3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 4/22/19

Chris Sale, P, Boston Red Sox

Price: $8,400

If there was something wrong with Chris Sale at the start of the season (and it really looked like there was), it's starting to look like he's over it.

His poor results in his first couple starts looked like a lot more than variance. In his first outing of the year he only averaged a 92.1 mile-per-hour velocity on his fastballs, which was down from 94.8 in the 2018 season. That number even fell to 89.3 miles per hour in his second start, but he's really picked things up, and he came in above last season's average with 95.4 miles per hour in his most recent outing. He gave up four earned runs in that one, but he also punched out a season-high six over 5 innings in a tough matchup against the New York Yankees.

Betting on a one-game sample to mean a full return to form is a bit of a gamble, but we're also getting Sale priced quite low tonight. If he was up north of $10,000 we might want another high-velocity game to quell our fears, but without any true top pitching studs today, you're taking on some risk wherever you go at the position.

It's also tough to match Chris Sale's upside. He finished first among starting pitchers with a 36.2% strikeout rate in 2017, and while he didn't quite pitch enough innings to qualify last year, he actually upped that to an absurd 38.4%. he also turned in a skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) below 2.60 in each of those two seasons.

Oddsmakers seem to think Sale is back in full too, as the Boston Red Sox are huge -230 favorites and the Detroit Tigers' 3.28 implied total is the lowest on the slate.