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.
Pitchers
Yu Darvish and friends- This is a very interesting pitching slate. We are loaded with guys at the top, unlike last night, and without anyone you feel great about at the bargain-level pricing. This will likely result in me going with a double-spend at pitcher in cash games, starting with Yu Darvish. If you’ve been under a rock you likely don’t know that Darvish has been one of the most dominant pitchers in baseball since the second-half of 2019. He’s still walked only four total batters this season, and that comes with 30% strikeouts and 16% swinging strikes. There are strikeouts to be had in this Cardinals lineup, and he is my clear SP1 on Tuesday night.
Who to pair with him becomes a discussion, mainly between Carlos Carrasco and Kenta Maeda. Don’t get me wrong, I think Blake Snell is an excellent tournament play…I just don’t see myself going out of my way to attack the Yankees in cash games even without three of their best hitters. Maeda gets the better strikeout matchup vs the Brewers, while Carrasco gets the Pirates who have really struggled with right-handed pitching this season. They’re bottom three in both wRC+ and ISO vs righties in 2020. I think I lean slightly towards Carrasco right now, but this decision will come down to lock for me. I can be certain, however, I will be stuffing two aces into my main build.
Favorite GPP Play: Blake Snell, Corbin Burnes
Building Blocks
Rafael Devers- Devers is a relatively easy cash game play for me on Tuesday priced all the way down at $4,400 on DraftKings. The Red Sox match up with Zach Eflin, who has struggled mightily with left-handed batters in his career. Over the last two seasons, he’s allowed a 3.74 wOBA and a .250 ISO in the split. The Phillies also have the worst bullpen in the league currently, so there is major upside even after Eflin exits the game.
Randal Grichuk- Toronto is in one of the top spots tonight vs Wade LeBlanc, and Grichuk is another cheap player with plenty of pop. LeBlanc’s advanced metrics are horrible — a 5.19 xFIP with only 17% strikeouts since the start of 2019. He allows over a .200 ISO to both sides of the plate, and Grichuk comes in with a .211 ISO and 39% hard hits vs lefty pitching.
Travis d’Arnaud (DK)- d’Arnaud was only moved up to $3,000 and will once again be considered a free square against Austin Voth. Voth actually has decent strikeout ability to righties, but that comes with 36% hard hits and nearly 50% fly balls. I will be taking the savings and moving on in cash games, while in GPPs you can always pivot to the more expensive options.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
