FanDuel Price: $8,700
So after Hamels, who is the next best option? Each of Trevor Bauer, Chris Archer, Julio Urias, and Kyle Gibson have either Vegas or strikeout potential on their side, so they are in play.
But Francisco Liriano is the next guy you want to target.
With more than a 9.0 strikeouts per nine innings mark and a 51 percent groundball rate, Liriano possesses both the strikeout upside and damage-reducing batted ball profile to be a stud pitcher. But the results haven’t followed this season.
With a home run-to-fly ball rate of 21.9 percent -- 10 points above his career average -- he’s been tortured by the long ball, and it has severely impacted his ability to produce FanDuel points.
This number should regress over the course of the season to his career average and that regression should start tonight with the Giants, who are 27th in the league against lefties with just a .136 ISO.
Liriano’s Pirates are a coin flip to win tonight according to Vegas, so without a high probability of getting the FanDuel 12-point win bonus, Liriano should be limited to being a high-upside tournament option.