MLB

MLB Sim Sports Picks for 7/5/20 on FanDuel

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FanDuel's MLB Sims Sports, a new 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 -- things like 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.

Here's the breakdown for today's main slate, which starts at 8:06 p.m. EST.

Pitchers

We've got plenty of options on this 10-game slate, yet we should take a long hard look at the top with Clayton Kershaw ($11,500) in a home matchup with the Miami Marlins. Kershaw ranked fourth among the starters in xFIP in 2019 at 3.50 while no team had a worse wOBA than Miami. He's the top-pried arm for a reason, and with Max Scherzer ($10,800) against the Houston Astros, we should probably trust Kershaw more.

With plenty of stronger arms at the top, we probably shouldn't punt on a slate like this, but we do have a good number of value options. Lucas Giolito ($8,700) ranked a solid seventh in xFIP among starters on the slate and actually fourth in SIERA. The Texas Rangers notched the fifth-highest strikeout rate in 2019 while ranking 23rd in wRC+.

Stacks

The Los Angeles Dodgers will draw Jose Urena, who ranked 14th in SIERA in 2019 at 4.84 and 17th among the 20 starters in strikeout rate (16.8%). The Dodgers, meanwhile, were fourth in wRC+ as an offense. The lefties near the top of the order -- Joc Pederson ($4,000), Cody Bellinger ($4,100) -- are pricey, but lefty Max Muncy ($3,300) is cheap enough in the fifth spot, and we get solid prices on righties Mookie Betts ($3,400) and Justin Turner ($3,200) in the top three of the order. The whole lineup looks viable, honestly.

The San Francisco Giants will face Antonio Senzatela in "Coors Field." Senzatela posted the worst strikeout rate of any starter on the slate in 2019 and the worst SIERA as well. His SIERA (5.50) was the only mark above 5.08. The Giants weren't an elite offense by any means in 2019, but the matchup is pristine here today.



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.