By Kreighton Rahn
Updated: March 18, 2024

MLB Probable Pitchers for Seoul Series 2024

MLB Probable Pitchers for Wednesday, March 20

Dodgers: Tyler Glasnow v. Padres: Yu Darvish / First Pitch: 6:05 a.m. ET

Not a typo. The MLB season begins at 6:05 a.m. (3 a.m. on the West Coast) with the highly-anticipated Seoul Series in South Korea's capital. The Dodgers and Padres are over in Korea, as we speak, scrimmaging with local clubs and taking in the culture.

The Padres and Dodgers were, no doubt, the teams chosen for this Korean showcase due to their star appeal, international flavor, and loaded rosters. Japanese-born Yu Darvish will get the ball for San Diego in the opener on Wednesday morning. Both he and new Dodgers DH Shohei Ohtani (also Japanese-born) expressed that they have developed a healthy respect of Korean baseball over the years, having faced their national team as members of Samurai Japan.

Let's get into the nitty gritty of the 37-year-old Darvish, who is already in his 12th big league season after coming over to the States at age 25. The 5-time All Star suffered a career-worst season in 2023—posting an 8-10 record for the Padres with a 4.56 ERA, 1.30 WHIP, and a low 3.28 K-BB ratio that is the 2nd-worst of his career (behind his rookie season in Texas).

There was a big difference between the 25-year-old rookie Yu Darvish in 2012 and his 36-year-old self last year. The rookie Darvish won 16 games, made the All-Star team, and punched out 221 batters despite the terrible K-BB ratio. The 2023 version of Yu did none of that.

The 2012 Rangers won 93 games. The 2023 Padres were an embarrassment—squandering a record-high payroll and failing to make the postseason with an 82-80 record. As the team's top-paid pitcher and long-tenured clubhouse leader, Darvish felt immense responsibility for his team's failures. What a bounce-back spot. What a time to make a statement that he's still an effective big-league pitcher.

Last year, Darvish still had decent stuff, per his Baseball Savant percentiles. 71st percentile in barrel rate. 64th percentile in average exit velocity. 63rd percentile in xERA. 72nd percentile in run value on his offspeed pitches. We didn't see much evidence of these underlying metrics on the field, though.

Yu wasn't great in every department. 28th percentile in chase rate. 42nd percentile in whiff rate. 58th percentile in fastball velo. 57th percentile in hard-hit rate. There was plenty of ugly in Darvish's numbers, too.

He loves his slider and actually threw it more often than his fastball (36% vs 35%) in 2023. The slider was working. The heater was not. Darvish's velocity isn't what it once was, which accounts for his terrible 49th percentile score in run value on fastballs last year. When we say terrible, we mean terrible for an ace pitcher on a contending team. Obviously, about half the pitchers in the league would trade their fastball for Yu Darvish's.

Darvish needs the slider to be extra nasty on Wednesday morning, as the Dodgers' offense ranked 1st in just about everything in 2023 … and now they have Shohei Ohtani. Last year's Dodgers' squad ranked 6th in Statcast Pitch Value/100 against sliders, so Darvish may be behind the 8-ball unless he's in tip-top form. The Dodgers are (-194) right now on the moneyline on FanDuel Sportsbook in Wednesday's season opener.

Breaking Down Tyler Glasnow's First Start with the LA Dodgers in Seoul

Tyler Glasnow—the oft-injured former ace of the Tampa Bay Rays—is now a Dodger and will be starting the opener in Seoul with Clayton Kershaw hurt. Glasnow is an elite pitcher when healthy (which is never guaranteed with him).

Last year, Glassy had his healthiest season in a coon's age, posting a 10-7 record with a 3.53 ERA through 21 starts. That was a career-high in starts for him.

Here were Glasnow's numbers in his 5 MLB seasons with the Rays. We sometimes forgot he was even on the Rays' roster because he got hurt every single year.

It's a shame he's hurt so often because he'd be a Cy Young candidate every single year with this type of stuff. Since the beginning of 2019, Glasnow and Jacob deGrom (also hurt all the time) are the only two starting pitchers in the MLB with a 3.02 ERA, 1.02 WHIP, and 12.5 K/9.

MLB Probable Pitchers for Thursday, March 21

Dodgers: Yoshinobu Yamamoto v. Padres: Joe Musgrove / First Pitch: 6:05 a.m. ET

While Shohei Ohtani's Dodgers debut at DH will be fun to watch, this Thursday matchup is the one MLB fans really want to see. Yamamoto's first start in the bigs should be epic.

Who is this Yamamoto dude? He's a 25-year-old who will turn 26 in August. The Dodgers signed him to the largest MLB contract ever for a pitcher after he won the pitching Triple Crown in the NPB 3 straight times. Yeah, I'd parlay that kind of success into a 325-million-dollar contract, as well.

His arsenal is deep. A fastball that can touch triple digits along with a cutter, curve, and a devastating splitter that is his out pitch (as seems to be the case with so many Japanese pitchers). He seems like a can't-miss prospect. The frustrating thing for fantasy owners and MLB player prop bettors is that Los Angeles will baby him in his first year as he adjusts to the more demanding MLB pitching schedule.

Thus far in Spring Training, Yamamoto has looked … human. He's 0-1 through 3 short starts, allowing 9 earned runs on 15 hits in 9.2 innings. He has fanned 14 batters, but the contact that has been made has been hard. Yamamoto has also walked 4 batters—an alarming number considering his stellar walk rate of right around 2 per 9 innings in Japan. His Spring WHIP right now sits at an ugly 1.97.

The opposing pitcher in Thursday morning's duel is Joe Musgrove. Unlike Yamamoto, who traveled thousands of miles to join the Dodgers, Musgrove is a hometown kid who wouldn't rather be anywhere else than San Diego.

Musgrove has also been getting lit up this Spring (1-2, 13.50 ERA), but he was an incredible pitcher last year with a 10-3 record, 3.05 ERA, and 1.14 WHIP in 17 starts for the Friars. These numbers are right in line with his 3-year averages for San Diego since landing with the club in 2021. Musgrove's stuff is clearly not as flashy as Yamamoto's, but he's a 1-time MLB All Star—something the Dodgers' prospect can't say.

Musgrove has won double-digit games in each of his past 4 full seasons (2020 excluded) and has a whole lot of red on his Baseball Savant percentiles page. xERA, average exit velo, chase percentage, walk rate, barrel percentage, hard-hit rate—all in the 80s and above. In fact, his chase rate is nearly unparalleled in the game right now, ranking in the 99th percentile in baseball.

Musgrove threw his curveball 23.9% of the time in 2023 and got a whole lot of swings on pitches down by the ankles (or lower). Joe Musgrove has not always been a 23.9% curveball pitcher. Far from it. He barely threw that pitch early in his career but now spikes one nearly as frequently as he throws his heater (which is 24.5% of the time).

Of course, the Dodgers' offense covers this well, too. Last year, the Dodgers ranked 2nd in the bigs (behind Atlanta) in Statcast pitch value/100 against curves. There is a reason that the Dodgers are given (-166) moneyline odds to win this Thursday morning affair despite a completely unknown starting on the mound versus an excellent Padres offense.

MLB Probable Pitchers: Understanding FanDuel's MLB DFS Scoring System

FanDuel's DFS games award fantasy points for the following pitcher actions:

Out recorded: 1 point

Strikeout: 3 points (in addition to the 1 point for an out)

Earned run allowed: -3 points

Quality start: 4 points

Win: 6 points

A quality start is defined as a start of 6 innings or more while allowing 3 earned runs or fewer. A little over one-third of all starts in 2023 were "quality." Some around the game of baseball complain that quality starts are an outdated stat and that the definition needs to be reworked.

Today's managers dislike letting their starting pitchers face batters the 3rd time through a lineup, which causes many starts to fall short of the 6-inning threshold for "quality"—even if the pitcher is faring well. There is also the use of openers which ruins a chance for a quality start by the bulk man.

A typical start for a modern MLB pitcher might look like 5 innings, 3 runs allowed, with 6 strikeouts. This would net the pitcher 15 points for the outs recorded, 18 for the strikeouts, minus 9 for the runs allowed. That's a total of 24 fantasy points.

Of course, the pitcher would get 6 more points if he was credited with the win. Again, many are clamoring for a rule change on what constitutes a win in Major League Baseball. As the rule currently states, a starting pitcher must go at least 5 innings to get the win, leave the game with the lead, and hope his bullpen doesn't relinquish that lead.

Three points for a strikeout is a lot. Obviously, when all else is equal, pitchers who generate more strikeouts should be valued more heavily. With the 10 points possible for the quality start-win combo, however, finding pitchers in positions to pitch deep and win the game should be the #1 priority in MLB DFS.

MLB Probable Pitchers - Cash Game and GPP Tournament Options at Starting Pitcher

Cash games and tournaments are the 2 main types of MLB DFS games on FanDuel Sportsbook. Tournaments award large prizes to the very best lineups from a huge field while most of the participants walk away with nothing. Cash games award a small prize to a large portion of the field and are more of a grind.

Deep tournaments—also called GPPs because of their guaranteed prize pool—require a big score. Your lineup will be up against hundreds or even thousands of other entries, and simple statistics says some of those entries will achieve outstanding scores. You need to be one of those outstanding scores if you want the type of massive payday you can retire after.

Because a "pretty good" fantasy score won't cut it in a GPP, you need to go for broke when constructing your tournament lineup. Risk is a necessity in GPP lineups. Streaky players who often lay a dud but sometimes explode for a monster day are excellent tournament options for your MLB DFS lineup but should be avoided in cash.

Cash games don't require a big score. A "pretty good" score is just fine for cash, so lineup strategy in these formats should be altered. For cash games, it's important to focus on consistency and reliability. You want a starting pitcher with a high floor, which means they are very unlikely to lay a dud.

Taking risks on streaky, volatile players is not necessary in cash games. A mediocre performance is just fine most of the time. A dud performance will tank your chances.

MLB Probable Pitchers - Utilizing 2-Start Pitchers in Season-Long Fantasy Baseball

MLB pitchers typically throw once every 5 days, and (last time we checked) a week has 7 days in it. This means that pitchers can start twice in a single week if that first start happens to fall on a Monday or Tuesday. For decades, savvy season-long fantasy baseball players have used 2-start pitchers to gain a competitive edge over their leaguemates.

Having a 2-start pitcher (or multiple) in your lineup gives you an incredible advantage, allowing you to rack up more stats than a lineup full of one-start pitchers. With the potential to amass a slew of wins, strikeouts, and innings pitched, a 2-start pitcher is a precious commodity. However, with great power comes great responsibility. You must be careful to avoid the most deadly 2-start pitcher mistake in the book - starting Joe Schmoe solely because he's a 2-starter and suffering through 2 -EV duds.

It's crucial to choose wisely and factor in the opposing team's offenses, the pitcher's history of success against those teams, and their recent performance and season statistics before blindly throwing a 2-start pitcher onto your team.

Got an ace like Dylan Cease in a 2-start week against the Athletics and the Royals? That's an automatic, 100%, no doubt about it, sure-fire start. A washed-up has-been like Drew Smyly getting 2 starts at Boston and at Cincinnati? Forget about it! Starting Smyly "just because he's a 2-starter" will only give you a double dose of a couple of terrible matchups. Be wise and use your 2-start pitchers only in +EV spots, as they can do just as much harm as good to a lineup when used irresponsibly.

Baseball Isn't Played in a Vacuum - How the Weather Impacts MLB Starting Pitchers

Checking the weather reports in the morning for the slate of MLB games that evening is one of the best habits prudent MLB DFS players can adopt.

Temperature, humidity, and wind direction play huge factors in how baseball games unfold—knowing whether a game is likely to be high-scoring or low-scoring is obviously beneficial when choosing which starting pitcher to throw into your DFS lineup.

A trick of the trade is to rely on the Vegas projections for insights into how the weather and stadium will impact that game. Vegas totals of 6, 6.5, or 7 runs are very low and indicate not much scoring is expected. These are great teams to select starting pitchers from.

Conversely, Vegas totals of 9.5, 10, or even 10.5 runs mean the experts see a lot of scoring. Hitters from these teams are good fantasy options, but rostering a starting pitcher from a high-total contest to your MLB DFS lineup usually isn't the best move.

When Weather Totally Changes an MLB Game

Generally, hitters perform better in the warmth. Ever tried hitting an 85-MPH baseball with a wood bat in 40-degree weather? It stings, man!

Pitchers get 7 warm-up throws before each half-inning to raise their core temperature. Hitters get a few dry cuts with a donut in the on-deck circle, but it's not the same. As temperatures increase, so do runs.

The same exact matchup between 2 teams would see a radically different Vegas total in balmy 90-degree weather compared to chilly 40-degree weather.

Temperatures at or around freezing can occur early in the season in Northern cities, like Minneapolis, New York, Pittsburgh, or Detroit. MLB schedule makers try their best to send these teams on the road as much as possible during the first week or two of the season, but you gotta have that home opener.

The exception to cold weather favoring pitching is extreme cold. Extreme cold (freezing or below) makes the game so unpredictable. It could be high-scoring or a 1-0 ballgame.

Hitters despise playing in a game with frigid temperatures, but freezing conditions can also negatively impact the pitching as getting a good grip on the ball becomes nearly impossible.

Earlier, we discussed the differences between good DFS cash game starting pitchers and deep-field tournament starting pitchers. Rostering a starter from a game played in 30-degree weather is ridiculously risky, making it a move that should be reserved only for GPPs, never cash.

The following anecdote should help to dissuade MLB DFS cash game players from selecting starting pitchers from these unpredictable "Ice Bowl" games:

The date is April 17, 2018. The 8-7 Yankees are hosting the pitiful 4-12 Marlins at Yankee Stadium. New York is a massive favorite, laying (-315) odds on the closing moneyline.

Yankees starting pitcher Masahiro Tanaka would normally be considered a strong option to roster in DFS cash games as he's likely to pick up a win and get that 6-point bonus. However, the temperature at first pitch in the Bronx is in the low 30s, rendering this game completely unpredictable.

Tanaka takes the mound and can't grip the baseball. He's all over the place. The Marlins hitters take full advantage, drawing 2 walks and bashing 7 hits in the first 5 innings. Miami scored 3 runs in the 1st inning, another in the 2nd, and 3 more in the 5th to send Tanaka back to the locker room for a hot shower.

Marlins starter Jarlin Garcia couldn't pitch effectively, either, walking 5 batters in 5 innings. The difference? New York stranded every single one of those free baserunners, and the Marlins dominated the game 9-1 … as massive underdogs of greater than 3 to 1.

That same day, 300 miles east, the Pirates were hosting the Rockies as snow fell at PNC Park. This was another of those unpredictable, freezing-cold baseball games as Colorado's Chad Bettis matched up against Pittsburgh's Trevor Williams.

In direct contrast to the Yankees game occurring simultaneously, both pitchers delivered outstanding performances in the snowy conditions - combining for 13.1 innings of 2-run baseball. Colorado took the game 2-0. Chad Bettis was the day's 2nd-leading fantasy pitcher with 7.1 innings, 5 hits, and no runs allowed, plus the win.

Neither 50 years of experience watching baseball nor any fancy computer models will help predict what's bound to happen in these extreme-weather games. Just understand that variance is going to rule the day, and that cash game players should steer clear when the weather is taking a turn for the worse.

MLB Probable Pitchers - Finding an Inning-Eating Workhorse in Today's MLB

Ever reminisce about the days when a starting pitcher would be expected to finish his start? Like any other player in the starting lineup, it is a concession of failure to be taken out early and replaced. That used to be the mentality around pitching the MLB. Not anymore.

The average number of pitches per start dropped to 84.4 in 2022—an all-time low—but then increased slightly to 85.0 in 2023. Eking out 5 innings is now considered a full day's work as the average start length in the MLB last year was 5.1 innings. Nearly all in-game starting pitcher and bullpen management decisions in the MLB are now made with pitch count and "player safety" in mind rather than optimizing win percentage. As infuriating as it can be to see a manager pull a pitcher with a great start going, we must be aware that this happens so we can better construct our FanDuel MLB DFS rosters around pitchers who will get us some innings.

Innings From Starting Pitchers are at an All-Time Low

Only 5 pitchers league-wide accumulated 200 innings of work in 2023 - Logan Webb, Zac Gallen, Gerrit Cole, Miles Mikolas, and Chris Bassitt. This was down from 8 players in 2022. Go back 10 years, to 2012, and 31 guys threw for 200 innings or more. They couldn't even fit on one Fangraphs page.

Then, 10 more years, to 1992, and 54 pitchers accomplished a 200-inning season. Were pitchers just so much better back then? No. The difference is they were allowed to struggle. Today's pitchers are babied. Managers step in and pull the starter the minute he faces either physical or in-game stress. Starters are no longer asked to push through fatigue or soreness. Starters are no longer asked to dig themselves out of an early hole.

Guys who go the distance are a dying breed. 8 pitchers threw multiple complete games in 2023, which is actually up from 4 in 2022. That's still not very many, though. Teams give many justifications for why starters should be pulled early. Data is inconclusive whether these changes are beneficial, and the aesthetic of the game is certainly ruined.

Arm health. Increased averages the 3rd time through an order. Max-effort pitching. These justifications aren't enough for the traditionalists in the game who miss starting pitchers going the distance. New-age fans feel they aren't getting their money's worth, either. We pay to see the stars, not 5 innings of nameless, faceless bullpen arms.

The Importance of Paying for Good Starting Pitching in MLB DFS

Most MLB teams have 1 guy, maybe 2, who will be trusted to pitch deep into games. The Guardians will let Shane Bieber go all the way if he's hot, for example, but you know they're pulling Triston McKenzie as soon as that pitch count hits 90.

No one's 4th or 5th starter is making it 9 innings. Many managers go as far as pulling their weaker starters after 3 or 4 innings—choosing to make it a "bullpen game."

Getting that 6-point bonus for the win and the extra 4 for a quality start is crucial when playing FanDuel MLB DFS. 10 extra points is worth over 3 strikeouts, meaning it's better to prioritize low-strikeout pitchers in winning spots than high-strikeouts guys who aren't likely to pitch deep into games.

With fewer and fewer pitchers around the league able to venture into the 6th or 7th inning, ponying up and swallowing the steep price on this shrinking class of elite pitchers is the only way to bag a good fantasy score in some slates.

Looking only at ERA and K/9 rates for the day's starting pitchers hides half of the story. Both of these statistics are "per inning" rates that ignore how long a pitcher lasts in the game.

Stats like innings per start and total wins have much more correlation to high fantasy scores. It is nearly impossible for a starting pitcher to generate a monster fantasy score without getting the win or the quality start.

FAQ 

Where Can I Learn the Rules of Fantasy Baseball? 

All of our DFS scoring rules are posted online as well as spelled out at the top of this page. Understanding the nuances in scoring is paramount to dominating any fantasy league, including our wide selection of DFS games on FanDuel.

For our MLB DFS games, points are awarded when a pitcher records an out, strikes a batter out, earns a win, or earns a quality start. The pitcher loses fantasy points when he allows runs. Hits or walks allowed do not directly impact a pitcher's fantasy score on FanDuel, although they do make it more likely he allows runs.

Hitters score points for notching hits, drawing walks, being hit by the pitch, stealing bases, scoring runs, and driving in their teammates. Home runs are worth more than triples, which are worth more than doubles, which are worth more than singles.

Do Baseball Games Have a Point Spread? 

Baseball and ice hockey lines differ from most major sports in that the favored team always "gives" (-1.5) runs (or goals) against the point spread. A Run Line on an MLB team to "cover the spread" of (-1.5) or (+1.5) can be offered at (Even) or (-110) payout, but can also come with odds as variable as (-300) or (+250), due to the relative strength and weakness of the clubs contesting a ballgame, or because of a perceived pitching mismatch that gives even an inferior team a leg-up on a given day. 

Run Line betting can also create cross-purposes between the gambler and the favored club's manager, as in professional baseball, a team is only ever interested in winning a ballgame by any score, yet only a margin-of-victory of 2 runs or more is of any value to the (-1.5) Run Line speculator

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