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 Wednesday starters…
- Zac Gallen
- Patrick Sandoval
- Christian Scott
- Justin Verlander
- Imanaga/Burnes (weather concerns)
This is my list in order of pitchers tonight.
We have a loaded MLB slate on Friday per usual, but there are some pretty critical weather concerns. Corbin Burnes and Shota Imanaga would likely be the two highest-owned pitchers on the slate, but both have games with serious rain concerns. We will have to check the weather as lock approaches and they will move up or down my ranks depending on those final weather reports.
Gallen will likely be the highest-owned spend-up assuming we take Burns and Shota out of the mix. I like him for cash game builds, but he doesn’t usually fit he mold of someone I deem as a must play in GPPs especially at high-OWN%
The one guy I really like for GPPs tonight is Patrick Sandoval. Christian Scott is in the same price-range, and currently projects as the highest-owned option on Friday. This will allow us to get natural leverage on Sandoval and still keep a similar roster build. Cleveland grades out terribly against left-handed pitching and vs change-ups, while Sandoval relies on his change-up heavily and it’s one of the best offerings in the league.
Building Blocks
Rafael Devers
Devers is fresh off his 6 game HR streak, and has been absolutely dialed in at the plate during the month of May. Tonight’s match-up looks great vs Bryse Wilson, and this game also happens to feature one of the highest totals on the board at 9.5. Wilson has been solid overall for Milwaukee this season, but he struggles to get left-handed hitters out. He’s allowing a .333 wOBA and .211 ISO in the split, compared to .272 and .136 marks vs RHH. We know that Devers is one of the best hitters vs RHP in this lineup, but he matches up extremely well vs Wilson’s pitch mix as well. Overall, Devers is my favorite bat on the slate and my HR call for Friday evening.
Kevin Pillar
Pillar and the Angels are in a good spot tonight as well, against Logan Allen who has not pitched to expectations this season. Allen comes into tonight with an ERA a full run higher than 2023, with his hard-hits allowed up across the board. Pillar has been the best LHP hitter on the team this season, and owns monster splits vs fastballs which Allen throws nearly 50% of the time. I don’t love picking on Cleveland due to their dominant bullpen, but Pillar has been seeing the ball well and is one of the top values on the slate.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
