The following Spotlight Pitchers were selected by Awesemo.com writer Jake Hari. For more analysis on the slate, check out Awesemo’s Rankings and Ownership Projections.
Clayton Kershaw ($11,900 DK/$10,700 FD)
Kershaw is someone I haven’t played much this season, but that will change tonight against a Ryan Braun-less Brewers team. While he may not be vintage Kershaw this season, he’s still striking out over 25% of righties while creating over 50% ground balls and allowing only 31% hard-contact against them. The Brewers are striking out almost 26% of the time against lefties over the last month, and Kershaw was back up to 108 pitches in his last start which is great to see for a $12K pitcher. On a night where I think Verlander is overpriced, I’ll take the discount with Kershaw in GPPs.
Trevor Cahill ($9,000 DK/$6,900 FD)
Cahill will probably not be popular because of his $9K price tag on DraftKings and because of the fact that he’s coming off an underwhelming start against the Astros. There were some positives in that start, though, as he got up to 83 pitches and posted a 13.3% Swinging-Strike rate. Tonight’s start will come at home versus the Giants, who strikeout the 9th-most against RHP (23.5%) on the year. Cahill is striking out 25.6% of lefties and overall, has excellent swing-and-miss stuff, so this price tag and ownership, consider me in on Trevor Cahill.
Zack Godley ($8,400 DK/$8,700 FD)
Godley looks to be getting back to his last-season form, posting back-to-back 6 inning, 7K games with 17% Swinging-Strike rates and 48% O-Swing rates in both of them. He has at least an 11.2% Swinging-Strike rate in each of his last 4 starts as well while ranking in the top-20 in Whiffs/Swing% in July. When the Rockies go up against a righty outside of Coors, they have a 24.3% K-rate, .294 OBP, and just an 81 wRC+. On DraftKings for a mid-tier price, Godley makes for a solid GPP option with upside if he can continue to miss bats at this exceptional rate.
