We have yet another Friday full of Major League Baseball! There are 12 games on tonight’s main DFS slate for FanDuel and DraftKings that locks at 7:05 p.m. ET, and I’m going to do my best to guide you to the top options.
RotoBaller has all your fantasy baseball and DFS needs! Check our probable pitchers page to see all of today’s starters, and be sure to utilize our MLB DFS Optimizer to create unique lineups for tonight’s slate!
When we're looking for pitchers, we want to target guys who can limit runs and pitch deep enough into games to pick up wins. That said, we don’t always need to target pitchers on heavily favored teams. In fact, we want strikeouts more than anything whenever possible, as the scoring system on both FanDuel and DraftKings really rewards pitchers who rack up Ks. Narrowing down the list for tonight’s games was a challenge today, but here are my five favorite arms for MLB DFS contests.
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Best starting pitchers, sleeper SPs for Friday's MLB DFS contests
By Dan Palyo
Mitch Keller, Pirates @ Mariners ($10,100 DK, $11,400 FD)
While Kevin Gausman makes for a compelling option against Minnesota tonight, I favor Keller as the top arm on the board. He’s slightly less expensive on DK and slightly more expensive than Gausman on FD, which could end up lowering his ownership.
Keller has been in peak form for his past five starts. In that stretch, he’s struck out eight-plus hitters and allowed no more than two earned runs every time out. He’s throwing strikes early and often, walking just three hitters over his past five games.
The matchup against Seattle is a good one for strikeouts, and I have Keller projected for seven or eight tonight. He's also in a good ballpark for run prevention, and Vegas agrees that this contest will probably be low scoring (O/U 7 runs).
Hunter Brown, Astros @ A's ($9,900 DK, $10,300 FD)
We go from one impressive young arm to another here with Brown. While Keller is finally breaking out in his fourth year as a pro, Brown is doing it as a rookie and living up to his preseason hype.
After struggling with his control early in the season, Brown seems to have conquered those demons, walking just two hitters over his past three starts (16 innings).
While I usually don’t like attacking teams with a pitcher that they just saw in his last start, I think we can make an exception here with just how bad Oakland has been offensively against RHPs this year. They lead MLB with a 26-percent strikeout rate against righties and are near the bottom of the league in offensive production with a lowly 85 wRC+.
Brown was dominant against Oakland last week with nine strikeouts over six solid frames. I think he’s good for six or seven tonight, and that output, paired with a likely win (he’s a -265 favorite), should give us the 20-plus DK points we are looking for from our top arms.
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George Kirby, Mariners vs. Pirates ($9,300 DK, $10,600 FD)
Kirby and Mitch Keller are squaring off in what could shape up to be the best pitchers’ duel of the night. While he hasn’t been racking up strikeouts at the same rate as Keller, Kirby has been pitching incredibly well. He now has seven straight quality starts, meaning he’s pitched six-plus innings while allowing three earned runs or fewer in each of those games.
Kirby has had some of the best control of any pitcher in baseball, too, walking no more than one batter in every start this season.
While the Pirates were a surging offense in April, they’ve regressed badly in May. Pittsburgh has dropped to just a 90 wRC+ against RHPs and has seen their power numbers evaporate, too, with only an ISO of .146.
With Kirby pitching deep into games, we can feel pretty good about his chances of piling up fantasy points and adding a healthy number of strikeouts. His FD price feels steep, but at $9.3K on DraftKings, I think he’s a solid choice for cash games.
Chris Sale, Red Sox @ Diamondbacks ($9,000 DK, $10,100 FD)
You can see that I am in favor of paying up if at all possible and using more of your salary cap on pitching if you can today. My first four pitchers are all over $10K on FanDuel, but with so many games, it’s usually not too hard to find some offensive value to shoehorn a $10K pitcher into your build. Playing two $9K pitchers on DraftKings eats up quite a bit of salary cap, but once again, I think there’s usually enough value to make it work, especially in cash games.
Now, let’s talk about Sale. He’s sporting a 5.01 ERA but has one of the better SIERAs on the slate at 3.35. He’s also been in really good form lately and is starting to look more like the version of Sale that we were used to seeing in his prime.
Over his past four starts, Sale has allowed seven earned runs over 27 innings while piling up 32 strikeouts. Arizona has middling offensive numbers against lefties and Sale’s recent stretch of elite control and strikeouts makes me think he’s figured it out and could dominate again.
Matthew Liberatore, Cardinals @ Guardians ($7,100 DK, $7,700 FD)
Finally, we have a value pitcher here with the rookie Liberatore. After an impressive debut against the Brewers, Liberatore made an appearance out of the bullpen against the Dodgers and allowed two runs, which has thrown off his stats so far.
Liberatore was dominating in Triple-A this year before getting the call up to St. Louis. He had a 30-percent strikeout rate in the minors this season and flashed his solid arsenal of a 95-mph fastball and a big, slow curveball in that first start against the Brewers.
Usually, I don’t target the Guardians with opposing pitchers, but their offense has been really struggling this season. While they don’t strike out much, they have dropped to 30th in their production against lefties with only a 74 wRC+.
At this price, I think Liberatore makes for a compelling GPP play as your SP2 on DraftKings or as your only pitcher on FanDuel if you want to fit in an expensive offensive stack.
