Welcome to our MLB DFS Building Blocks, DraftKings and FanDuel picks for 5/16/22! In this article, I’ll break down by top overall plays for today’s main slate. Last year was an extremely big year for the Karma team in MLB, and we are looking to continue that success in 2022. I will be providing Core Plays for every main slate (and day baseball) this season — you can gain access to that as well as our premium discord here. Let’s get to the plays…
Pitcher
Luis Severino
Severino hasn’t been his dominant self that he was pre-injuries, but he’s still been a solid pitcher in 2022. His strikeout rate is still good at 25%, and he’s generating a ton of swing and misses with a 12% swinging strike rate. Overall, I still think he’s an above-average pitcher and he has a top match-up on Monday against the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore’s projected lineup owns a near 26% strikeout rate vs right-handed pitching this season, and that comes with a combined .265 wOBA. For it being a bigger slate, it’s pretty watered down at the pitcher position and I have Sevy ranked first overall in all formats.
Zach Logue
Logue is a pretty unknown pitcher for the A’s, but has shown ability to be a solid mid-rotation starter in the MLB. He’s not going to blow you away with strikeouts, but he doesn’t walk a lot of batters and benefits from pitching in one of the more pitcher-friendly ballparks. He does allow a lot of fly-balls, but outside of Byron Buxton there are no major power threats in the Twins projected lineup. It’s a decent match-up for him, and with all the pitchers rating out super closely on this slate I think he is viable in all formats on DraftKings as an SP2.
Yusei Kikuchi
Kikuhci is projecting to be one of the higher-owned pitcher on this slate, mainly due to his price of $6,300. He was one of the worst pitchers in baseball to begin the season, but has since stopped throwing his slider and has strung together a stretch of promising starts. He’s still able to get strikeouts, and has a strong match-up against the Mariners. I think it comes down to Logue vs Kikuchi for my second pitcher on this slate, and with them ranking so close together for me I’m likely to just take the lower-owned one as we approach lock.
Building Blocks
Justin Turner
Coors Field is going to be massively owned on Monday night, with the San Francisco Giants severely underpriced across the industry. As always, I will avoid highlighting that in this section and instead focus on Justin Turner against Madison Bumgarner. Bum has struggled in recent seasons with power to right-handed batters, and Turner is one of the better hitters in this lineup vs lefties. Since the start of last season, we are looking at a .208 ISO and 46% hard-hits in the split. He also matches up well with his pitch mix — Bumgarner throws a lot of cutters and Turner has some of the best numbers on the team against that pitch. We also have a huge sample-size of these two against each other, over 70 PA’s, returning a 92 average exit velocity for Turner. Overall, Turner hasn’t been quite as good this season as in years past, but he still hits lefty pitching well. Most will be focused on the Giants, leaving LA under-owned in the last game of the night.
Seth Brown
Brown is a great one-off power option tonight against Chris Archer. Archer has always struggled with allowing homeruns, and he’s giving up over a .300 ISO to left-handed batters this season. Brown owns the highest ISO on the A’s vs righties over the last two seasons at .258. This is more about me wanting to attack Archer than it is Brown, but he does have power potential for under-$3,000 on DraftKings. If anyone takes Archer deep tonight, it’s most likely to be him.
Bold Call
Dodgers score the most runs on the slate!
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
