MLB Pitching Pulse: 6-15-18

Pitching is the lifeblood of a DFS lineup, and an important part of keeping those tabs open deep into the night. For those new with us, the Pitching Pulse is focused on providing information on four to five pitchers that are viable in various formats. This is a premium article that will give away one free preview pitcher, while the rest will be for premium members. We take a deep dive into pitchers across all salaries, looking for exploitable matchups, game theory plays, and identify the nightly chalk. Our information comes from our optimizer, FanGraphs, and other various MLB sites listed below. Feel free to comment below, or find us on Twitter at @BrentHeiden1, @JGuilbault11, and @dfcafe. We focus on Main Slates across all content, but will feature blurbs about other slates at times, and can be reached via Twitter or comments.

At this point, putting Corey Kluber in an article is almost cheating, but I am going to do so anyways. Kluber has been one of the top arms in the Majors and is coming off his 10th win of the season. He has pitched into the seventh inning in all but two of his 14 starts this year and boasts a 27.5% strikeout rate overall. He has notched at least eight strikeouts in six outings this season, including double-digit strikeouts in four of those, and boasts some of the best numbers in the league across the board. Kluber is generating a massive 33% O-Swing rate (swings on pitches outside of the zone), boasts a 60.9% ahead rate, a 75.9% contact rate, and 17.9% poor hit rating this season, all numbers that lead to him being incredibly successful night in and night out. He faces off against a Twins offense that is just middle of the pack this season, posting a 21.9% strikeout rate and 97 wRC+, and also has several batters with rather high strikeout rates. Obviously, the loss of Miguel Sano in the lineup is a little bit of a hit to Kluber's strikeout rate but he still comes in as the safest pitcher across the board, and one with one of the highest ceilings on tonight's slates. For me, he is more of a cash game option, as I think there are a few better pitchers for GPPs, but he is the best cash option on the board.