MLB – On the Hill – June 6

I was able to register my first “Perfect 10” last Friday night, recommending the top four pitchers in DraftKing’s scoring and receiving “A+” grades across the board! Let’s see if I can duplicate the feat again tonight with a modest 10-game slate without many top pitching options to choose from.

Ace

Jon Lester (FD-$11,000 / DK-$11,600)

Lester is the clear choice as the top pitching option on tonight’s slate. He has pitched like an ace this season and will face a Phillies team that struggles against lefties with a 24.1% strikeout rate (5th worst), .105 ISO (2nd worst) and .266 wOBA (2nd worst). Lester also comes in as the biggest favorite of the night. Lester is viable as both as Cash and GPP option.

Value

Chris Archer (FD-$9,000 / DK-$7,900)

Recommending Archer tonight makes me a little bit nervous. He has struggled to put it all together this season with a high walk rate and home run rate but makes up for it with a high strikeout rate. He will face the Diamondbacks who rank in the middle of the pack against righties in most offensive categories. My biggest concern regarding Archer is the ballpark and weather as he will be pitching in Arizona with temperatures over 100 degrees. I would only consider Archer as a GPP option tonight and hope that he can miss enough bats to rack up double-digit strikeouts because if he gets hit the ball is going to be flying.

Christian Friedrich (FD-$5,800 / DK-$7,500)

Now that I have my high risk/high reward recommendation out of the way with Archer, my next recommendation is a low risk/low reward option in Friedrich. Friedrich carries a 2.53 ERA into tonight’s contest against the Braves but with a 5.68 SIERRA his ERA will not last as the season progresses. However, facing a very weak Braves’ offense in pitcher-friendly San Diego, Friedrich should be able to continue to limit the damage and have a good chance for a win tonight. Friedrich is a solid cheap pitching option if you are looking to pay down in Cash games.

Darkhorse

James Paxton (FD-$7,100 / DK-$6,800)

Paxton was rushed up to make an emergency start for the injured Felix Hernandez Wednesday and the results weren’t good allowing eight runs (three earned) and 10 hits in 3+ innings in San Diego. However, he did have seven strikeouts and just one walk and pitched decent for the Mariners last season with a 3.90 ERA in 13 starts. Due to the poor start his last time out I don’t expect many people to be on Paxton tonight making him a good, cheap GPP option pitching at home against an Indians’ team that has the 5th worst ISO (.133) against lefties with a league average wOBA and K%.

Bonus: If you want to go really deep then I also like Danny Duffy at only $4,300 on DraftKings as another potential Darkhorse option.

On the Hill – Results

Friday

Season

• DK Cost is the average DraftKings cost per pitcher selected
• DK Pts is the average DraftKings points scored per pitcher selected
• DO Score is the Daily Overlay score for each type

Come back to DailyOverlay later today for the MLB Consensus list and some sample MLB lineups.

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