3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 6/1/18

Chris Sale, P, Boston Red Sox

Price: $11,000

Tonight, we are blessed with a phenomenal pitching matchup between Chris Sale and Gerrit Cole. Even though this means that both pitchers draw tough matchups, with the Astros and Red Sox boasting two of the best offenses in the Majors, these two remain outstanding fantasy plays. The task today is figuring out which one to play.

This game has a low 7.0 over/under, and the teams have the slate's two lowest implied totals (Boston at 3.43 and Houston at 3.57). The Astros are slight favorites (-114) here, but even as an underdog, Sale is the top fantasy option of the two.

Cole has the edge in both SIERA (2.26 to Sale's 2.64) and strikeout rate (39.4% to Sale's 34.8%) this season, but he has the tougher fantasy matchup of the two. Boston has a MLB-leading 120 wRC+ along with a minuscule 18.3% strikeout rate (the second-lowest) against right-handed pitching. The Astros have a 118 wRC+ against southpaws, and for fantasy purposes their 21.3% strikeout rate is high enough to make things interesting.

Working in Sale's favor moving forward, he does have a significant edge (15.9% to 14.6%) in swinging-strike rate. He has also proven that swing-and-miss stuff over a much bigger sample than Cole. Sale has strikeout rates north of 30% in four of the last five seasons now, while this is Cole's first time cracking 25%. Regression certainly isn't a guarantee for Cole, but there's much more telling us that Sale's work hasn't been any sort of a fluke.

numberFire's models are also on the Sale side of this debate, projecting him for the most fantasy points among today's pitchers.