Welcome to the August 28th Edition of Painting the Black, an MLB Pitching Breakdown for Fanduel and DraftKings
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
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**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.
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.
Jack Flaherty (9.6k FD) (10.4k DK) vs PIT
This spot was between Flaherty and Buehler, and I’m choosing Flaherty tonight. Buehler has a tougher matchup @ Texas and Flaherty just faced this Pirates team a few starts ago. Flaherty has been just amazing for the Cards and their young pitching staff looks very promising (Chop, don’t faint over this, yet there’s more to read!). Jack comes in with a .277 xwOBA this season which is 4th lowest among the starters I’m considering today. It’s hard to believe this kid is a year older than I am and he’s awing the baseball world with an amazing start after an amazing start. Since he last faced the Pirates he was 7.5k on FD, the price jump is warranted. He’s gotten 49 points 3 times in his last 4, and the other was 52. Now priced up on both sites, we do want another 40/25 point game (FD/DK points). Putting it simply, he’s been amazing since the call-up. In the bigs, he has a 31% strikeout rate with an amazing xwOBA (look above), and an amazing 3.31 SIERA. He gets hit a little hard (34% Hard%), but it’s because he gets 43% groundballs, and those tend to get hit harder. I haven’t really seen a big flaw in his game lately and the Pirates have not been that great of late (sorry Dan). In their L14 vs RHP, they are in the bottom half with a .319 xwOBA, average 22% strikeout rate and a tad below average wRC+ at 84. Flaherty will be lower owned because people don’t like to target the Pirates with pitchers, but I love Jack attack tonight.
Clay Buchholz (9.1k FD) (10k DK) @ SFG
Since starting with Arizona, Clay has been very good. Add in that the Giants have been absolutely horrible vs RHP lately makes in a great tournament play. Over their L14 vs RHP, they have a 27% strikeout rate, hitting under .200, with the worst xwOBA in the league at .263. I think most people will use Bum in this game, but he hasn’t been the same this season yet. Clay has had 7 straight starts with 30+ fanduel points and actually has 52 in each of his last two starts, with 31+ on DK. Buchholz has a 6-1 record in his last 7 with 5 quality starts against some decent opponents too. In that stretch, he faced the Giants and went 6 innings with 8 strikeouts. He has had the tendency to give up some hits, but they haven’t been doing a whole lot of damage from those hits. I do like him more on fanduel because of that, but he’s been very good. Love him as another low owned tournament option.
MAIN SLATE RANKINGS
- Max Scherzer (all formats)
- Aaron Nola (all formats)
- Jacob deGrom (all formats)
- Jack Flaherty (all formats)
- Cole Hamels (more GPP)
- Clay Buchholz (GPP)
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!
