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
Zac Gallen- Gallen is far and away my favorite pitcher on tonight’s slate against the Oakland A’s. This offense has been good, but they are still striking out the fifth-most in baseball to start 2020. Gallen has been one of my favorite pitchers to watch this season pitching to a 3.52 SIERA with 29% strikeouts. He has been pretty dominant to both sides of the plate, and is allowing only a .298 wOBA to same-handed batters dating back to last season. This is noteworthy as the A’s project to send six righties to the plate tonight. He uses a curveball around 30% of the time in same-handed matchups, generating over 40% whiffs with the pitch. Only Matt Chapman, Matt Olson and Sean Murphy (small sample) have had major success against that pitch in their careers. It’s a pretty good matchup when you look past the surface, and I trust him more than Hyun Jin Ryu as my SP1 on Monday night.
Touki Toussaint- Toussaint is one of the biggest candidates primed for positive regression, and tonight could be the night things start to turn around against the Washington Nationals. When researching Toussaint you’ll notice a pretty big difference between his surface and underlying numbers. For example, a 7.27 ERA compared to a 3.29 SIERA. This is clearly not a bad pitcher, as he has struck out 30% of batters with over 14% swinging strikes this season despite the massive ERA. This Nationals lineup is one I’ve been completely fine attacking, and it’s worth noting their implied team total has dropped almost half a run since opening. Touki has been really unfortunate in the BABIP department this season, and I’m jumping on board while he is cheap.
Ross Stripling- Stripling is set to be the chalk SP2 against the Seattle Mariners, and while that makes sense, I’m not confident I really prefer him to Toussaint. His numbers are way down this season across the board, especially when it comes to K’s and groundballs. This is not a great Mariners lineup, but I’m not sure Stripper has the upside I’m really looking for in the current state of DFS. He is completely fine as a cash game SP2, but I would be looking to be underweight in GPPs for some of the higher-upside options in his price range.
Building Blocks
Corey Seager- I’ve written Seager up a few times early this season and I’m going back to the well tonight against Justin Dunn. Even after missing a few games, Seager has continued his torrid pace homering twice in his last four games. He ranks second in the MLB in xwOBA and first in barrels per plate appearance. The Dodgers are the clear best stack tonight, yet Seager still doesn’t have the name brand recognition of the Bellinger’s and Muncy’s in DFS.
Travis d’Arnaud- The Braves are just behind the Dodgers for me when it comes to top stacks today, and d’Arnaud might be my favorite punt on DK at only $2,500. He actually leads this Braves team with a .555 wOBA in a small 2020 sample, and is batting third today. I love to save at catcher, especially in cash games, and am viewing d’Arnaud as a free square on Monday.
I think that I will likely end on Gallen/Toussaint on DraftKings, which will give me plenty of room to stuff in bats. After plugging in the two building blocks I will be looking at the other Dodgers, Braves and JD Martinez as potential lineup fillers for the rest of my build.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
