Welcome to our MLB DFS Building Blocks, DraftKings and FanDuel picks for 5/26/22! 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…
Above is an example of the Core Plays given out to Subscribers on Friday May 13th
Pitcher
Frankie Montas
We are absolutely loaded with pitching options on Thursday night, but we also have weather issues across the slate. I really liked Tarik Skubal upon first research, but that game appears to be the worst tonight in terms of potential weather. We also have Aaron Nola in a potential spot for rain as well, but we will just have to wait and see closer to lock. One thing that holds true is the quality spot for Montas against the Texas Rangers. Their offense performed last night, but that is an outlier compared to the entire season. Through the first two months, the Rangers projected lineup tonight owns a .270 wOBA. There’s also plenty of strikeouts to be had outside the top two batters in the order. As I said above, we need to monitor the weather but it’s likely Montas is my top option tonight unless the weather is good to go for Skubal.
Shohei Ohtani
Ohtani has a much tougher match-up against the Toronto Blue Jays, but he’s been so dominant this season I don’t even care who he is throwing against. Despite the tough spot, we can actually look at it with a positive spins seeing as the Blue Jays have mostly a right-handed lineup. They project to send eight righties to the plate tonight, which is good news for Ohtani. This season, Ohtani has obviously been better in the split, but we are looking at a dominant 42% strikeout rate against same-handed batters. I still think he’s a tad underpriced for his upside and he is viable in all formats on both sites tonight.
Building Blocks
Byron Buxton
Buxton has been one of the best hitters in baseball the last few seasons when healthy, and he’s continued that success into 2022. He’s top-ten in all of baseball in ISO, and is in a great spot against Daniel Lynch tonight. Lynch has been better this season, but is still allowing over 45% fly-balls and hard-hits to right-handed batters. Buxton excels against his two most-used pitches — fastball and slider — and is arguably the best lefty hitter in all of baseball the last two seasons. He is expensive, but I think this is a strong spot for the Twins and Buxton is my top overall play on both sites.
Josh Bell
Bell is priced below $4,000 on DraftKings tonight, and is a strong one-off or mini-stack consideration against German Marquez. Marquez has been good for the Rockies in recent years, but he’s really struggled with lefties this season allowing almost a .400 wOBA. Bell has pop, but not really extreme raw power like some of the other hitters we target. Despite that, his .350 wOBA vs right-handed pitching is second-best in the Nationals lineup since the start of last season. Marquez pumps a lot of fastballs to lefties, and that’s good news for Bell as it’s his best pitch to hit. I doubt Washington garners a ton of attention on this slate, so we should get Bell relatively low-owned to boot.
Bold Call
Buxton posts 6+ total bases!
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
