Good morning MLB DFS players and welcome back to the Tuesday edition of Dr. StrangeChalk. We have a 13-game main slate tonight and as always, I’ll be trying to assess where we think the ownership will end up and what we want to do with the potential chalkier plays.
For our purposes in DFS, the “bomb” refers the “chalk bomb” which is a player we often force into our lineups because they seem like “the can’t miss play” of the night, only to watch them come up short. The goal of this column is to give you some pivots from these popular plays.
I wanted to address something in here today about playing MLB in September. I absolutely think you should continue to keep playing MLB until you can’t play anymore! Many guys will stop playing now that NFL has begun, but I believe there is still an edge to be had if you do your homework.
One thing you should know by now is MLB is full of variance, and the September call-ups, tired arms, rest days for starters on contending teams are only going to complicate things, not simplify them. That is why I don’t really play any cash games in MLB after mid-July. I think it pays to be bold and contrarian in GPPs at this point of the season more than ever. Attack a chalky pitcher or stack up a perceived “bad team” that might be hot. And if you’ve been playing MLB all season, you know the players, teams, and trends to look for on a nightly basis.
Pitchers
Jacob Degrom should be the cash game lock tonight and probably one of the chalkier options even in GPPs. I have no problem getting some exposure to him tonight even if he’s chalky because he’s the only legitimate ace on the slate tonight and if he smashes, he could outscore all the other pitching options by 20+ FD points. If you were thinking of fading the chalk here, don’t do it. Eat it in cash and roll some in GPP too, it should taste delicious.
I have no interest in Mike Foltynewicz tonight which is weird for me because I’m a pretty big fan. He’s just really expensive and still not likely to pitch deep into games with how many pitches he throws. I get that he’s in a good park against a bad offense but some of the BvP from lefties Belt and Crawford give me some concern. I’m also not touching Zach Grienke tonight in Coors, not because of the venue alone though, because the Rockies have a solid history of hitting him pretty well and I’d rather move down to the mid-tier for other options.
I am all over Mike Fiers today as my second favorite pitcher on the entire slate. It gives me a little bit of a queasy feeling based on the pitcher he was for the first half of the season, but I have a lot of confidence in using him tonight in a solid matchup against the Orioles. My buddy @2locksports found a really good article on Fangraphs (you can read it here) that explains some of the changes that Fiers has made since coming over to Oakland in August. He’s had only bad start since the trade in which he gave up three home runs and five earned runs to the Mariners but has otherwise been solid every time out. I love his strikeout upside tonight against the Orioles, a team that has a projected lineup with only a .200 average against him with 15 strikeouts in 45 at-bats (33% strikeout rate!)
DK SP2 Special: Threre are a lot of young, unproven pitchers or bullpen arms going today, but none that I really want to gamble on that badly. Marco Gonzales is returning from injury for Seattle tonight against the Padres and is way underpriced on DK at 5400. He may be on a pitch count, but even so he could be worth that salary considering he is a -200 favorite and clearly the best pitcher in that pricing tier. If you’re looking for another option, consider Brad Keller of the Royals against the White Sox tonight for only 5700.
Bats
I would expect the Red Sox to be pretty chalky today against Toronto rookie Ryan Borucki, and I certainly think J.D. Martinez, Steve Pearce, and Mookie Betts are all fine options. But I may just plug in one of them as a one-off rather than spend all that salary cap on a full Sox stack.
It might be risky, but someone in slack today mentioned using some Toronto bats since Chris Sale is only going to pitch like 2 innings today and will be followed by Nathan Eovaldi, who has struggled so badly since joining the Sox that he has been relegated to long relief. I wouldn’t mind taking a shot on a few Blue Jays at super low ownership and hope they smack Eovaldi around in the middle innings.
Both sides of the Coors game should be fairly popular tonight, but my gut says many DFS players will look to stack the D-Backs against Senzatela instead of using the Rockies against Greinke, but I like the Colorado stack more tonight. The BvP for Trevor Story and Carlos Gonzalez is impressive and using Charlie Blackmon and a hot DJ Lemahieu makes a lot of sense for filling out a Rox stack.
I absolutely love the Tampa Bay offense tonight against Indians starter Shane Bieber. The Rays are hot and Bieber is a guy I love to target with left-handed bats. We saw what they did las night against Kluber and the Indians bullpen isn’t great. I would definitely consider rolling out lefties Kevin Kiermier, Mallex Smith, Joey Wendle or Jake Bauers with possibly Tommy Pham from the right side.
Dylan Covey makes his return for the White Sox which bring the Royals stack into play for me. I think they’ll be low owned due to the fact that THEY ARE THE ROYALS and I will have some shares of them with Degrom since they are so freaking cheap.
Finally, I like both sides of the second game of the Nats-Phillies doubleheader. Jake Arrieta starts for the Phillies and Tanner Roark for the Nats. Both offenses have solid numbers against these guys and might go overlooked after all the rainouts lately.
Alright Army, that’s all I got today. I hope this info helps you build a GPP winning lineup tonight! If you ever have a follow-up question from the article, just hit me up in my slack channel. Good luck!