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 Tuesday starters…
- Cole Ragans
- Nestor Cortes
- Christian Scott
- Andrew Heaney
- Kyle Harrison
This is my list in order of pitchers tonight.
We have a fun pitching slate filled with both ace-level pitchers and a plethora of cheap options to choose from.
Cole Ragans takes the cake for my top-overall option. He’s basically the best strikeout pitcher on the slate and has the top overall match-up against the Oakland A’s. He will be the most popular option, but is tough for me to avoid in small-field contests.
Cortes seems due for positive regression, and there’s no better place for it to hit than tonight against the lowly White Sox. His xERA sits around two runs lower than his actual, and the White Sox are essentially the worst team in baseball vs LHP. He can be used in all formats tonight.
Both Scott and Heaney have good match-ups, and can be used as cheap SP2’s in GPPs. Heaney has more strikeout upside historically, but Scott has the better match-up against the Miami Marlins.
Overall, I see myself going double-aces on my main team tonight.
Building Blocks
Rafael Devers
It’s taken some time, after dealing with nagging injuries to begin the season Devers is finally turning the corner. He’s batting just shy of .290 over his last seven games with two homeruns. The batted ball profile looks great, and this could finally be the start of the hot streak everyone has been waiting for from him. He has a strong match-up tonight against Kyle Gibson and his sinker. Devers obviously has elite numbers against right-handed pitching — but that increased even further against sinkers. It’s one of his best pitches to hit, and Gibson offers it around 30% of the time. Given his success against the pitch, I can understand why Devers is 8-18 in his career off Gibson. Overall, this is someone I want to buy into when seeing the ball well and he’s my favorite play on Friday night.
Davis Schneider
Toronto has been very underwhelming offensively this season, but not Schneider. He’s basically been the one constant contributor alongside Danny Jansen, and has a strong match-up on Friday. He’s been lights out against left-handed pitching this season, leading the team with a .461 wOBA in the split. He’s priced affordably in the mid-tier for his power upside, and he grades out as one of the top-overall point per dollar options on the main slate.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
