Welcome in to Ben’s Building Blocks for DraftKings & FanDuel! This is a free article written daily to identify my top-overall DFS plays for cash game and small-field contests on both DraftKings and FanDuel. I truly appreciate everyone that reads and supports the content. If you’d like to support further you can click HERE to sign-up for a MLB Premium package. This gets you access to my Core Plays daily — allowing you to tail my builds, access the premium Discord channels and view our DFS Projections Portal. We’ve been on fire already this MLB season, and there’s no better time to sign-up. With that being said, let’s dive into today’s slate…
Above is an example of my MLB Core Plays for the 4/27 slate
Top Pitchers
Shohei Ohtani
Anyone that reads my content knows that Ohtani is pretty much an auto-play for me regardless of slate when he’s pitching. Tonight will be no different against the Houston Astros. Houston is perceived as a tough match-up on paper, but they’ve been striking out more this year than in the past. There are a number of high-K bats in this lineup, and Ohtani himself has had a lot of success in this match-up. We have a near 150 PA sample-size of him against the active Astros roster — resulting in a sub-.275 wOBA allowed and over 32% strikeouts. He should probably be priced close to $12K every start, and I view him as being at a discount on Friday night.
Ohtani will definitely be popular per usual, and I could see a number of users pairing up the pitchers in this game and stacking him with Framber Valdez. On a big slate like this with a ton of offenses in good spots, I prefer to save some money with my SP2 and Tyler Glasnow sticks out as the best option for his price tag.
Building Blocks
Bryce Harper
Josiah Gray allowed the most homeruns in baseball last season, and while he has improved dramatically in 2023, this is still a batter that we can target with left-handed power. He’s still lacking in the strikeout department, and he gives up a lot of hard-hits and fly-balls — especially to left-handed batters. Both Harper and Schwarber have had success against him in the past – and I could see both catching heavy-OWN% numbers tonight.
For tournaments, I prefer pivoting to the Padres against Jameson Taillon — with Juan Soto being my favorite one-off on the slate.
Royce Lewis
Lewis has been a staple for cash game lineups since his return from injury. He was shredding the minor leagues, batting over .330 with a near .400 ISO during his rehab assignment. Since joining the big league club, he’s hitting .310 and already has two homeruns. Despite his offensive success, DK has left him below $3,500 on DraftKings and he has another strong match-up tonight against Aaron Civale. Civale is a solid real-life arm, but has always been vulnerable to power and that’s exactly what Lewis is bringing to the table. He should be in the $4K range, and I’ll gladly keep taking these savings while they give them to us.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
