MLB Sim Sports Picks for 6/15/20 on FanDuel
Small-slate truthers rejoice. Your time has come.
Most of the simulated daily fantasy baseball slates on FanDuel have consisted of around 10 to 12 games. We've had abundant choices for both our pitchers and hitters.
Today, that's trimmed to four. I would say this is great practice for when we get real-world short slates again in the near future, but ya know. We'll take what we can get.
Thankfully, having fewer options doesn't mean we have to completely abandon our process. We've still got good routes to pursue at all positions.
Here are the starting pitchers on the slate, sorted by their FanDuel salary. The individual numbers are from starts they made in 2019, and the opposing numbers are based on current active rosters in 2019 against that pitcher's handedness.
| Pitcher | Salary | Opponent | SIERA | Strikeout % | Walk % | Opp. K% | Opp. wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Walker Buehler | $11,400 | ARI | 3.50 | 29.2% | 5.0% | 21.8% | 96 |
| Carlos Carrasco | $10,600 | BAL | 3.49 | 28.7% | 4.0% | 21.5% | 86 |
| Lance Lynn | $9,500 | KAN | 3.83 | 28.1% | 6.7% | 22.1% | 93 |
| Robbie Ray | $8,300 | LOS | 4.02 | 31.5% | 11.2% | 21.9% | 105 |
| Julio Teheran | $7,700 | OAK | 5.11 | 21.5% | 11.0% | 22.8% | 109 |
| Jesus Luzardo | $6,800 | LAA | -- | -- | -- | 19.8% | 102 |
| Brad Keller | $6,400 | TEX | 5.23 | 17.2% | 9.9% | 25.5% | 89 |
| John Means | $6,000 | CLE | 5.19 | 17.9% | 5.8% | 20.8% | 104 |
The one ripple effect of a shorter slate is that we have fewer outlets for value hitters. That gives a slightly increased incentive to save at pitcher. As a result, Lance Lynn ($9,500) is going to check in as our top arm of the night.
Lynn is facing the Kansas City Royals, who have the highest opposing strikeout rate for any of the top four starters. Lynn, himself, can rack up the strikeouts, and -- importantly, as the simulations do account for this -- he pitched deep into games last year. At a $1,900 discount from Walker Buehler ($11,400), Lynn checks each of the boxes we need.
Buehler may even wind up down in third on our list because of the matchup Carlos Carrasco ($10,600) gets with the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore's 86 wRC+ against righties is worst on the slate, and Carrasco's strikeout rate as a starter was just 0.5 percentage points lower than Buehler's. Questions around Carrasco's length in the simulations keeps him behind Lynn, but we can take the savings and put him ahead of Buehler.
Using Lynn as our pitcher should give us the ability to stack Cleveland against John Means, who had just a 17.9% strikeout rate last year. Domingo Santana ($2,600) is batting sixth and had a .238 isolated slugging percentage against southpaws last year, making him the focal point of stacking this team.
The Texas Rangers' offense isn't as stout as Cleveland's, but they're probably still our second-best stack. They're facing Brad Keller, whose 5.23 SIERA is highest on the slate. Keller's a righty, which gives most of the Rangers' hitters the platoon advantage, as well. Willie Calhoun must have slipped through the cracks as his salary is just $2,100, essentially making him an auto-play whether you're stacking the Rangers or not. Using him should allow you to include Joey Gallo ($3,900) in your stacks no matter which pitcher you decide to use.
Finally, if you need additional hitters, you could check out the Oakland Athletics against Julio Teheran. Specifically, the left-handed batters stand out as Teheran had a 6.12 xFIP against lefties last year versus 4.67 against righties. This allows you to go at Matt Olson ($3,400) if you have the money for a high-salaried one-off or Tony Kemp ($2,000) if you're in a salary crunch.
The author of this article has no involvement with the MLB Sim Sports simulations powered by numberFire and has no knowledge of the results of tonight’s contest.
