MLB Sim Sports Picks for 7/2/20 on FanDuel
A short slate doesn't have to be a bad one. Thursday's simulated offering on FanDuel proves that.
Although there are just five games, we've got a handful of pitchers who put up big strikeout numbers last year, and our pickings for stacks aren't slim. Not only can you still follow your usual process, but you have multiple routes for doing so.
Here's an overview of those routes sorted by the FanDuel salary of the starting pitchers. The individual numbers are from starts they made in 2019, and the opponent numbers are based on current active rosters against that pitcher's handedness last year.
| Pitcher | Salary | Opponent | SIERA | Strikeout % | Walk % | Opp. K % | Opp. wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Patrick Corbin | $10,200 | STL | 3.88 | 28.5% | 8.4% | 22.4% | 96 |
| David Price | $9,000 | CIN | 3.85 | 28.0% | 7.0% | 22.8% | 102 |
| Luis Castillo | $8,300 | LOS | 3.95 | 28.9% | 10.1% | 20.2% | 122 |
| Brandon Woodruff | $8,000 | CHC | 3.60 | 29.0% | 6.1% | 23.5% | 108 |
| Jesus Luzardo | $7,700 | BAL | -- | -- | -- | 21.0% | 98 |
| Jon Lester | $7,300 | MIL | 4.49 | 21.6% | 6.8% | 20.7% | 102 |
| Reynaldo Lopez | $6,600 | TOR | 4.88 | 20.9% | 8.0% | 25.1% | 85 |
| Adam Wainwright | $6,400 | WAS | 4.70 | 20.5% | 8.6% | 21.5% | 97 |
| Matt Shoemaker | $6,100 | CWS | 4.54 | 22.2% | 8.3% | 25.6% | 107 |
| Wade LeBlanc | $5,500 | OAK | 5.01 | 16.9% | 5.1% | 19.1% | 114 |
The top four options at pitcher are all solid, but it's hard to pass up the discount on Brandon Woodruff ($8,000).
Woodruff is facing the Chicago Cubs, who have a quality offense. However, they're more than willing to whiff with a 23.5% strikeout rate against righties, and Woodruff had the highest strikeout rate last year among pitchers on the slate. It's well within Woodruff's range of outcomes to be the highest-scoring pitcher tonight, making him our top option.
After Woodruff, things are pretty even between Patrick Corbin ($10,200) and David Price ($9,000). Both had similar strikeout rates last year, and the strikeout rates of their opponents are with in 0.4 percentage points of each other. The difference-maker here is that Price is both lower-salaried and at home, giving him a slight edge for the number two slot behind Woodruff.
Although Woodruff's salary gives us flexibility in our stacks, we may not need it with the Oakland Athletics grading out as the top offense of the night. They're facing Wade LeBlanc, who had poor results and peripherals last year as a starter. Among the righties, though, only Marcus Semien ($3,700) has a salary higher than $3,100. Semien, Khris Davis ($3,100), Matt Chapman ($3,000), and Ramon Laureano ($2,700) all have loads of pop against lefties, and none of the parks on this slate are super hitter-friendly, so the A's stand out no matter how you play it at pitcher.
After the A's, the Chicago White Sox stand out in their matchup with Matt Shoemaker. Shoemaker has made just 26 starts the past three seasons, and his ERA has been above 4.50 in two of those seasons. That's unlikely to make the sims view him in a positive light. Shoemaker's also a righty, which means we can justify Yoan Moncada ($3,800) on a slate where he's affordable, and that'll always make your lineups look a bit sweeter.
If you need some additional sticks, you can stay in that same game and check out the Toronto Blue Jays. They're facing Reynaldo Lopez, who flashed at times last year but finished with a 4.88 SIERA and 5.38 ERA. Bo Bichette ($3,100) put up an impressive .245 isolated slugging percentage in a small sample against righties as a rookie, making him the focal point of a Blue Jays stack.
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.
