FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Monday 4/17/23

Monday's main slate should be a fun one. In addition to having baseball's best pitcher taking the mound, we also have a Coors Field matchup to savor for our bats.

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Let's check out the top options on today's main slate.

Pitching Breakdown

Following a shaky Opening Day start, Jacob deGrom ($10,600) has righted the ship with fantasy scores of 58 and 46 FanDuel points, and despite a higher ERA than we might expect, the underlying numbers are at that elite deGrom level between a 1.93 SIERA, 40.9% strikeout rate, and 3.0% walk rate.

He's facing the Royals for the second straight start, which is typically a negative, but this is deGrom and Kansas City we're talking about. Dating back to 2022, the Royals' active roster has an 85 wRC+ versus right-handed pitching, which is tied for the second-worst mark. They have easily the night's lowest implied team total (3.17).

The right-hander got up to 98 pitches in his last start, so he appears to be just about fully stretched out, as well. We shouldn't overthink this -- deGrom is the slate's top option.

Picking the next-best choice is a little trickier, but there's a case for Corbin Burnes ($10,000). Burnes stumbled out of the gate with a pair of concerning starts, but he bounced back in a big way last week against Arizona, logging 8 scoreless innings with 8 strikeouts on his way to 58 FanDuel points. While his overall 2023 numbers remain underwhelming, that performance was a promising sign that the guy who put up a 2.91 SIERA and 30.5% strikeout rate in 2022 is back.

Seattle is hardly a cupcake matchup, but there could be some added upside for Burnes if he's dealing again. The Mariners' active roster has the 10th-highest strikeout rate against righties (23.1%) going back to last year.

Following those two, we also have Kevin Gausman ($11,100) and Cristian Javier ($9,900) as other options.

Gausman has been brilliant to begin the year with a 2.74 SIERA, 31.6% strikeout rate, and 3.8% walk rate, and it's led to 43, 49, and 52 FanDuel points. He also got up 103 pitches in his last start, so workload shouldn't be an issue moving forward. However, his sky-high salary and a matchup against Houston arguably places him behind deGrom and Burnes. It's worth noting that the bottom half of the Astros' lineup hasn't been particularly strong so far this season, though.

Javier also has a less-than-ideal matchup versus Toronto, and he's posted just a 19.7% strikeout rate with slightly lower velocity in 2023. While he still has a 13.4% swinging-strike rate that falls in line with the last couple of seasons, he's been below that in his last two starts. Unless you're mass-entering tournaments, he might be one to pass on.

With tonight's Phillies-White Sox getting postponed due to weather, that takes both Zack Wheeler and Lance Lynn out of the picture. The loss of Lynn at his $8,500 salary leaves us with slim pickings in the value range.

Hitting Breakdown

It's a Coors Field slate, so it won't surprise you that both teams in Denver have the highest implied team totals on the board. In fact, they're also the only two teams exceeding five implied runs.

The Colorado Rockies are the side that stands out, though, as they come in with a massive 6.18 implied total against Rich Hill.

Hill had a late-career resurgence in his mid-30s, but at age 43 now, there might not be much left in the tank. The lefty has produced a 5.63 SIERA and 12.3% strikeout rate across his three 2023 starts (15 innings), and he's already allowed 6 home runs off a 50.9% fly-ball rate. Those are some damning numbers to bring to Coors, and outside of C.J. Cron ($3,800), these Rockies have pretty low salaries, including Kris Bryant ($3,100), Jurickson Profar ($2,800), Elias Diaz ($3,200), and Elehuris Montero ($3,000), all of whom will have the platoon advantage.

The Pittsburgh Pirates will face Kyle Freeland in Colorado, and they'll also have a great opportunity to put up some runs. Despite positive results so far, Freeland's posted a 5.27 SIERA and 15.7% strikeout rate, and he's been quite fortunate in the BABIP department (.212). The southpaw has been a low-strikeout pitcher throughout his career (17.1% in 2022) and has seen his ground-ball rate decrease in recent campaigns, so there isn't much for the Pirates to fear in this spot.

That being said, this isn't the most exciting lineup outside of Bryan Reynolds ($4,400), and his salary is one of the slate's highest. We should get nearly an entire lineup of righties to counter Freeland, though, and most of the other salaries are reasonable.

Moving on from Coors, the Atlanta Braves are enticing against left-hander Ryan Weathers. Weathers hasn't shown much at the highest level in his young career, logging a 4.81 SIERA and 17.4% strikeout rate across 108 1/2 career innings. Right-handed batters have had his number, as he's coughed up a whopping 1.87 home runs per 9 innings against them.

In his two 2023 starts, he's put up a mere 13.2% strikeout rate, so there isn't any reason to expect different results this year. We don't have to overpay to acquire the services of Austin Riley ($3,500) and Sean Murphy ($3,400), and while the same can't be said for Ronald Acuna ($4,600), he's off to a fast start this year, which includes already swiping seven stolen bases. The bottom half of the order comes in at value salaries of under $3,000 apiece, too.

The St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers are two more standouts.

The Cardinals are up against Merrill Kelly, who's normally a solid pitcher but simply can't find the plate this year. He's walked four batters in each of his first three starts, leading to a poor 18.8% walk rate. Additionally, Kelly wasn't particularly effective against lefties last year with a 4.60 xFIP, 19.1% strikeout rate, and 10.2% walk rate.

Brendan Donovan ($3,000) is a value lefty out of the leadoff spot, while Lars Nootbaar ($3,000) and Nolan Gorman ($3,400) give us some lefty pop. Of course, Paul Goldschmidt ($3,700) and Nolan Arenado ($3,700) are top plays for any Cardinals stack.

Left-hander David Peterson hasn't been as wild as Kelly, but he checks in with an 11.9% walk rate and has carried a double-digit walk rate his entire career. We can certainly expect the Dodgers to punish anyone who doles out too many free baserunners, with Mookie Betts ($3,700), J.D. Martinez ($3,200), and Trayce Thompson ($3,100) being the first righties to consider.

For more contrarian choices, the New York Mets and Milwaukee Brewers are teams with lower implied team totals that could surprise. The Mets are opposite Dustin May, a name that we might normally shy away from, but May's underlying numbers have been underwhelming behind a 5.12 SIERA, 17.6% strikeout rate, and 10.3% walk rate. His success is solely due to a lucky .143 BABIP. The Brewers get Chris Flexen, who was just lit up for eight earned runs by the Cubs and has an ugly 6.18 SIERA.