FanDuel Pitching Primer: Friday 4/9/21
In daily fantasy baseball, success starts with nailing the starting pitcher spot in your lineup.
When compared to hitters, pitching performance tends to be much more predictable and stable throughout the course of the season. You know what you're getting from a top-level ace when you roster him: probably a dominant effort with only one or two implosions per season. In contrast, even the game's best hitters have days at the plate when they go 0-for-4.
As a result, lineup construction should begin with the starting pitcher. Which pitchers should you consider on today's main slate?
High-Salaried Option
Joe Musgrove, San Diego Padres
at Texas Rangers
FanDuel Salary: $9,700
Joe Musgrove seems to certainly enjoy the warm climate of sunny San Diego, and while he takes to the road today, he should be able to continue his strong start to his San Diego Padres tenure.
Over his last 11 starts, Musgrove has twirled a 33% strikeout rate, which is juicy in and of itself. Now let me whet your appetite even further -- his opponent, the Texas Rangers owns a 27.6% strikeout rate to start the year.
It's probably no stunner that Musgrove leads our projections as the top starting pitcher. We forecast him to score 37.4 FanDuel points.
Mid-Salaried Play
Tyler Mahle, Cincinnati Reds
at Arizona Diamondbacks
FanDuel Salary: $8,400
Pivoting off the bigger names of Musgrove, Charlie Morton and Lance McCullers is certainly not a bad proposition for DFS purposes, and Tyler Mahle of the Cincinnati Reds is a guy who sticks out from the rest of the pack.
Let's check out Mahle's opponent -- the Arizona Diamondbacks. Arizona will be missing Ketel Marte, who went on the Injured List with a bad hammy. With Marte out, they have hit a woeful .161 over the last two contests, with very little pop to boot (.290 slugging percentage). And Arizona isn't that good of an offense anyway, sitting with the eighth-fewest WAR going by FanGraphs' rest-of-season projections.
In addition to the matchup, Mahle showed a tick of velocity in his 2021 debut, averaging 95.1 MPH in his first start. He nine in five innings in that outing against the St. Louis Cardinals, and he had a 29.9% strikeout rate across 47 2/3 frames a campaign ago.
We project Mahle for 33.5 FanDuel points, and given his modest salary, he profiles as one of the slate's top plays.
Low-Salaried Play
Charlie Morton, Atlanta Braves
vs. Philadelphia Phillies
FanDuel Salary: $7,500
Shortened slates can often leave you with a dearth of pitching options, and tonight's low-salaried plays are certainly no exception. If you wanna dance with the devil, Charlie Morton of the Atlanta Braves might be your guy.
A few less-than-stellar platitudes to consider -- Morton did struggle in his first outing of the year against this same team (the Philadelphia Phillies), giving up three runs on six hits over five frames. Now, the good news is that he did whiff five batters in the outing, and the Phillies struck out 10 times in their last game.
Our model likes Morton today, projecting him for 31.2 FanDuel points. Among the five pitchers we project for more than 30 FanDuel points, Morton carries the lowest salary. If you are willing to bear some risk, the veteran right-hander is worth considering.
Matt Kupferle is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Matt Kupferle also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username MKupferle. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.
