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…
Above is an example of my MLB Core Plays for the 4/27 slate
Top Pitchers
Framber Valdez + Merrill Kelly
We have a really nice 10 game slate tonight, but with it comes pretty limited pitching options. Both Framber Valdez and Merrill Kelly are projecting for over 35% ownership tonight and the majority of cash game / single-entry teams will be building with them paired with the cheap Reds stack in Coors Field. Valdez has good strikeout stuff to go along with low walks, while Kelly wins the daily contest of who gets to pitch against the Oakland Athletics. Overall, I don’t think I need to dive into too much here with these projected OWN% numbers. In cash games, I would be plugging in these two, and in tournaments you can look to fade one or get different completely.
The problem with fading both is that there really isn’t anyone else to spend-up on. The guy I like the most for GPPs is Jameson Taillon. Taillon has been one of the unluckiest pitchers in baseball this season, and you can tell that Vegas is expecting to bounce-back eventually with the total for his game set at just 7.5 runs. Houston’s roster has been lackluster outside of two guys this season, and I’m no longer scared of targeting them with a pitcher. Taillon will anchor my tournament builds on Monday evening.
Building Blocks
Corbin Carroll
Carroll is one of my favorite players to roster in MLB DFS. He has power and speed, and is very aggressive stealing bases. If he gets on base, there’s a good chance that he will try to steal which gives you an added bonus / floor to rostering him. Arizona is in the best non-Coors spot of the night against Drew Rucinski and the A’s bullpen. Rucinski has been crushed by left-handed hitters this season and this will be a tough match-up for him against a powerful DBacks team that doesn’t strike out. Carroll can be used as a one-off or in a stack, but the Diamondbacks will likely be my main GPP build on this slate.
Alex Kirilloff
Everyone that reads my content knows that Kirilloff is one of my OG guys – he lead us to a $10,000 win in his rookie season at sub-5% ownership. He put on a similar performance over the weekend with two homers and a double on Saturday, and looks to be rounding into form as the Twins offense finally is heating up. Noah Syndergaard has been a disaster for the Dodgers this season — allowing over a .370 wOBA to lefties and striking out just 15% of batters faced. Kirilloff has slate-breaking power, and his price-tag of below $3,000 seems too cheap for his power upside against a bad pitcher. He can be used in a stack or as a one-off on Monday night.
Ben’s Stat of the Day
Drew Rucinski owns the highest ERA and second-highest xERA on today’s slate.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
