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
Yu Darvish + Luis Castillo
Both Darvish and Castillo are popping as projected chalk plays tonight, but neither have been in the best form as of late. Castillo has rebounded from a rough stretch and owns a 3.42 SIERA over the last 30 days, while Darvish has pitched to a 4.07 mark over the same time-frame. Darvish’s issue has been walks, with a 10% walk rate over that 30 day sample size. Luckily for Darvish, he matches up with the Pirates who only walk 8% of the time as a team, and their projected lineup is striking out 25% of the time. They’ve really struggled since calling up the farm, and it’s as good of a match-up as you can get as a starting pitcher right now.
Castillo has been in better form, and matches up with the Twins who strike out the most in the league against right-handed pitching. He just saw them in his last start, which gives me some pause, but this team K’s so much that it might not make a difference. Overall, I would rank them Darvish then Castillo but both will be popular plays are viable in cash games tonight. I would be looking to come in underweight in tournaments if the ownership gets out of control as we approach lock.
Logan Allen
Allen checks in as my top-overall option tonight against the Kansas City Royals. He’s been in amazing form for the Guardians, striking out over 35% of batters over his last two starts. Kansas City’s projected lineup tonight strikes out over 26% of the time against left-handed pitching, and that’s with Bobby Witt’s 15% strikeout rate in the lineup. There are a ton of K’s to be had in the middle to bottom of the order, and at under $9,000 on DK he is my top-overall option in all formats.
Building Blocks
Corbin Carroll + Ketel Marte
Arizona is in arguably the top spot on the slate tonight against Adam Wainwright. Waino is expected to be activated of the IL to start Monday night’s game — we haven’t seen him since July 4th, but when we have seen him this season it’s been nothing short of a disaster. He’s pitched to a 5.80 SIERA with just 11 % strikeouts in 2023. He’s been absolutely abused by left-handed hitters allowing a .493 wOBA and .327 ISO in the split. Both Carroll and Marte are among the best hitters in the NL against right-handed pitching while they match up very well against Waino as well. His most-used pitch has been his sinker — and they own well above-average splits against the pitch. The Diamondbacks won’t be a secret on Monday night, and these two bats are 1a and 1b for me on tonight’s main slate.
CJ Abrams
Abrams has been a popular value selection for the last few weeks, and it seems he’s coming into his own for the Nationals. He owns a .423 wOBA over the last 14 days, and Washington is in another good spot offensively today. Abrams is priced below $4,000 but currently paces our projections portal with the top projection at his position. I’m expecting over 15% OWN% on Abrams today, but he’s viable as both a one-off and in a mini-stack.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
