Hello, friends. It is Thursday, which means a light schedule on the MLB front. There are officially 5 games on the docket, though we do have some weather issues in the northeast. That’s meaningful with 2 of the games happening in New York City, though the forecast sounds a little less scary than it did earlier in the day. Hopefully it will, indeed, be a 5-game slate.
Will it be a garbage slate nevertheless? You better believe it. I guess we might as well go through it.
MLB DFS Pitcher Plays for Thursday
- Jacob Misiorowski ($12,000, at Mets)
- Chris Sale ($10,200, vs. Dodgers)
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($9,600, at Braves)
- Gerrit Cole ($8,500, vs. Astros)
- Landen Roupp ($7,800, vs. DBax)
- Sean Manaea ($7,100, vs. Brewers)
- Noah Cameron ($6,900, at Blue Jays)
For a 5-gamer, this one is pretty loaded on the pitching side. It’s a Miz Slate, so you know what that means. You’ll pay for him, and he’ll probably score around 20 fantasy points, and you’ll be kinda disappointed, but it may also still be enough to lead the slate.
Misiorowski is still sporting an absurd 39.2% K-rate for the season, including a robust 44.7% rate against lefties. He’s “only” down to 32.6% Ks over the last month. What’s this guy’s deal? Fortunately, a 32.6% K-rate would still lead the slate. He also gets a nice matchup here on the road in Queens, weather permitting. The Mets don’t have much power (.147 ISO, .311 wOBA vs. RHP), and they’re striking out at a decent 22.1% clip against righties.
Miz may also face as many as 5 LHBs, which is good, as he’s been utterly unhittable against lefties all year. Great pitcher, good play, but $12,000 is a tall asking price.
Chris Sale is another tall, skinny lad who continues to rack up the Ks (30.6%) without a ton of damage. He’s really just the left-handed Miz, albeit a slightly poor man’s version. Calling Sale a poor man’s anything sounds insulting, but I don’t think he should take it that way. Chris, if you are reading this, and if you are able to read, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.
While the Miz gets to pick on the Mets, Sale draws a more daunting on-paper matchup at home against the Dodgers. It’s the Dodgers, but this lineup has been worse against lefties all year (.177 ISO, .339 wOBA, 18.5% Ks). Guys like Miguel Rojas and Enrique Hernandez tend to crack the lineup against LHP, and those guys aren’t great. The matchup is really the only hole I can punch in Sale’s case, but LA also has a tiny 3.13 total in this one, and he comes in a whopping $1,800 cheaper than Misiorowski.
Misiorowski unquestionably has a higher ceiling than Sale, but that’s a pretty hefty discount. You might say you’re getting Chris on sale. The art of the deal, baby.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto will toe the same rubber as Sale. He’s generally more real-life great than fantasy great, with a 24.9% K-rate and 3.48 SIERA. He does keep the ball on the ground (47.3%) without generally allowing a ton of damage, while the Atlanta offense (23.5% Ks, .150 ISO, .299 wOBA vs. RHP) has sucked pretty hard over the last 30 days. For the season, the Braves’ numbers against righties are similar to the Dodgers’ against lefties (.177 ISO, .329 wOBA, 21.4% Ks). Still not necessarily a great spot for Yamamoto, and the gulf in skills between he and the top two pitchers is notable enough to leave him well behind in terms of priority, IMO.
Gerrit Cole got off to a slow start returning from Tommy John surgery, but over the last month, this guy suddenly looks a lot like the $300 million version of Gerrit Cole (28.1% Ks, 6.6% walks, .088 ISO, .244 wOBA allowed). Cole’s splits are a little odd in that he’s striking out more lefties while also allowing more power to them. With righties, he’s allowing more contact and less damage.
The Astros (.347 wOBA, .197 ISO) have done consistent damage against right-handed pitching all year while striking out 20% of the time. While I don’t love the matchup – even with the #revenge angle – I do think $8,500 is a pretty useful discount on this slate, especially relative to Yamamoto. I do think Yamamoto has the more trustworthy long-term skills at this stage of their respective careers, but I like Cole just fine.
Landen Roupp – who likes to be called Landen Poop – is another cheapie at just $7,800 for a matchup at home against Arizona. San Francisco is a great place to pitch, while the Diamondbacks have been pretty low-power offensively all year (.158 ISO, .318 wOBA), especially without Gamblin’ Ketel Marte. Arizona is also pretty high-contact (18.4% Ks), so that’s the tradeoff. The DBax will also take their walks (10%), which could be problematic for Poop, a pitcher with an 11.1% walk rate on the year. His strikeout rate (22.6%) has also waned as the season has progressed.
Will the DBax put up a huge score here? Not likely. Will Roupp mow them down with the greatest of ease? Not that likely, either. I’m okay with Roupp, but you can pretty easily find the extra $700 to play Cole over him.
Sean Manaea ($7,100) will face the Brewers at home. He’s been wildly splitsy all year, with utterly dominant numbers against his fellow lefties and nonsense stats against RHBs. Overall, a 23.1% strikeout rate will certainly do for a $7,100 pitcher. While the Brewers are certifiably pesky, they’re also pretty weak (.134 ISO) vs. left-handed pitching. If Manaea can survive Jackson Chourio, Andrew Vaughn, and Gary Sanchez, he should fare well enough. Don’t love Manaea, don’t mind Manaea, either.
The last pitcher worth a shout is Noah Cameron, who will take the bump in Toronto. There isn’t much outstanding about his game (21.3% Ks, 7.7% walks, 4.02 SIERA). He’s about as average as average gets. Being a lefty against the Blue Jays is favorable, as they haven’t done much hitting (.137 ISO, .309 wOBA) vs. southpaws, even if they’re not striking out much, either (18.6%). You’re not really playing Cameron for the Ks, anyway, you’re just hoping he goes out there and puts up a perfectly cromulent score at $6,900.
SP Rankings
- Misiorowski
- Sale
- Cole
- Yamamoto
- Manaea
- Cameron
- Roupp
Best Stacks for Thursday
- Yankees (vs. Hayden Wesneski)
- Brewers (at Sean Manaea)
- Royals (at Spencer Arrighetti)
- Astros (at Gerrit Cole)
- DBax (at Landen Poop)
- Blue Jays (vs. Noah Cameron)
- Giants (vs. Jose Cabrera)
I suppose we shouldn’t forget that Aces Love to Pitch Like Shit. That means you can fire up Dodgers, Braves, or Mets stacks if you’re so inclined. One of the chalky aces going down in flames is likely the clearest path to the top of the leaderboards, but it’s not the likeliest path. Or is it?
I’m guessing the Yankees will be a trendy stack at home against Hayden Wesneski. He hasn’t pitched poorly since returning from the IL, but lefties do have an 11.6% barrel rate against him, and the Yankees sure are heavy on left-handed bats. Trent Grisham, Luis Garcia, and Ben Rice have all raked RHP, while Cody Bellinger, Spencer Jones, and Jazz Chisholm have worse-yet-decent numbers of their own.
If I’m playing an offense against one of the chalky aces, I’d side with Houston first against Cole. Jeremy Pena and Yordan Alvarez are your daily Astros standouts. Yainer Diaz is a good hitter for a catcher, while Jose Altuve, Christian Walker, and Isaac Paredes are in the mix for full stacks. I think Cole’s cheap salary will lead to quite a bit of ownership, so I like the Astros side.
Astros legend Spencer Arrighetti hasn’t pitched particularly well all year, though we’ve got limited data since his move to Toronto. For the season, lefties have really thwacked him (.187 ISO, .356 wOBA), so the usual suspects – Carter Jensen, Jac Caglianone, Vinnie Pasquantino – look pretty appealing on the KC side.
Noah Cameron is probably a trendy cheap play, but it’s not like he’s very good. Toronto’s lineup is a horror show, but I suppose I still have at least a little faith in RHBs like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., George Springer, and Kazuma Okamoto.
Roupp has been okay this season and tends to keep the ball on the ground, but things can spiral out of control quickly if the DBax are putting ducks on the pond with walks, etc. Corbin Carroll and Gabriel Moreno are the best hitters on the roster at this point, though Nolan Arenado, Tim Tawa, and Lars Nootbaar are passable.
The Giants’ lineup is just Rafael Devers, Bryce Eldridge, and a buncha nobodies at this point, but Jose Cabrera is also a nobody pitching for Arizona. This guy has an 11.1% K-rate this season against lefties. Devers and Eldridge look outstanding, while Drew Gilbert, Jung Hoo Lee, “Turner Hill,” and “Nate Furman” will all swing it from the left side, too.
Noah Simpson is a New England-based DFS writer who has spent the better part of a decade obsessing over MLB DFS. He got his start playing DFS recreationally before realizing he was spending more time building spreadsheets than actually watching games, and decided to make it official. At DFSBuild, Noah covers MLB DFS strategy with a focus on finding edges that casual players overlook. When he’s not staring at Statcast data, he’s somewhere on a hiking trail in Maine with his two dogs, Sandboy and Johnner, who are undefeated at ignoring his lineup advice, because they are dogs. They don’t have the cognitive or motor skills required to operate a computer, let alone process complex theories and information.
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