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
Pitching is extremely top-heavy tonight, and for that reason I’m simply going to discuss what I plan on doing in my optimal build. I personally love to spend down in cash games for my SP2 on DraftKings, but that’s not something that I’m completely locked onto doing each day. Rich Hill is picking up some ownership in the cheap tier, but as a lefty against the White Sox I am going to 100% pass. That leaves us with the top options including Shane Bieber Gerrit Cole and Lucas Giolito. Gio get the Twins, so he is firmly going behind Bieber/Cole at his price tag. Bieber has been the safest pitcher in the league and I will be locking him in. We then have the discussion of Gerrit Cole or…Tyler Glasnow against the Yankees. Cole is the easy choice there but we do need to factor in that Glasnow is sub-$9K on DraftKings. I think both are playable in cash games, and I will update my final SP2 along with Bieber in Final Thoughts posted an hour before lock!
Building Blocks
Rhys Hoskins- Hoskins is going to be extremely chalky tonight, but it for good reason and chalk I’m willing to eat in cash games. The Phillies are one of the top stacks tonight against the low strikeouts of Erick Fedde, and Hoskins is cheaper than someone like Bryce Harper. Positive regression has hit hard for him with four homeruns in his last six contests, and his ISO still sits north of .200 against right-handed pitching over the last two seasons.
Ben Gamel- I don’t necessarily think Gamel is good, but we are searching for value and he is going to make my pool against Trevor Williams. The Brewers own another 5 implied team total today, but I expect them to go overlooked once again. Gamel doesn’t have eye-popping numbers vs right-handed pitching, but this season he does sport 50% hard-contact and 40% line drives. Over the last two seasons, Williams has allowed a .369 wOBA to left-handed batters. If you aren’t comfortable with Gamel, I also like Hoskins teammate, Alec Bohm, at his price.
With it being a night with expensive pitching and Coors Field, we have some tough choices to make. I do think there are enough pure punts that you can double-spend for pitching and get some Coors exposure, but the full-stack is unlikely. Trent Grisham, Mitch Moreland and Jake Cronenworth are my top Coors bats for cash games but you should also be able to find some value in guys like Raimel Tapia and Sam Hilliard. I will likely end up with Grisham, but that may be it depending on what other value opens up prior to lock. The Phillies are pretty cheap outside of Harper, and that may be where I (and others) end up in an optimal build.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
