MLB DFS Lineup Tips for Wednesday May 22, 2019

Major League Baseball is king today without either of the NHL or NBA playing tonight. We have 16 games to watch today, but a 10-game main slate on most sites, which is the slate we will be targeting.

Pitching

There are a few elite pitchers on this slate, and I think choosing one of the three will be a popular discussion on this slate. One of these guys is almost guaranteed to have a good game, with all three in average-to-great matchups combined with incredible talent. Gerrit Cole is the most expensive of the top tier pitchers on most sites, and I think that is justified with the matchup vs. the White Sox. I prefer Cole on BetOnline over DraftKings based on the pricing structures.

Scherzer and deGrom are both priced below Cole on both sites, but he is priced closer to them on BetOnline, making him more reasonable to play there. I prefer Max Scherzer over deGrom and Cole on both sites due to his price and matchup combination. I have lacked respect for the Mets lineup all year, and now they could be without guys like Brandon Nimmo and Michael Conforto in this matchup, two of their best hitters who are both left-handed.

Jacob deGrom is someone that I like on DraftKings over Gerrit Cole, but not someone that I plan on having a ton of. I think that the Nationals lineup is much better than it has been for most of the season and they have a lot of speed to take advantage of deGrom on the basepath.

In the next tier of pitching, my favorite two pitchers are Max Fried and Jon Gray, respectively, for their price tags. Both of these players are young, talented, and playing in elite pitchers parks vs. teams that lack power.

I prefer Gray very slightly from a raw points perspective, but I prefer Fried where he is cheaper. You can play Rich Hill or Cole Hamels if you want to, but I think Hill lacks elite upside with his generally limited pitch count. Hamels plays a good Philadelphia team in Wrigley with winds projected to be blowing out around 15 MPH, which is enough for me to avoid altogether.

The bottom tier of pitching is pretty bad, and there are only five players that I would even consider. Those five are Chirinos, Sabathia, Sanchez, Norris, and Urena. Chirinos is the best pitcher of the bunch talent-wise, but he is also facing one of the better lineups of the five.

Aaron Sanchez is also in a bad matchup, but he is pretty similar to a less-talented version of Marcus Stroman, who did have success vs. Boston last night. Sabathia has very little upside, but he is still elite at generating soft contact. The Orioles are bad, and he should be able to go five or six innings and get a win without getting killed.

Norris and Urena are two that really depend on ownership for me. Both pitchers are above gas can, but neither is good. The good news for them is that they face bad offenses in a big park, and they both have a decent shot of getting the win.

Stacks

The Yankees stack is the best on the slate vs. Dan Straily. Gary Sanchez has NINE home runs vs. the Orioles this season, while Gleyber Torres has eight. I think those numbers can increase again today in another elite matchup for the Yankees.

Ivan Nova has been pretty hit or miss recently. The Astros have been on a tear, so I am not going to bet against them here. Nova is not a typical gas can, but he’s far from being a good pitcher.

My favorite non-chalk stack is the Cubs against Cole Irvin. Irvin is a bad prospect that should not be in the majors. I hope that people only look at Irvin’s first few games and assume he is good because he is NOT, at all.