DraftKings Picks & Analysis - May 20
I’ve got 20 minutes here so I’m going to sling some DraftKings thoughts at you all. I’d love to do this every day but just don’t have the time. But hey if I can get like 10,000 subscribers here maybe I can do this stuff full time! Are there even that many fantasy baseball people in the world though?
Maybe I can go like manage a breakfast joint in the mornings and then do baseball stuff in the afternoons… something to aspire to?
But hey, thanks for all the positive feedback, I know a ton of you out there really like these posts so here we go!
We already have the Mets/Rockies game PPD, which makes the slate a lot more interesting since we don’t have those slam-dunk Coors bats to jam in. I’m going to be brief here, but here’s my general thoughts and player pool for tonight.
Pitchers
Top projections
Robbie Ray (16.0)
Sean Manaea (15.1)
Tarik Skubal (15.2)
It’s a weird slate because Nestor Cortes and Eric Lauer are the most expensive guys, which nobody would’ve expected in the preseason. I think I’m completely off of both of them. If I was going to play one, it would be Cortes. But he’s been really inconsistent this year despite the several big splash games we’ve seen:
The reason for the Lauer fade is the price and the bloated strikeout rate, I don’t believe that will be sustained and the Nationals really don’t strike out against LHP.
I’m interested in the punt with Aaron Civale against the Tigers. He’s dirt cheap and the Tigers are the best matchup in the league. It probably won’t go that well but I think we can squeeze a dozen points out of him and that will work just fine. So here’s my pool
Tarik Skubal
Sean Manaea
Robbie Ray
Cristian Javier
Aaron Civale
Nestor Cortes
Hitters
Going with Civale & Skubal gives us some spending money. So here’s what we’re looking at position-by-position.
Stacks
Angels vs. Blackburn
Yankees vs. Keuchel
Brewers vs. Fedde
Reds vs. Ryu (Reynolds, Drury, Pham as the 1-2-3)
Cheap team fill-ins (probably not stackable offenses)
Orioles vs. Beeks/Bullpen (Hays/Mancini/Mullins)
Tigers vs. Civale (Baez, Candelario?)
And here’s the rest by position
Catchers
Robinson Chirinos
Sean Murphy
Sebastian Rivero
I’m definitely punting it tonight. Tyler Stephenson and Omar Narvaez are the top projections, but I’m not paying $5,400 and $4,100 for those two.
First Base
Shohei Ohtani
Rowdy Tellez
Jared Walsh
Bobby Dalbec (for the upside - Robbie Ray can get bombed against RHB!)
Not much here at 1B either. Ohtani has been absolutely humming, K% under 20% over the last three weeks. Might have to just nut up for him at $5,900.
Second Base
Gleyber Torres
Brandon Drury
Matt Reynolds (if leading off)
Shortstop
Trea Turner
Matt Reynolds (if leading off)
Jeremy Pena
Luis Urias
Third Base
Manny Machado
Brandon Drury
Jose Ramirez
Brad Miller
Outfield
Aaron Judge
Mike Trout
Kyle Garlick
Jesse Winker
Byron Buxton
J.D. Martinez
AJ Pollock
That’s it! Good luck to everybody, and have a great weekend!