DFS MLB Lineups for May 20, 2017 at Draftkings.com & Fanduel.com
For this daily fantasy baseball season, each day there’s a good slate of DFS MLB games, we’ll be writing up a group of pitchers and hitters that we’re considering for our cash and GPP lineups on DraftKings and FanDuel. We’ll also provide a list of stacks to consider, MLB start times, starting pitchers, and game run totals to give you a good idea of where the fantasy goodness might come from on a given night. As with any DFS sport, the advice below is relevant for fantasy purposes. A player or team might be better or worse from a fantasy perspective than they are in real life due to matchup, price, park factor, etc. This is important when constructing a roster.
We have 7 games on the main DFS MLB slate tonight and man, it is brutal. Every pitching option has something you really dislike about them and the hitting, outside of a couple spots, is pretty uninspiring as well. We will attempt to find a diamond or two in this pile of coal.
A quick reminder while playing DFS MLB, don’t forget baseball is a game of variance. You can make a really solid lineup and still fall short of the cash line. Even Clayton Kershaw can get lit up, and Mike Trout can still go 0 for 4. Baseball is funny like that. Trust the process and know that if you’re playing quality lineups, you’ll be a winner in the long term.
Another thing to remember outside of making sure your player is in the lineup, is to always check the weather. Always. Make this something that is part of your basic routine. Baseball games can get postponed! Your players receive no points from postponed games!
5/20/17 MAIN SLATE TOURNAMENT RUNDOWN
DraftKings Slugfest: $40 buy-in, $150k guaranteed
DraftKings Four Seamer: $4 buy-in, $65k guaranteed (20 Entry Max)
DraftKings Moonshot: $3 buy-in, $50k guaranteed (Arcade Mode)
FanDuel Squeeze: $4 buy-in, $125k guaranteed
FanDuel Grand Slam: $44 buy-in, $100k guaranteed
FanDuel Rally: $7 buy-in, $77k guaranteed
DFS MLB Pitcher Thoughts for May 20, 2017
– Let’s start with the high dollar pitchers. The most expensive pitcher at DraftKings is Carlos Martinez, coming in a a whopping $11.1k. CarMart is good, don’t get me wrong, but he’s typically in the $9-10k range. He also typically produces low to mid 20’s DK points and that’s the likely outcome here in a pesky little matchup with the Giants and their bevy of lefties. Also of note, Martinez has given up at least 3 earned runs in 4 of his last 5 starts. So the question becomes, can you get 22ish points from another pitcher on the slate that won’t cost you $11.1k? Given the ownership/upside combination, I’ll be trying very hard to have minimal exposure to CarMart tonight.
– The other five-figure arm is Justin Verlander coming in at $10.5k on DK, pitcing at home against the Rangers. He’s surpassed 21 DK points one time in his last six starts and in those starts, walked at least three batters in four of the six. That’s just not $10.5k price tag worthy production. The Rangers have a projected lineup with five LHB, and for some reason Verlander has been giving lefties a free pass 13.7% of the time. There’s not great choices tonight, but again, given all the factors my exposure will be little to none.
– If you can handle one of the more awful sweats in all of DFS, fire up Robbie Ray tonight at $8.9k on DK. He has elite strikeout numbers, sporting a 30% strikeout rate. As awesome as that is, he counters that awesome with some awful as he’s also got a 13.2% walk rate. And to pile on to that, he’s given up six dongs in his last six starts (and they always seem to be at the worst times). The good, he gets the Padres and their .264 wOBA and .114 ISO against lefties, as well as a big park boost moving from Chase over to PetCo. His last three road starts are his three highest scoring games of the season (29 DKpts @ SF, 27 DKpts @ LAD, 26 DKpts @ WAS). He’s on my short list for GPPs given his price and upside relative to the higher priced guys.
– In the middle tier, Julio Urias ($8.2k DK) is sure to be popular today, but the Dodgers just don’t let their guys other than Kershaw go deep into games, so I’d probably lean more to a guy like Zack Wheeler who’s $200 cheaper. Wheeler has thrown at least 95 pitches in four straight starts given up just one earned run in three straight. Control has been a bit of an issue, and you’d like a couple more strikeouts, but a 17 DK point floor with 25 point upside is nice for the price on a slate like this one. It’ll allow you to upgrade 2-3 bats over rostering Verlander or CarMart.
– Lastly, I don’t have a problem rostering Alex Meyer or Luis Perdomo. Meyer gets a Mets team that can definitely be shut completely down if you can avoid giving up the long ball to Conforto or Bruce. And Perdomo gets the dangerous Diamondbacks team, but gets the benefit of facing them at home at PetCo Park. Perdomo has posted four consecutive quality starts and has shown his ability to strike batters out (27% RHB, 19% LHB) and in his last outing was able to go six innings without allowing a free pass. Meyer costing $6.4k and Perdomo $7k, paired with either Ray or Wheeler, you’d be free to roster pretty much all of the top bats on the slate.
DFS MLB Hitter Thoughts for May 20, 2017
– The obvious place to go for hitters tonight is rostering Mariners against Mike Pelfrey. Pelfrey heads into this contest with a 7.6% strikeout rate, and I assure you that number is real and verifiable. With him basically never missing any bats, you can safely roster anybody in this lineup for GPPs. The obvious names are Cruz, Seager, and Segura, but don’t forget about guys like Ben Gamel, Taylor Motter, and Danny Valencia when constructing your lineups.
– Past Pelfrey, Kevin Gausman has been a DFS darling lately (for all the wrong reasons) and today seems like a good opportunity to go back to the well. Gausman has had exactly one even passable outing in his last six starts (it was a gem, but likely an outlier) and is struggling mightily against left handed batters walking them nearly 14% of the time while only striking them out 10% of the time. Kendrys Morales and Justin Smoak are power lefties, and Ezequiel Carrera is another lefty that will hit at the top of the lineup. Joey Bats is crushing right now, Kevin Pillar will be back in the lineup after his suspension and he’s got 10 hits in his last 7 games.
– Finally, I’ll have a nice mixture of Orioles in my lineup. Mike Bolsinger isn’t a guy we’d label a gas can, but he’s not good either. He’s just…there. He’s a guy. And this Orioles lineup is just stocked with good hitters and I’ll always take them over ‘just a guy’ like Bolsinger.
– One off plays: Chase Utley, Nomar Mazara, J.D. Martinez, Matt Carpenter, Jake Lamb, Brandon Belt, Michael Conforto
