Welcome in to Ben’s Building Blocks for DraftKings & FanDuel! This is a free article written daily to identify my top-overall DFS plays for cash game and small-field contests on both DraftKings and FanDuel. I truly appreciate everyone that reads and supports the content. If you’d like to support further you can click HERE to sign-up for a MLB Premium package. This gets you access to my Core Plays daily — allowing you to tail my builds, access the premium Discord channels and view our DFS Projections Portal. We’ve been on fire already this MLB season, and there’s no better time to sign-up. With that being said, let’s dive into today’s slate…
Top Pitchers
Patrick Sandoval
This is a small, watered down slate that results in Patrick Sandoval being the top-overall arm on both sites. Kodai Senga has stumbled a bit in recent starts, and with his control issues I won’t be looking to build with him on Wednesday. Sandoval has mediocre strikeout ability but has the best match-up against the Oakland A’s. Oakland as actually been semi-decent against left-handed pitching as opposed to righties, so I don’t view Sandoval as a must-play. That being said, there’s nobody worth spending up on and we have to play someone so he does end up as the best option — and the top projection to go along with it.
Outside of Sandoval, it looks like Steven Matz will be chalky as an SP2 option. I understand the play because he is so cheap, but he is pretty bad against right-handed hitters and the Giants will be able to stuff seven righties into their lineup tonight. I’ll be looking to pivot off Matz, and likely will look at Drew Smyly in the mid-tier despite his tough match-up against San Diego.
Building Blocks
Jarred Kelenic
Kelenic is in full break-out mode for the Mariners thanks to his off-season swing change and yet he is still priced below $4,000 on DraftKings. He’s homered 7 times already and ranks top-20 in barrels/plate appearance. Taijuan Walker has always given up power — and he throws his sinker over 40% of the time to left-handed hitters. Kelenic owns some of the best numbers on the team against the pitch, including an ISO above .250. Overall, he is projecting to be pretty low-owned despite his cheap price tag and he fits the mold as a great one-off to pair with the stack listed below.
The Los Angeles Angels look to be the top-overall stack tonight and I really can’t argue against them. They match up with Luis Medina tonight who has shown some swing and miss ability, but has also shown horrible control.. He’s walked over 11% of batters faced in the minors and it’s just tough to see him having much success tonight. Behind him is quite literally one of the worst bullpens of all-time — and avoiding Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and the other Angels in cash games feels like a mistake — even at high expected ownership.
Ben’s Stat of the Day
Jarred Kelenic ranks top-three overall in xwOBA so far this season.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
