Shane Bieber Opening Night Start
Our high stakes analyst Shawn Childs breaks down every starting pitcher on the mound tonight, including who to start, and who you should stack your team against, including Shane Bieber, who may cost a lot but will be worth it as he takes on the Royals.
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00:00More than 26 pitchers will take the mound on Friday night for the first big slate of
00:05the 2020 MLB season, but finding the right pitcher for your DFS lineups would be a little
00:10bit daunting.
00:11Luckily, we have Sean Childs, fantasy baseball analyst here at Sports Illustrated, and also
00:16Cleveland baseball insider editor, Matt Lodi.
00:19Sean, I'm going to go to you first.
00:21Let's talk about some of the pitchers that you liked for DFS lineups on Friday night.
00:26The top pitcher for me is Jack Flaherty.
00:28He was really, really impressive at the end of last year.
00:31He has four pitches that are really, really tough to hit.
00:33He's a two-to-one favorite today, and he has a four-on-one record against the Pirates with
00:37an ERA under two and with almost a strikeout inning.
00:40I expect him to go close to six innings.
00:43He threw a lot of pitches in his last warm-up start in 92, so he should be good to go.
00:48Shane Beaver is another attractive player, and it's all about command with him.
00:52He has a favorable matchup as well.
00:55The other pitcher is Aaron Knoller, who's pitching against Miami.
00:59The game should be a little more competitive because I like Sandy Alcantara on the other
01:02side, but Knoller is a guy that was really, really impressive two years ago.
01:07He has command, and he has upside and strikeouts, and I expect some length out of him.
01:12The key here is just not getting guys that are going to get knocked out before five innings
01:15and this kind of different era of fantasy baseball with no spring training, really.
01:21Matt, let me go over to you.
01:23Let's talk about Shane Beaver taking the mound tonight.
01:25What do you expect to see?
01:26Yeah, the Indians are certainly very high on Beaver, a 15-game winner a year ago, got
01:31national attention when he won the All-Star Game MVP at Progressive Field, and he's the
01:36opening day starter, so the Indians have a lot of faith in him.
01:39I know he's a guy who really wants to prove himself.
01:42I've heard a number of people talk about him possibly being in the race for the Cy Young
01:46this year.
01:47Many people thought the Indians would go with Mike Clevenger as their ace out of the starting
01:50rotation, but Beaver has really proved himself.
01:54He's just gotten better and better.
01:55He had a very good spring and good year until everything got shut down, and then when summer
01:58camp started at Progressive Field, he pitched very well there.
02:01So he certainly has earned his spot, and I think he's going to have a good performance
02:05against the Royals tonight.
02:06All right.
02:08Good performance is needed because if you take a look at his DraftKings salary, it is
02:13at $10,300, one of the more expensive pitchers for tonight's slate.
02:18We have plenty of more at MLB DFS advice.
02:22You can check it out by going to si.com slash fantasy.