3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 3/29/19

Gerrit Cole, P, Pittsburgh Pirates

Price: $11,300

Gerrit Cole is in a pricing tier of his own tonight, sitting $1,500 above anyone else on the slate, but he's worth the hefty salary.

He finished fifth in the Majors with a 2.91 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) in 2018, while the next-best mark for anyone on today's slate was 3.13. His 34.5% strikeout rate was also good for third in the Majors last year, which is 3.1 percentage points better than anyone else taking the mound tonight.

He's up against the Tampa Bay Rays tonight, and oddsmakers give Tampa the third-lowest implied total (3.29) on the slate. The two pitchers with lower implied totals are also bigger favorites than Cole, but the strikeout potential makes up for that gap, as Cole's 34.5% from 2018 sits well ahead of the 28.2% and 27.0% posted by German Marquez and Ross Stripling.

Cole averaged just shy of 50 FanDuel points per game last season, and while our models only have him going for the second-highest fantasy score among today's pitchers, we do have him racking up the most strikeouts -- and that's where the big upside to pay off this kind of salary comes from.