Hello! It’s the last day of August, which means tomorrow is the first day of September. If you make it through midnight local time, congrats, you’ve made it through the worst month of the year. Give yourself a hearty pat on the back.
We’ll round out the month with a 7-game DK slate. Reliable pitching looks hard to come by, while the Orioles will make a visit to Coors Field. The chalk is pretty easy to identify as a result. We’ve also got some hitter-friendly winds at Wrigley. That’s all well and good, but I do think there are some good spots likely to go under-owned as a result.
Let’s dive in.
Best MLB DFS Pitcher Picks for Monday
- Kyle Harrison ($9,000, at Cubs)
- Jacob deGrom ($8,800, vs. A’s)
- Taj Bradley ($8,700, vs. Tigers)
- Peter Lambert ($8,400, vs. White Sox)
- Walbert Urena ($8,000, vs. Yankees)
- Gage Jump ($7,700, at Rangers)
- Kyle Bradish ($7,500, at Rockies)
- Aaron Nola ($7,200, at DBax)
- Elmer Rodriguez ($6,300, at Angels)
The priciest pitcher on the board is a $9,000 Kyle Harrison at windy Wrigley, and he’s likely to fly pretty under the radar. Harrison has strong numbers (30% Ks, 6.4% walks, 3.07 SIERA), and he’s been maxing out at around 90 pitches since returning from the IL.
The Cubs have been a pretty brutal matchup this season for a lefty (.371 wOBA, .198 ISO, 19% Ks, 10.4% walks), and the wind obviously adds even more risk. I don’t think you’ll have to play a ton of Harrison to get comfortably over the field. It’s an interesting play on a very weak pitching slate with a very obvious chalk alternative sitting there for $200 less in a much better matchup. It’s not like Harrison doesn’t have a slate-winning ceiling, though, and if nobody’s going to bother to play him, I think he’s a pretty good play.
That chalk alternative is Jacob deGrom at home against the A’s. DeGrom has been the face of the ALTPLS movement this season, thanks in large part to his fondness of serving up dongs. He’s only allowed 17 this season, but it sure feels like more. A 29.4% strikeout rate puts him right there next to Harrison, though his SIERA (3.20) is slightly worse. He’s a flyball pitcher allowing a barrel rate of 8.4%, so homers are gonna happen.
The A’s are a rather putrid offense these days (.309 wOBA, .132 ISO) amid a rash of injuries, though they’re still a pretty high-contact bunch. Extreme ownership is the only reason I can come up with to fade deGrom. The A’s have a sub-3 run total tonight.
We’ve got a pretty sizable talent gap between Harrison/deGrom and the next tier of options. Taj Bradley is only $100 cheaper than deGrom for a home matchup against Detroit. Bradley has nearly as much strikeout stuff (27%) as the aces, albeit with worse control (10% walks) and overall mediocre numbers against left-handed hitters. The Tigers are projected to throw 5 lefties his way, and it’s not a bad offense overall (20% Ks, .170 ISO, .333 wOBA vs. RHP). I don’t feel strongly one way or the other here. I expect Bradley to be chalkier than Harrison, and I’d rather take the ownership discount with Harrison for the extra $300.
Peter Lambert (23.1% Ks, 9.4% walks, 4.21 SIERA) is pretty average across the board. We know the White Sox have a lotta power (.188 ISO vs. RHP), but there are also some strikeouts here. Lambert has done a good job all year of muting left-handed pop (.083 ISO, .261 wOBA), and most of Chicago’s most menacing hitters are lefties. Lambert is overpriced for his skills at $8,400, but he’s still playable on such a lackluster pitching slate.
Walbert Urena has probably been the Angels’ 2nd-best starting pitcher this season. Groundballs (53.4%) and limiting damage (5.1% barrels, .090 ISO) has been the name of the game for him. A 22.4% strikeout rate is average, though he’s been better in that regard against RHBs (26%). Against lefties, he’s down to 19.3% Ks with an ugly 15% walk rate. The Yankees – in addition to being heavy on lefties – are patient (10.2% walks). Urena is fine, I just think there’s probably more downside than upside in this matchup.
Gage Jump will probably be the most popular partner to pair with deGrom at $7,500. He’s been solid (25.2% Ks, 10.9% walks, 4.11 SIERA). The strikeout stuff alone is good, especially when you factor in the Rangers and their 24.1% K-rate vs. left-handed pitching. Jump’s primary issue is a lack of control, and he’s allowed some right-handed power. Because their best hitters are generally lefties, the Rangers are a pretty favorable matchup for a southpaw. Pretty good play, though Texas (4.52) does have a fairly high total.
Kyle Bradish has really pitched like shit lately, and now he’s going into Colorado. The Rockies (.337 wOBA, .199 ISO) aren’t the same punching bag of an offense against righties that they are vs. LHP, though they have been worse (.147 ISO) over the last month. Bradish certainly isn’t trustworthy at all, but he’s affordable and likely comes in quite a bit less popular than Jump.
Aaron Nola still has a much higher ERA (5.03) than SIERA (3.79), though he has finally started to see more deserved results lately. He’s another guy who just continues to allow tons of home runs (9.7% barrels, 32 HR), though his strikeout rate over the last month is north of 31%. I don’t necessarily think that’s real, and the DBax (17.3%) continue to be one of the worst matchups in the league for hunting Ks. They’re also a little better – in theory – with Gamblin’ Man Ketel Marte due back tonight. Nola is cheap ($7,200) and pretty good, so I have no qualms with playing him.
Elmer Rodriguez will face the Angels, so he’s in play by default. Over the last month, the Halos’ projected lineup has a .259 wOBA, .109 ISO, and 27.4% strikeout rate vs. RHP. ElmRod hasn’t been very good (15.2% Ks, 12.4% walks), but he has kept the ball on the ground 57% of the time against righties, and there aren’t any lefties to worry about here. Rodriguez is only $6,300. Nothing safe about this, but nobody’s really a safe play on this slate.
SP Rankings
- deGrom
- Harrison
- Jump
- Rodriguez
- Nola
- Bradley
- Lambert
- Urena
- Bradish
MLB DFS Stacks for Monday
- Orioles (at Tanner Gordon)
- Brewers (at Clay Holmes)
- DBax (vs. Aaron Nola)
- Astros (vs. Anthony Kay)
- Phillies (at Brandon Pfaadt)
- Rockies (vs. Kyle Bradish)
- Cubs (vs. Kyle Harrison)
- White Sox (at Peter Lambert)
- Yankees (at Walbert Urena)
- Twins (vs. Jackson Jobe)
It’s a bad pitching slate, so it looks like a pretty good slate for bats. The Orioles in Coors will be the chalk, I assume, against Tanner Gordon. Gordon has good control, and…that’s it. He’s allowed a ton of power and doesn’t keep the ball on the ground. The high-strikeout O’s should benefit from his low-strikeout ways. Lefties stand out a little more – Gunnar Henderson, Jackson Holliday, Samuel Basallo, Dylan Beavers, Colton Cowser – but I’m not too concerned about splits overall. Perfectly good stack if you can find a way to get different elsewhere.
If I were playing one lineup on this slate, I think it’d be either an Astros or a Phillies stack. Houston faces lefty Anthony Kay, and the Astros profile pretty well against him. I don’t think Yordan Alvarez is a must-play given Kay’s impressive numbers vs. same-handed hitters, so if you want, a cheaper group with Isaac Paredes, Jeremy Pena, Christian Walker, Yainer Diaz, Cam Smith, and/or Jose Altuve looks pretty good. I do think Alvarez will be quite low-owned, though, for what it’s worth.
Brandon Pfaadt has gotten good results, but there’s nothing about his underlying numbers that suggests he’s actually any good at all. LHBs (.190 ISO, .326 wOBA) have done more damage, and he’ll have to navigate the Phillies’ gauntlet of Kyle Schwarber, Bryce Harper, Bryson Stott, Luis Arraez, and Brandon Marsh. Trea Turner has been booty, but still fine in stacks.
Both offenses in wind-aided Wrigley are fine. Harrison is good, though the Cubs have raked LHP this season. Reckon I can see it both ways. Seiya Suzuki, Carson Kelly, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Alex Bregman, and Tyrone Taylor have hit well against lefties. I don’t really know what to expect in terms of PCA ownership, but he’ll probably be chalkier than he should be thanks to some impressive gamelogs.
Clay Holmes is a high-groundball guy who generally isn’t great to stack against, but I assume Milwaukee will fly relatively under the radar. Brice Turang, Jake Bauers, Jackson Chourio, and William Contreras have the lowest groundball rates among Brewers vs. RHP.
Nola has allowed much more right-handed than left-handed power over the last month, but I’m not too concerned about splits. Arizona’s best hitters – Corbin Carroll, Ketel Marte, Lars Nootbaar, Geraldo Perdomo – will swing it from the left side. Gabriel Moreno is a solid catcher play, as always.
Urena hasn’t allowed much power at all, but the Yankees are talented enough to stack every night. Just gotta hope Urena’s sketchy control pops up before the Angels’ attackable bullpen takes over. Trent Grisham, Ben Rice, Jazz Chisholm, Luis Garcia, and Spencer Jones have double-digit barrel rates vs. RHP.
Jackson Jobe is a highly-ranked prospect, but he’s pitched pretty poorly since returning from injury so far this year. Lefty power has been particularly problematic, so it’s a good spot for Kody Clemens, Josh Bell, Trevor Larnach, and Walker Jenkins.
White Sox power is always playable. Just not really at the top of my list on this slate.
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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