MLB DFS Picks: Saturday, August 24th has a healthy dozen games on the “main slate” for Yahoo, DraftKings, FanDuel and FantasyDraft. Before you lock in your fantasy baseball lineups and MLB DFS baseball picks, make sure to check out check out Awesemo’s DFS baseball MLB rankings and projections. Not a member? Sign up HERE and use Promo Code: MLBSTACKS for 50% off any one month subscription.
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Greetings Gamers! Tonight provides some interesting pitching choices and how we want to allocate our salary cap to pitching “safety” or offensive sluggers.
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Early Slate
Los Angeles Dodgers vs LHP C.C. Sabathia – 5.3 implied runs
It looks like we will see the first two games for Saturday and the first three for FanDuel in a very rare instance where FanDuel actually has a larger player pool. Not to fear dear reader, FanDuel is defining their Saturday “Main” slate with just the nine games in the 7 o’clock hour to mirror their Fantasy Baseball Championship.
In his last four games, LHP C.C. Sabathia has given up nine home runs and 18 earned runs over 17.1 innings. Though the Dodgers lean as a team to be better against righties with all of their many batsmen swinging a strong stick from the left-side of the plate, we can work with this matchup.
The wheels have come off the wagon for the 39-year-old veteran of 19 MLB campaigns. This season he has ceded a .258 ISO to opposite-handed hitters and a .291 ISO to fellow lefties.
Our preferred order of Dodger options will be Justin Turner, Will Smith, A.J. Pollock, Chris Taylor and Enrique Hernandez. Do not be shy about looking to same-handed hitters Cody Bellinger and Max Muncy.
Main Slate
Houston Astros vs LHP Dillon Peters – 6.2 Implied Runs
Yup, back with the Houston Astros. They have had one heck of a run over the last fortnight with so many southpaws on their schedule. The 5.23 xFIP tells a different story from LHP Dillon Peters 41.1 innings with eight home runs allowed with a 3.92 ERA and 1.40 WHIP. If this was any other matchup outside of Minnesota, Arizona or Houston I would consider him at his DraftKings salary. It is not so we should attack.
Target him with the VERY EXPENSIVE (on most sites) Alex Bregman, George Springer and Jose Altuve. Yordan Alvarez will be a differentiation play for his price, but should be worth it. Round things out with Abraham Toro, Robinson Chirinos and/or Jake Marisnick plus Josh Reddick as a wrap-around stack for a contrarian strategy.
Late Slate
Toronto Blue Jays vs RHP Felix Hernandez – 5.2 implied runs
Oh what a magnificent run for RHP Felix Hernandez who was stellar for the Mariners for so many seasons. Most DFS players do not remember the dominance of King Felix who won the 2010 Cy Young Award. They also do not realize that he had TEN STRAIGHT SEASONS of 190+ innings pitched at an incredibly high level. These things are all forgotten as Seattle has the longest MLB playoff drought with 2001 being their last appearance.
On to today, Hernandez is coming off the 60-day injury list, though after four MiLB appearances he should have 60 pitches in him. That said, I am an unabashed Mariners fan having attended their first ever game back in the Kingdome days.
Since the beginning of last season Hernandez has allowed a 2.02 HR/9 to lefties and a 1.40 HR/9 to righties. In terms of isolated power it is .273 to lefties and 273 to both lefties and righties. Target Bo Bichette, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. Justin Smoak, Teoscar Hernandez, Randal “Pink Floyd” Grichuck, Cavan Biggio and whomever is behind the plate on the late slate.
As always, reach out to me in Awesemo.com Premium Slack or on Twitter @EMacDFS.
Good Luck Gamers! ~ EMac
Looking for more free content? Check out this morning’s MLB Strategy Show where we broke down the slate game-by-game!
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