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
Gerrit Cole + the Field
Gerrit Cole will be the no doubt top-owned option tonight against the Tampa Bay Rays. It’s a tough match-up against this offense, but Cole remains one of the best strikeout artists in baseball and there isn’t many guys tonight that can rival that sort of upside. He also has dominated this Rays active roster in his career — allowing below a .280 wOBA and striking them out almost 28% of the time. He may allow a HR or two, but his ceiling is the highest on the slate tonight and he is deserving of the top spot. Outside of Cole, we have a similarly priced Kodai Senga against the Kansas City Royals. We aren’t getting the same consistency with Senga in terms of how deep he can go in a game, but he certainly can rack up K’s in a hurry against this offense. Senga is my preferred pivot in GPPs, and you could even look to pair them together in small-field GPPs.
Outside of those two, Logan Webb will be high-owned at home against the Diamondbacks. He profiles as a cash game target, but I prefer Cole/Senga in GPPs for their strikeout ability. Tony Gonsolin and Yusei Kikuchi are popping as the cheap, chalky options on Wednesday. I lean Kikuchi over Gonsolin and would be fine with a Cole/Kikuchi build in cash games.
Finally I want to mention Joe Ryan, who has been extremely unlucky over his last four starts. He, like Senga, is a boom/bust type pitcher but he can break the slate when you get him right. He looks to be low-owned on Wednesday, and I like him as my top-overall GPP option — betting on a bounce-back game that the metrics tell us will come soon.
Building Blocks
Byron Buxton
Minnesota is one of my favorite offenses tonight, and I love them as a pivot off the chalkier Dodgers. Dakota Hudson has been reverse-splitsy this season allowing a higher wOBA to right-handed hitters than lefties, which is why I lean towards Buxton as my top Twins option. He also matches up very well against Hudson’s pitch mix — with him being a sinker ball pitcher. Buxton owns monster splits against sinkers, including a .400 ISO during the 2023 season. I think he will end up lower-owned than the expensive options on the Dodgers — and I like Bux in all formats tonight in a stack or as a one-off.
Seiya Suzuki
Suzuki and the Cubs are one of my favorite stacks tonight — one night after popping off and breaking the slate as a sub-10% owned stack. They won’t be much of a secret tonight – but I love the spot for them against Brandon Williamson. Williamson has been one of the luckiest pitchers in baseball over his last four starts – pitching to a 2.18 ERA despite a SIERA north of 5.00. He does have some deceptive stuff, but he isn’t as good as he’s been throwing and a match-up against this hot Cubs offense could be a nightmare for him. Overall, we want to attack him with right-handed hitters. This season, he sports a .349 wOBA and .226 ISO in the split — compared to .284 and .024 marks against lefties. Suzuki is one of the top values on the slate on all sites tonight.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
