0 record, 22 strikeouts, 3 ER, and all 3 were Quality Starts. Nola is very expensive, but still a tad cheaper than Max on both sites. Like I said, I love both sides tonight.
Below are our top 7 pitchers by DFSA Grade. You can see some of their stats below. I’ll tell you that the top two starters are in my VIP article, where you can find HERE
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Jacob deGrom (11.8k FD) (12.2k DK) @ CHC
If you notice a trend of expensive pitchers, don’t worry, there are some cheaper guys that I do like tonight. I do though, think it is a night to pay up for a pitcher as most of the expensive guys have 50/30 point upside. deGrom is having a Cy Young year, and too bad he plays for one of the worst teams in baseball. He only has 8 wins this year (exactly why I hate the Win stat) but has 22 quality starts and 18 of them in a row. WOW that is insane. deGrom has the potential to go out and go 6+ innings with 7+ strikeouts everytime he takes the hill. The Cubs come into this game with just a .300 xwOBA against RHP and have a 22.7% strikeout rate. If the wind is like it was last night, I expect people to want to use hitters from this game, but I would advise against it as both pitchers have been amazing of late. deGrom has at least 9 strikeouts in his last 5 starts and has scored no less than 49 fanduel points and 26 DK points. It sucks that only 1 has the potential for the win in this game because I don’t hate either one. Jake has an amazing 31.5% strikeout rate with a 6% walk rate, allowing hitters to hit just .203 with a 0.97 WHIP. deGrom is an elite play tonight and I would not fault you for wanting to use any of them.
Cole Hamels (9.4k FD) (9.8k DK) vs NYM
Love picking on the Mets when they face a good pitcher. Hamels has always been very good outside of Texas, and finally, we have seen how good he can be. Since coming over to the Cubbies, Hamels is 4-0 with a 0.79 ERA, going at least 6 innings in 4/5 and getting 31+ fanduel points in each of them. He’s lower priced than he probably should be tonight given the matchup and is a big discount off the top guys. I can see him getting overlooked because of that but he has great upside. Granted, the Mets have been good vs LHP of late, but they haven’t faced a lefty as good as Hamels. Away from Texas this year Cole has a 2.33 ERA with a .297 wOBA and a 24.3% strikeout rate. I say this because his home stats (when he was with Texas) were absolutely awful. All Cole needed was to get out of Texas to show how great he still is. There is still a bunch in the tank for this former Ace. Fire Hamels up as a big discount from the top guys.
*Rankings are below after you look at our Sports Book and FantasyDraft free roll for NFL week 1!*
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MAIN SLATE RANKINGS
- Max Scherzer (all formats)
- Aaron Nola (all formats)
- Jacob deGrom (all formats)
- Cole Hamels (lean GPP)
Don’t forget, I still have a VIP VERSION of this article that has my other favorite plays for Fanduel and DraftKings! Don’t miss out! Join up and use code “DFSMATT” for 10% off the subscription that best fits you!
QUICK PICK ON FANDUEL PITCHING TIER RANKS
TIER 1: Scherzer, Nola, deGrom (no I’m not a fan of Carrasco at all)
2: Flaherty, Hamels, Buehler, Buchholz
3: Freeland, Boyd, Lynn
4: Jackson, Shields (GPP ONLY), Johnson, Hernandez
Good Luck Everyone!
