Yesterday, I recommended Luzardo, Eflin, and Montas as three pitchers under $8k to target on Draftkings in tournaments.
Two of the three performed well:
- Eflin was cruising until a brutal sixth inning. Toronto’s bats are potent.
- I thought that Eflin would be mega-chalk, but Luzardo ended up close to 40% in several contests, whereas Eflin barely hit 10% ownership.
- Eflin didn’t suffer bad luck yesterday – his FIP for the game was 10.12 and he gave up three homeruns.
- These results help refine the approach to pitcher selection: matchup, strikeout rate, and park factor all matter, and Eflin had the toughest matchup of the three.
The First Weeks Are Weird
The opening weeks of the baseball season are traditionally weird in some ways; some marginal players enjoy hot starts, some stars start slow, and flukes stick out like sore thumbs. Its not until mid-May at the earliest that we see stats start to normalize, and this makes lineup building for DFS tricky. In season-long roto, things even out, but for DFS, the first weeks of the season present both challenges and advantages.
MLB DFS Value Pitchers for 3-29-2024, Initial Thoughts
I’ll finalize my three for under $8k list later today, but here are some initial thoughts:
- If you have an iron stomach, consider playing Zack Thompson tonight. We don’t often see pitchers with a K/9 of almost 10 for under $6k, but we have one in Thompson (9.77 in 2023). The matchup against the Dodgers is brutal, but Thompson scored 13 or more Draftkings points in 7 of his last 10 starts last season. Unfortunately, his sub-10% swinging strike rate doesn’t support the K’s, but his sub-4 FIP from last season was promising. Again, this is a risky play, but its a play that gives you plenty of cash to buy big bats.
- AJ Puk will make his first career start against the Pirates. He should strikeout plenty of batters this season, but he likely won’t go deep into games early on. With K’s worth 2 points on Draftkings, Puk is in play, but be prepared to fade him if ownership gets chalky.
- Carlos Rodon has a tough matchup, but if he’s healthy, he could make his way back into the upper-tier of starting pitchers.
- Kyle Harrison also has a tough matchup at SD, but he has the pedigree and upside to score 20+ DK points. In one start at SD last season, Harrison gave up 6 ER. In his last start of 2023, he no-hit the LAD for 5 innings, so we know he has it in him.
I’ll be releasing by three value pitchers later today via Youtube. Thank you for reading, and be sure to tune in!