MLB

FanDuel Pitching Primer: Monday 9/14/20

Tonight is a tiny main slate for baseball. What pitching options look tempting?

In daily fantasy baseball, success starts with nailing the starting pitcher spot in your lineup.

When compared to hitters, pitching performance tends to be much more predictable and stable throughout the course of the season. You know what you're getting from a top-level ace when you roster him: probably a dominant effort with only one or two implosions per season. In contrast, even the game's best hitters have days at the plate when they go 0-for-4.

As a result, lineup construction should begin with the starting pitcher. Which pitchers should you consider on today's main slate?

High-Salaried Option

Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles Dodgers

At San Diego Padres

FanDuel Salary: $10,600

It's an absolutely bizarre main slate tonight on FanDuel with such a limited number of games, and we essentially have two tiers -- three really expensive arms, and the rest are pretty cheap.

In that high-priced arena, Clayton Kershaw seems like your best bet. Now, this is matchup is fraught with some speed bumps -- his opponent, the San Diego Padres, absolutely smashes left-handed pitching. On the season, they have smashed lefties for a .186 ISO, 42.2% hard-hit rate. and a .442 slugging percentage.

Kershaw, however, has been nasty in his own right -- he's whiffed 25.7% of hitters this year, and he's particularly limited righties with a .274 wOBA and .374 slugging percentage in the split.

With Dinelson Lamet facing Kershaw's Dodgers and Jose Berrios locking horns with the Chicago White Sox, Kershaw seems like the right play.

Mid-Salaried / Low-Salaried Play

Touki Toussaint, Atlanta Braves

At Baltimore Orioles

FanDuel Price: $6,800

We really are going back to the Touki Toussaint well, and it's largely due to the lack of solid options tonight on the slate.

Toussaint showed in his brief run in the rotation earlier this season he can be effective -- he generates a pile of swings and misses as evidenced by his 27.5% strikeout rate -- and he simply needs to limit the free passes. He's posted a 13.0% walk rate, and if he can avoid consistently falling behind hitters (he possesses a lowly 56.9% first-pitch strike rate), he can cook.

The Baltimore Orioles, meanwhile, seem obliged to play the role of friendly host. They sport a .328 wOBA and 30.1% hard-hit rate against righties this year, so unless they can cook up some Camden Yards magic, they could be in for a long evening.


Matt Kupferle is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Matt Kupferle also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username MKupferle. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.