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
Aaron Nola
Nola and Luis Castillo will likely battle for the crown of highest-owned pitcher on Friday night, but I have to lean towards Nola for cash game / small-field builds. Both have been in pretty good form as of late, while Nola has one of the best possible match-ups against the Kansas City Royals. KC’s projected lineup owns a sub-.300 wOBA against right-handed pitching this season to go along with a 24% strikeout rate. Nola throws his knuckle-curve around 33% of the time making it his most-used pitch — this Royals team is well below-average against the pitch and I think it’s a really strong individual match-up for him. I won’t argue anyone wanting to use Castillo, but Nola checks in as the better option for me. In tournaments, I’ll likely be looking to drop down into the mid-tier.
Reid Detmers
Detmers is priced in the mid-tier tonight against the Seattle Mariners, and is my favorite option overall for his price. I’m a big believer of Detmers long-term and we’ve seen some big starts from him the past year and a half. His ERA over the last 30 days looks terrifying (7.11) but it’s backed by a more solid 4.00 SIERA with 27% strikeouts. Seattle has been a target of mine with strikeout pitchers for a while now — with their projected lineup striking out 27% of the time against LHP this season. Detmers will see eight right-handed batters tonight – but he’s actually been a reverse-splits pitcher this season and is better vs RHH than LHH. Overall, I think we could see a 7 or 8 strikeout game from Detmers tonight and I like him in all formats.
Building Blocks
Luis Robert
Robert has been a target of mine all season against LHP, and he will see one again tonight in Logan Allen. Allen is significantly worse against righties than lefties, and Robert has been a top-ten bat in baseball against southpaw pitching this season. He has slate-breaking power, and is the type of player I’m fine using as a one-off in all formats if you don’t want to full stack the team. He also matches up well with Allen’s pitch mix given that he’s an above-average fastball hitter — Allen throws his fourseam fastball almost 50% of the time.
Triston Casas
Triston Casas has actually been really solid for the Red Sox down the stretch of the season and he’s one of my top value plays on tonight’s slate. I will note there could be some rain in the forecast here, so we will need to monitor that up until lock. Boston matches up with Alek Manoah tonight, who we know has struggled mightily this season. Most of his struggles have come against LHH — allowing a .384 wOBA and .213 ISO in the split. Casas as some of the best numbers on the team against RHP, but has also been locked in at the plate. Over the last 14 days, he ranks 6th overall in baseball with a 23% barrel rate.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
