Friday's Fantasy Baseball Streaming Pitchers: Carmen Mlodzinski, Sean Burke Stand Out
Five starting pitchers with good matchups on Friday who are widely available in fantasy leagues.
Welcome to another weekend! I've talked before about how Friday is the best day of the week once you hit the end of the workday; it leaves you with the most amount of weekend, the furthest you can be from another work week. There is plenty of baseball on, along with basketball and hockey playoffs, so sports fans have enough to keep us busy, something that might not be true soon.
Moving to fantasy baseball, let's look at five starting pitchers in action on Friday who are widely available in fantasy leagues and have good matchups. Most stats are from MLB.com, as are the probable starters. The full streamer rankings are listed at the bottom.
Use FantasySP's daily and weekly projections to find the players expected to excel and help make your toughest lineup decisions!
Sean Burke, Chicago White Sox vs. Seattle Mariners
Burke's career numbers are those of a slightly above-average strikeout pitcher who walks a few too many guys. He has done much better with BBs this season, and combined with good work limiting hits and home runs, Burke's ERA is under 3.00 in around 40 innings. If you believe that Burke can keep his control, he would be a worthy keeper in deeper leagues or if you need help in your rotation.
Seattle is in the bottom 10 in most offensive box stats, only doing well with home runs and walks. A team can succeed by mashing a lot of homers, particularly if they get extra runners on, but the Mariners are low in runs scored, so that hasn't been happening. Most importantly for our purposes, Seattle is also striking out at a top-five rate, setting a high ceiling for opposing pitchers.
Burke is a mid-to-high-level streamer. Many will see the Mariners as a team likely to improve, and given some of the names in their lineup, that is very possible, but the numbers so far point toward them as a fantasy target. Burke's success and strikeout work make him a strong option today.
Mike Burrows, Houston Astros @ Cincinnati Reds
The Reds are coming off a run of bad luck after beginning the season winning nearly every close game. Before getting beat by the Cubs 8-3 yesterday, they lost three straight to Chicago on walk-offs, two of them coming in extra innings. Other than hitting some home runs, Cincinnati has faltered offensively, and with luck turning away from them, the Reds have fallen toward .500 with a heavily negative run differential.
Burrows has been average with both walks and strikeouts, but he is getting hit way too hard, giving up 49 hits, 25 runs, and eight home runs in 37 2/3 innings. He was much better with each of those numbers last season while keeping the good BB and K rates, so maybe he can find some of that old magic, but it's hard to trust him right now given how well hitters are squaring him up.
Burrows is a low-level streamer. He is still striking batters out, so there's a little upside, but the way he has been hit makes Burrows a player that is really hard to trust right now, leaving him as a risky guy to put into your lineup this early in the season.
Michael McGreevy, St. Louis Cardinals @ San Diego Padres
McGreevy has found plenty of success this season, allowing just 28 hits, 11 runs, and five homers in 39 1/3 innings. He has continued his high-level work limiting walks while also continuing his low-level strikeout work, something that caps his fantasy ceiling a bit even while pitching well. McGreevy's career strikeout rate is 15.8%, and it's at 16.3% this season versus league average around 21-22%; that's a considerable margin below the middle.
San Diego is closer to the middle than the bottom in many areas, making them more of an OK target than a great one. They are still worth looking at on the right days, but the Padres also don't strike out much, setting a lower ceiling for opposing pitchers. Like Cincinnati, San Diego has ridden some luck to a good early record while the offense has been less than stellar.
McGreevy is a low-to-mid-level streamer. He has been good in 2026, but his lack of K work combined with the Padres striking out at a low rate leaves McGreevy with a low ceiling.
Carmen Mlodzinski, Pittsburgh Pirates @ San Francisco Giants
The Giants have scored at least 19 fewer runs than any other team and drawn close to 30 fewer walks than anyone else; those are massive gaps this early in the season. Throw in the fewest home runs (though the margin is much closer), and San Francisco is laboring for every single player they get across the plate. There aren't many better targets than the Giants right now.
Mlodzinski was an average-or-better strikeout pitcher in each of his first three seasons, though that work came mostly out of the bullpen. Working almost exclusively as a starter this year, he has done even better, striking out 26% of the batters he has faced while keeping his walk rate right at average. He has been knocked around a bit, allowing 38 hits and 19 runs (18 earned) in 34 innings, but Mlodzinski has also given up just one home run, a skill he has kept through all four years of his career.
Mlodzinski is a mid-to-high-level streamer. The matchup pushes him up another half-notch, and he has been good with Ks and BBs, setting him up for success on any given day.
Ryne Nelson, Arizona Diamondbacks vs. New York Mets
Nelson generally does well with walks but is a below-average strikeout pitcher, bringing his ceiling down just a bit. He was closer to average the past two seasons, so there could be a little bounce-back coming, but his walk rate would be a career high right now, balancing things out a bit. Nelson has also been hit hard this year, allowing 32 hits, 29 runs, and seven home runs in 31 1/3 innings. Six of those runs are unearned, but Nelson hasn't been able to limit batters.
The Mets aren't just a bottom-10 offense, like most teams that end up on our list; they rank in the bottom five in most offensive categories. They scored 10 runs on Wednesday but otherwise combined for just four runs in two games in the hitter's haven of Colorado. Arizona is also a hitter's park, but I'm comfortable going after New York no matter where they play right now.
Nelson is a low-to-mid-level streamer. He's buoyed a bit by the matchup, and his Ks are close enough to average in 2026 to bring some intrigue, but the way he has been hit raises red flags and makes it worth questioning his role in your lineup today.
Friday's Streamer Rankings
- Sean Burke, CWS
- Carmen Mlodzinski, PIT
- Michael McGreevy, STL
- Ryne Nelson, ARI
- Mike Burrows, HOU
