It’s a tough slate as far as pitching goes, with no pitchers earning an “A” DraftKings grade in Awesemo’s rankings. There are only a couple pitchers that have big K-upside, but you’ll have to break the bank in order to get them in your lineup, and that may be difficult with all the big bats in great spots. We’ll start with a quote from Awesemo, then I (Tommienation1) will follow up with some analysis.
Charlie Morton ($11,100 DK/$8,500 FD)
“Morton’s matchup against the Orioles is not perfect, but in the context of the slate, he’s got some of the highest floor and upside as Baltimore’s implied total is among the lowest on the slate. All pitchers are overpriced on tonight’s slate, so don’t be scared off by the E value ranking on DraftKings: he’ll still be one of my top owned pitchers.”
Morton owns the slate’s lowest xFIP at 3.58, WHIP at 1.19, and is second in creating soft-contact at 22.1%. He had an 11.80 K/9 in 2017 against lefties, constantly getting whiffs with his curve and cutter, so seeing guys like Chris Davis and Colby Rasmus (both K over 30%) in the O’s lineup should help increase his upside tonight for tournaments. He’s not a great value on DraftKings, but on FanDuel where you need a great performance out of your pitcher, he’s a tough guy to pass up on tonight with the lack of options.
Jamie Garcia ($8,500 DK/$5,900 FD)
“Garcia makes for a nice play on FanDuel especially, as the White Sox have an implied total just a touch over 4 here, and he does a decent job limiting power to righties.”
Garcia is not a sexy GPP play by any means, but he could do just enough at this price on both sites to get you some bats that could win you a tournament. The White Sox have a ton of power in the middle of their order, but they also have a lot of strikeouts if Garcia is on his game tonight. He allowed 31.8% hard-contact to righties last year, which is about league average, and the White Sox will (likely) roll out at least five players who have struck out well over 20% of the time against lefties since the start of last season. There is a lot of risk here, but Jaime Garcia definitely has some upside against this free-swinging Sox team.
