Hello, friends. Welcome to Wednesday. There’s some day baseball happening, and, fortunately, one of those games is in Colorado, so we don’t have to deal with the Orioles’ impotence tonight. We can all thank the Brad Lord for that.
Only 6 games on the board for the main slate, but we’re not hurtin’ for pitchin’. The weather also looks clear, with some modest hitter-friendly weather at Wrigley Field once again. Let’s do the stuff.
MLB DFS Pitcher Picks for Wednesday
- Jacob Misiorowski ($12,000, at Cubs)
- Cam Schlittler ($11,000, at Angels)
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($10,500, vs. Cardinals)
- Reid Detmers ($7,800, vs. Yankees)
- Noah Cameron ($7,200, vs. Marlins)
- Hayden Wesneski ($7,000, vs. White Sox)
- David Peterson ($6,600, vs. Brewers)
- Dean Kremer ($6,400, vs. Tigers)
You wanted aces, you got aces. We must never forget, though, that Aces Love to Pitch Like Shit. I assume at least one of these guys will go down in flames in humiliating fashion. But which one?
Jacob Misiorowski has 2 games all season in which he’s finished with under 20 DK points, which is, of course, insane. A 38.8% K-rate for the year is astronomical, and he’s considerably improved his control. If hitters are lucky enough to make contact, they’re generally hitting it on the ground (44.6%), and he’s been almost impossible to barrel up (3.6%), because it’s tough to barrel up a 110-mph fastball, as it turns out.
The Cubs are good, but they’re a little more vulnerable against right-handed pitching (.188 ISO, .338 wOBA, 22.1% Ks). Matchups don’t typically matter for a guy like this, but a $12,000 price tag, some quality alternatives, and hitter-friendly weather prevent him from being an auto-play. There is a chance the Miz won’t be mega-chalk, though, which is also notable. Consider it noted.
Cam Schlittler draws that tasty matchup against the Angels, and he’s $1,000 cheaper than the Miz. This is clearly a much better on-paper matchup (25.8% Ks, .151 ISO, .306 wOBA vs. RHP). Schlittler has a 30.9% K-rate of his own this season, and he’s pushing 32% over the last month. Schlittler hasn’t been quite as impervious to damage as the Miz, but the Angels’ 2.9 total is also quite a bit lower than the Cubs’ 3.79 mark. Schlitty is likely to pull more ownership than Misiorowski.
There’s a chance Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($10,500) is the chalkiest of the 5-figure arms. The Cardinals went bananas yesterday, but they only have a 3.05 run total in this one. Yamamoto (25.2% Ks, 5.8% walks) is more good than great from a fantasy standpoint, though he has ramped up the Ks in a big way (32.7%) over the last 30 days. The Cardinals are better than the Angels (22.2% Ks, .164 ISO, .325 wOBA), but it’s still generally a top-heavy lineup that doesn’t do much slugging…last night notwithstanding.
Yamamoto has topped 105 pitches in 3 of his last 4 games, and the Dodgers need some length from him tonight after they taxed the bullpen last night. He feels like a safe enough play.
I like Eury Perez enough in general, but I don’t think I’ll have much, if any, of him tonight.
I mentioned the last time he pitched that Reid Detmers is always too cheap, and he was $8,800 that night. Tonight, for no reason whatsoever, he’s back down to $7,800 for a home matchup against the Yankees. The Yankees are dangerous, but what are we doing here? Detmers has been outstanding this year (27.8% Ks, 7% walks, 3.41 SIERA). He doesn’t have the pitch-count ceiling some of the other aces do, but the New York lineup (24.5% Ks, .184 ISO, .324 wOBA) also generally isn’t as scary against LHP. The silly price tag should lead to a lot of ownership, but I can’t really fight it, especially on such a small slate.
Noah Cameron isn’t as skilled as most of these other pitchers (21% Ks, 7.7% walks, 4.21 SIERA), but he has shown quite the nuclear ceiling lately. Miami is a pretty neutral matchup for a lefty (.174 ISO, .330 wOBA, 22.2% Ks). They’re quite heavy on groundballs (44.4%), and Cameron is cheap at $7,200. Worth noting the Marlins still have a healthy 4.5 run total here, and Detmers is Very Obviously the much better play, but Cameron is viable.
Hayden Wesneski (21.1% Ks, 9% walks, 4.37 SIERA) has similar numbers to Cameron in a smaller sample since returning from Tommy John. There’s nothing great about this – and the White Sox have power (.186 ISO), but they’re also somewhat strikeout-prone (23%). Chicago’s 3.95 total is also low enough, so I don’t mind a dusting of Wesneski in larger-field GPPs.
We prefer lefties against the Brewers, and, whaddya know, David Peterson is a lefty who keeps the ball on the ground 50.9% of the time. That’s a useful skill against a very high-groundball Milwaukee lineup (49.1%) that only has a few slugging RHBs in the order. I’m not thrilled about this, especially given the more hitter-friendly conditions at Wrigley, but hey, $6,600 is pretty affordable.
Mean Dean Kremer had a rough go of it in his most recent outing against the White Sox, and he’s allowed quite a bit of power this year (.260 ISO). I think it’s a little flukey, and the Tigers offense he’ll face tonight is pretty average across the board. Think I prefer Peterson, but you can play Kremer in large-field stuff, as well.
SP Rankings
- Schlittler
- Yamamoto
- Misiorowski
- Detmers
- Cameron
- Peterson
- Wesneski
- Kremer
Best MLB DFS Stacks for September 2
- Tigers (at Mean Dean)
- Royals (vs. Eury Perez)
- Marlins (at Noah Cameron)
- Dodgers (vs. Cade Winquest/bullpen)
- Astros (vs. Davis Martin)
- Twins (vs. Drew Anderson)
Given the quality of the pitching and that we’re only dealing with 6 games, there isn’t much standout offense.
I guess the Dodgers will be the first stop for some. They’re gonna see righty Cade Winquest to start the game, but it’s more of a bullpen situation. St. Louis has a respectable pen. Not great! There’s a lot of talent here, they just haven’t played up to their caliber in a while. I’m happy to get to Shohei Ohtani and Max Muncy. Less faith in guys like Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, Tommy Edman, and Teoscar Hernandez, but the Dodgers are also somewhat affordable these days. At least there’s that.
Remember when Davis Martin was an ace? That was a fun few weeks. He’s back to being Davis Martin, though. Over the last month, this guy has an 11.9% strikeout rate and 9.5% walk rate. He’s also allowed a .471 ISO and .558 wOBA. He’s not THAT bad, but those numbers suuuuure are atrocious. Houston’s 4.55 total in this one is solid enough. Yordan Alvarez, Jeremy Pena, and Isaac Paredes have the best overall numbers vs. RHP, while Cam Smith, Christian Walker, and Jose Altuve have hit for some power.
Both sides of MIA/KC are in play again. I think Cameron is a better value than Perez, but I’d also rather play the Marlins than the Royals. Heriberto Hernandez has raked LHP all season. Otto Lopez, Agustin Ramirez, Javier Sanoja, and Esteury Ruiz have decent numbers, too. Perez has shown more of a reverse right-handed split. Good for Bobby Witt Jr., Nick Loftin, and Sal Perez, but the other Royals we generally want to play are lefties. Hunting power with Jac Caglianone, Vinnie Pasquantino, and Michael Massey.
The Twins sure shattered last night’s slate. Drew Anderson hasn’t pitched poorly since his insertion into the Tigers’ rotation, but he’s also one of the slate’s weaker pitchers. Kody Clemens, Ryan Jeffers, and Josh Bell have double-digit barrel rates vs. RHP, while Trevor Larnach, Royce Lewis, and Walker Jenkins aren’t far off. Should be some chalk here.
The Tigers against Mean Dean are probably another standout offense, which tells you all you need to know about the quality of the bats on this slate. LHBs have really teed off on him, though RHBs (.232 ISO) have also done damage. Kevin McGonigle, Colt Keith, Max Clark, Riley Greene, and Zach McKinstry will all have the platoon edge. Dillon Dingler and Spencer Torkelson are both powerful enough to do damage righty-righty.
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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