MLB

MLB Sim Sports Picks for 6/30/20 on FanDuel

Which pitchers and stacks are in good spots on Tuesday's simulated slate?

Real-life MLB DFS will be back in our lives at the end of July, so in the meantime, why not get some reps in with FanDuel's simulated contests?

MLB Sim Sports is a free-to-play format that simulates the baseball games that were originally scheduled for play each day. Starting pitchers and batting orders are announced in advance, and then games will play out through numberFire's custom simulator.

Starting pitchers will have a simulated pitch count that we won't know beforehand but should be roughly based on their performance last season. Hitters will play the whole game, so there's no fear of pinch hitters and the like.

Best of all, the simulation is meant to replicate real life, so all the usual things you typically analyze in MLB DFS -- player skills, matchups, park factors, and platoon splits -- are in play here, so you can approach this in much the same way you would on a real baseball slate.

Below are the starting pitchers for tonight's slate, which locks at 8:06 pm ET. Stats are from 2019 and limited to just games started, so you may see slight changes in the overall numbers of some players who made appearances out of the bullpen. Opposing strikeout rate and wRC+ are last year's numbers against a given pitcher's handedness using updated active rosters, per FanGraphs.

PitcherSalaryOpp.SIERAK%BB%Opp. K%Opp. wRC+
Max Scherzer (R)$12,000@STL2.9335.1%4.8%23.6 %94
Clayton Kershaw (L)$10,500CIN3.7726.7%5.8%22.8 %102
Jack Flaherty (R)$9,700WAS3.6829.9%7.1%21.5 %96
Jose Berrios (R)$9,300@DET4.2823.2%6.1%25.6 %82
Yu Darvish (R)$9,100MIL3.5531.3%7.7%22.8 %102
Blake Snell (L)$9,000LAA3.5633.3%9.1%19.8 %102
Andrew Heaney (L)$8,900@TAM3.8728.9%7.3%27.1 %99
Eduardo Rodriguez (L)$8,700SEA4.3124.8%8.7%23.4 %106
Sonny Gray (R)$8,200@LOS3.9729.0%9.6%20.2 %122
Mike Soroka (R)$8,000@TEX4.2820.3%5.9%25.5 %89
Mike Minor (L)$7,700ATL4.5123.2%7.9%22.7 %106
Madison Bumgarner (L)$7,500@KAN4.1524.1%5.1%21.7 %88
Caleb Smith (L)$7,200@OAK4.5826.0%9.3%19.9 %114
Sean Manaea (L)$6,800MIA3.8627.5%6.4%24.9 %82
Eric Lauer (L)$6,500@CHC4.7421.2%7.9%24.5 %94
Danny Duffy (L)$6,400ARI4.8920.7%8.3%21.5 %112
Andrew Suarez (L)$6,200@NYM6.4714.3%14.3%23.4 %114
Michael Wacha (R)$6,000SFG5.1918.3%10.1%24.0 %89
Michael Fulmer (R)$5,700MIN------20.9 %119
Yusei Kikuchi (L)$5,500@BOS5.1716.1%6.9%19.7 %112


To help get you started, let's go through some of the top pitchers and stacks on the slate.

Pitchers

Max Scherzer ($12,000) has the best overall numbers on the board, including a killer 35.1% strikeout rate. A matchup against the Cardinals will do just fine, and there's a good reason he's the night's most expensive hurler.

Jack Flaherty ($9,700) and Yu Darvish ($9,100) have neutral matchups but pack plenty of punchout upside themselves. Flaherty is arguably the safer bet against the Nationals.

Andrew Heaney ($8,900) produced peripherals that suggested he deserved better than last year's 4.91 ERA and 2020 projections agree. He has a fantastic opportunity for strikeouts against the Rays in Tropicana Field.

Stacks

The Atlanta Braves face southpaw Mike Minor in Texas, and as noted in past helpers, Minor is a fly-ball pitcher who's susceptible to dingers, and projections view him as league average or worse. Grab Ronald Acuna ($4,000), of course, and Marcell Ozuna ($3,000) and Adam Duvall ($2,600) can help fit him in.

The Boston Red Sox have a cushy matchup against left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who struggled in his first MLB campaign and only projects to be marginally better this time around. J.D. Martinez ($3,700) is pretty much a must against a weak southpaw, and Xander Bogaerts ($3,500) and Michael Chavis ($2,600) will also benefit from the platoon advantage. Rafael Devers ($3,500) can handle someone like Kikuchi despite batting lefty.

The Minnesota Twins are always fun to stack, and that's especially the case tonight versus Michael Fulmer. The right-hander missed all of 2019, and models see him as about the same pitcher he was in 2018 when he put up a 4.69 ERA. You can honestly roster anyone batting first through seventh and feel good about their chances of producing points, with Nelson Cruz ($3,600) and Miguel Sano ($3,400) looking like the top home run options as usual.


The author of this article has no involvement with the MLB Sim Sports simulations powered by numberFire and has no knowledge of the results of tonight’s contest.