Welcome to our MLB DFS Building Blocks, DraftKings and FanDuel picks for 7/1/22! 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
Corbin Burnes paces the field for tonight in both projection and expected ownership in a match-up with the Pittsburgh Pirates. We have a decent sample-size of Burnes against the Pirates — resulting in a 40% strikeout rate for Burnes. It’s a great match-up, and I’m not worried about the ownership because I think he is the clear best option on Friday.
Outside of Burnes, what to do with your second pitcher spot on DraftKings is going to make the difference. Cristian Javier and Marco Gonzales are the second and third projected pitchers in terms of ownership in our Projections Portal, and they come in at different price ranges. Javier certainly has strikeout upside, and the Angels have struck out almost 26% of the time as a team over the last two weeks. Gonzales is cheap and gets the good match-up against the Oakland A’s…but I feel like he always faces the A’s on a big slate like this and ends up chalky. I think he’s a good play for his price, but he doesn’t have the strike out upside for me to worry about fading him if his ownership gets crazy.
If I don’t want to spend all the way up for Javier as my SP2, I’m interested in Alex Cobb as a pivot off Gonzales. Cobb continues to own very strong underlying numbers, and he has a much higher strikeout rate. He’s pitching at home in a pitcher-friendly environment in San Francisco — and has a strong match-up against the White Sox. As a team they don’t strike out a ton, but they also own a combined .294 wOBA in their projected lineup. Cobb’s only flaw this season has been against lefties, and he will only see two or three of them vs the White Sox with no names that scare you at all.
Building Blocks
Aaron Judge
It’s a Coors Field slate, but there are two clear spots outside of Coors and that’s the Yankees and Braves. New York draws Aaron Civale who has been flat-out bad for the Cleveland Guardians in 2022. He’s been getting pulverized by both sides of the plate, but is allowing a ton of power to right-handed batters. That’s bad news when you have to face the Yankees. Judge has video game-like numbers vs right-handed pitching and this is a spot I would like to force him into my build I think. Civale’s most-used pitch to righties is his curveball — a pitch that Judge owns a .243 ISO against.
Andrew Benintendi
Kansas City is quietly in a strong offensive spot tonight against Michael Pineda and outside of Bobby Witt Jr most of the bats we want in the lineup are pretty affordable. That starts with Andrew Benintendi, who is below $4,000 on DraftKings. Pineda has been horrific against left-handed hitters this season allowing a .374 wOBA and .233 ISO with just 11% strikeouts! Benintendi has been basically the only good lefty in this lineup — with a clear team-high .349 wOBA against right-handed pitching. Now, it hasn’t been confirmed that Pineda will start yet so that’s something we need to monitor — if he ends up not starting I still like the spot overall and some of their bats — like newly called up Vinnie Pasquintino — are very cheap across the industry tonight.
Bold Call
The Yankees hit 4+ HR’s!
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
