Welcome in to Ben’s MLB DFS Building Blocks for DraftKings and FanDuel! In this article, I will highlight my favorite MLB DFS plays for small-field tournament formats. If you’re interested in signing up for premium access, which grants you Core Plays for every slate, projections + expert picks and our premium Discord click HERE. You can also sign up for our AI-driven sports betting tools and access to my daily betting card by clicking HERE. Let’s get into the plays…
Pitcher
Welcome into another season of Ben’s MLB Building Blocks! I believe this is my seventh season providing MLB DFS content and I couldn’t be more excited to have baseball back. Let’s dive into our Friday starters…
- Freddy Peralta
- Max Fried
- Yoshinobu Yamamoto
- Reid Detmers
- Luis Severino
This is my list in order of pitchers today.
Kevin Gausman is checking in as the highest-owned projected pitcher today but I will be avoiding him. His start to 2024 has been alarming — we’ve seen a big dip in velocity from him and one of the highest barrel-rates + expected ERA’s in all of baseball. There’s certainly time for him to turn it around and there’s no better match-up to do so than vs the Rockies…but, if I have legit concerns about a guy’s health I can’t roster him at $10K salary and high-ownership.
Fried has also had a horrible start to 2024, but I’m less concerned on the surface. He also has a strong match-up against Miami – and if I’m going to play one guy that has had a bad start to this season I’ll side with Fried over Gausman due to the velocity concerns.
Peralta has a tough match-up against Baltimore – but is my favorite play on the slate due to the fact I think he is the best pitcher on this slate as a whole.
Yamamoto looks like he will be very low-owned tonight, and I’m willing to take him in both small and large-field GPP builds. I like what I’ve seen from him in his starts since getting back from that opening series in Korea and I think there is strikeout upside here even vs the Padres.
Detmers is my preferred mid-tier arm even in good hitting weather – he can be used in all formats.
Building Blocks
Ronald Acuna
Acuna and the Braves have one of the higher team totals on the board tonight at 5 runs. It’s no secret that Acuna is one of the best offensive players in baseball, but I really like the match-up here against Trevor Rogers. Rogers’ numbers take a big dip vs right-handed hitters — for example, in a small sample-size this season he’s allowing a .258 wOBA vs left-handers compared to a .402 mark vs righties. This will likely be a problem vs Atlanta, with them being able to stack seven righties in the lineup tonight. We know that Acuna demolishes lefty pitching – but he matches up very well against the fourseamers and sinkers that Rogers throws a ton. Furthermore, the roof will be open in Miami today adding to the positive outlook on the offenses.
Cavan Biggio
Biggio is one of the top value plays tonight on DraftKings, and should carry high ownership even as a one-off due to his salary. He actually leads the team in wOBA vs right-handed pitching through the first few weeks of the season and will once again bat in the middle of the Blue Jays order.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
