Welcome to our MLB DFS Building Blocks, DraftKings and FanDuel picks for 5/6/22! 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. You can also try out the Core Plays package with a $5 daily pass. Let’s get to the plays…
Pitcher
Kevin Gausman
Gausman has been one of the best pitchers in baseball this season, striking out 33% of batters faced. This has been aided by his dominant splitter, that’s throwing more than he ever has and generating a 44% whiff rate with the pitch. I’ve attacked the Guardians with pitchers a lot recently, and will continue to do so tonight with the best pitcher on this slate. There is weather concerns in this game, so we need to monitor up until lock of he is safe enough to deploy in our main lineups. If the weather gets too weird, I may just spend down for both pitchers because I’m not sure if Yu Darvish or Logan Gilbert are high enough on my board for me to prioritize them at what would be high-ownership with Gausman off the slate. For now, though, he is my top overall option on Friday.
Josh Winder
Winder is very raw but looked very good in that start vs the Rays, and I think he is pretty cheap for someone with legitimate upside on Friday. This is a guy that was extremely good in the minor leagues, with strong strikeout numbers and very good control. Usually control is something younger arms can struggle with, so seeing that he already has that figured out makes me think he can continue to have success as a starter early in his career. He has really good stuff, that teams will 100% likely struggle with having never seen him. He draws a top match-up vs a strikeout happy Oakland A’s team tonight, and he is my preferred SP2 on DK.
If Gausman gets rained out, Luis Garcia sticks out as too cheap and I could see pairing him with Winder and jamming in every bat possible for my build. I also could get up to Yu Darvish as my SP1, but for now let’s just hope the game in Cleveland is playable.
Building Blocks
Kyle Tucker
I wrote Tucker up a few days ago, and I’m going back to the well tonight. With three games already cancelled and weather across the east coast, Houston has one of the higher team totals at 4.8 runs. They have a good match-up, but this is more about continuing to buy low on Tucker before his big breakout comes. This is not to say he’s been bad, but he is continually barreling the ball up and hitting it far and the results just haven’t fully been there yet. He hits both righties and lefties well, so we don’t need to worry about Houston getting into the bullpen early either. He is viable in all formats in a stack or as a one off.
Daulton Varsho
Regression has yet to hit Chad Kuhl in 2022, but we can assure that it’s coming soon when digging into some of his advanced numbers. The way to beat Kuhl is with left-handed power, which is exactly Varsho’s game. He owns the highest ISO on this team vs right-handed pitching since the start of last season at .225, and that comes with above-average hard-contact and fly-balls as well. Furthermore, Kuhl’s most-used pitch vs lefties is his slider which he throws over 40% of the time. Varsho is the best slider hitter in this lineup and he is my HR call for Friday night.
Bold Call
Daulton Varsho hits two HR’s!
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
