Daily Fantasy MLB Pitchers for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/17/17

Here's where you can find some recommendations for tournament pitchers target for FanDuel and DraftKings. Find our main set of cash game picks here.

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Pitchers

Danny Salazar FD 9800 DK 10300
Opponent - MIN (Gibson) Park - @MIN
FD - 34.17 DK - 22.58

There's not an awful lot of obvious upside at pitcher today; Salazar and the mercurial Robbie Ray are perhaps the only exceptions, and the Indians' 27-year-old righty has the best xFIP since 2015 on the slate, so we're fine rolling him out in tournament lineups, despite a less-than-ideal matchup with the Twins. Salazar has nice swing-and-miss stuff, posting a career 10.18 K/9 in nearly 500 big-league innings. But command/control has been an issue since the beginning of last season, and that's worrisome against Minnesota. We're obviously still very, very early in the season, but the Twins are working counts like nobody else so far, posting a MLB-best 12.5 BB% through the first two weeks. That could spell a short-ish outing for Salazar, even if he's on his game otherwise. The Twins also aren't striking out much right now, so, like we said, less-than-ideal. That's why we're probably avoiding Salazar in cash games, but in tournaments, the possibility of double-digit Ks is just too much to fade completely on a slate like this one.

Jharel Cotton FD 7000 DK 8200
Opponent - TEX (Griffin) Park - @OAK
FD - 30.27 DK - 19.93
We're getting into speculative territory here, because the big-league book on Cotton is not a thick one. He's got just seven starts under his belt, and while he's been solid, the sample size just isn't sufficient yet to feel truly confident that we know what we're dealing with. Here's what we like, though: he's a fly-ball pitcher in Oakland. Not getting grounders in kind of a double-edged sword. On the plus side, it typically yields low BABIPs. The danger is that more fly balls means more homers, but that's where the park comes into play -- only three venues in baseball rank lower for HR factors than Oakland Coliseum. So fly-ball guys who limit hard contact actually profile really well for the A's. And though Cotton has only displayed average strikeout stuff so far, the minor league track record suggests there's room for growth, as he's been right around 10 Ks/9 in each of the last three years. The Rangers don't have the perfect lineup to pick on, but we think there's enough swing-and-miss here to help us out, as long as Cotton and the park conspire to keep those fly balls in the yard.

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