Welcome to another edition of Ben’s Building Blocks! In this article, I will outline the players I’m looking to build my main lineup around for today’s slate. If you want access to my core plays for every main slate, as well as one of the best discord communities in the industry, click here.
Pitcher
Mike Clevinger- We saw this situation last night with Shane Bieber. Is this an extremely tough matchup? Yes. Is Mike Clevinger too cheap at $10,000? Yes. Clevinger is in the same tier as Bieber, he has massive strikeout ability and one of the best fastballs in baseball. He should be around $11,000 in every start, so this price is definitely a discount. We have a lot of strong options on this slate, but outside of Luis Castillo you really aren’t running to lock in any of them. This will mainly come down to ownership once again, if sunshine is going under-owned, I will come in much heavier than the field.
Luis Castillo- Castillo clearly made DraftKings upset as he is priced at $8,000 against the Detroit Tigers. Note, he is the most expensive pitcher on FanDuel. Castillo struck out 11 Tigers in his first start, and we know that this is one of the best punchout pitchers in baseball. He is equipped with one of the best changeups in the sport, and it’s tough to imagine a situation where a K-happy team like Detroit can beat him enough that he doesn’t pay off this price. You have to lock him in for cash games, and I would probably want to be overweight in tournaments as well.
As of 3PM I’m looking to pair the aforementioned two in cash games, but there are other solid options on a loaded Friday slate. I like Sean Manaea on FanDuel at his price, and I think you can even look at Yu Darvish on DraftKings for GPPs. If you need savings, I don’t mind Alex Cobb — mainly due to his $4K price tag.
Building Blocks
Aaron Judge- Despite it being a Coors Field slate, Aaron Judge is my favorite bat on the slate when factoring in pricing. Ryan Weber struggled against the Orioles offense in his first start, and he just doesn’t profile well enough to have any confidence in him against this Yankees team. We all know that Judge’s biggest concern is strikeouts, which will be much less of a factor against Weber’s 14.5% strikeouts. Weber threw 50% sinkers in his first start to righties — a pitch Judge owns a huge 46% hard contact rate against.
Mike Moustakas- Moose has been seeing the ball extremely well to start the season, and comes in under-priced at $3,600 on DK. I like Spencer Turnbull as a pitcher, but he is much worse against left-handed batters. His saving grace is ground balls, while Moustakas owns the highest fly ball rate on the Reds against right-handed pitching. He has double-dong upside and won’t see anyone better than Turnbull in the Tigers bullpen.
Michael Brantley- I’m not sure if we can grade this individual matchup because this could be more of a bullpen game for the Angles…but Michael Brantley should never be this price. I’m not sure what he did to the fine people at DraftKings, but he clearly insulted them in some way. Brantley was top-30 in wRC+ in 2019 so it just makes no sense he is priced below $3,000. We were awarded free squares from the Royals earlier this week, and tonight it comes in the form of Brantley.
Stack Rankings
1. New York Yankees (Judge, Stanton, Gleyber, LeMahieu, Voit)
2. San Diego Padres (Lefties + Machado/Tatis)
3. Chicago White Sox (Moncada, Encarnacion, Eloy, Robert, McCann) — This Bubic kid has promise but jumping from Single A to the majors vs this lineup could be a disaster
4. Colorado Rockies (Righties + Blackmon)
5. Atlanta Braves (1-5)
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
