The Friday MLB DFS slate is loaded with potential for MLB DFS scoring. With 12 games on deck, let’s dive right into the game-by-game breakdown for the DraftKings and FanDuel slates.
Note: All analysis is written utilizing available projected lineups as of the early morning, pay close attention to confirmed lineups and adjust accordingly. This article is posted and updated as it is written, if a game has not been filled in simply check back in a few minutes. Update notes are provided as lineups are confirmed to the best of our ability, but lineup changes are not typically updated as lock approaches, so stay tuned to official news for any late changes.
MLB DFS: Game by Game Main Slate Overview – 4/14/23
Minnesota Twins (+155/3.74) @ New York Yankees (-190/5.00)
After absolutely annihilating Yankees starter Jhony Brito and reliever Clayton Brewer last night in just the first inning, the Twins will be back in action on another warm day in the Bronx. Today’s highs are unlikely to reach yesterday’s lofty marks, both when it comes to the 90-degree temperature that was in play in mid-April and the huge scoring output by Minnesota. Yankee Stadium played like a late June game last night, but the environment was not the only factor in the Twins’ run creation and power display, Brito is simply not a premium Major League arm, he is a two-pitch starter lacking in polish who was exposed badly last night. The Twins will have no such luxury in a matchup against Nestor Cortes Jr. this evening. The lefty made 28 starts and covered 158.1 innings in 2022, pitching to a 3.64 xFIP and a 2.44 ERA with a solid 26.5% strikeout rate. Cortes had a sparkling 0.92 WHIP and allowed just a 34.5% hard-hit rate with a 2.60% home run rate last year. This season, Cortes has made two starts and yielded no home runs and just a 31.3% hard-hit rate over 10.1 innings. Cortes has not been perfect, he has a 5.28 xFIP underneath his excellent-looking ERA and he has induced just a 9.9% swinging-strike rate in the tiny sample, but there is no cause for concern and the pitcher is in play at $9,500/$10,300 across the industry. The Twins lineup looks like a mid-range play on this slate, there should be a bit of power available given the talent involved with some of the bats, but Cortes is good at keeping hitters off balance and keeping the ball in the yard. The projected lineup opens with star Byron Buxton, who fortunately made last night’s start after leaving Wednesday’s game with an injury. The star is as talented as anyone in the game, he only struggles with staying on the field. So far in 2023, Buxton is slashing .289/.347/.489 with a pair of home runs in 49 plate appearances. He hit 28 home runs and stole six bags in just 382 opportunities last year and was a 19/9 player in merely 254 in 2021. Speaking here as a Yankees fan: dear baseball gods, please let Byron Buxton play a full healthy season this year. The Twins lineup continues with star shortstop Carlos Correa, who will make several organizations look foolish if he manages to stay healthy. Correa has an 8.18 mark in our home run model and projects well for a player who costs just $4,900/$2,700 at a premium position. Kyle Garlick is in the projected lineup hitting third, he has made just one plate appearance so far this season but hit nine home runs in just 162 opportunities last year. Garlick has power potential but he is only available on DraftKings, where he costs just $2,300 and makes for a quality low-cost option if he is hitting in this top half of the Minnesota lineup. Jose Miranda was part of the Twins’ big inning yesterday, the solid hitter slashed .268/.325/.426 and created runs 17% better than average in 483 plate appearances, including 15 home runs, in 2022; he is off to a .212/.281/.231 start with a 48 WRC+ but may have finally turned the engine on for the 2023 season after last night’s performance, Miranda is a key contributor in this lineup. Right-handed catcher Ryan Jeffers offers power potential, he hit seven home runs in 236 opportunities last year, posting an excellent 13.2% barrel rate with a 42.4% hard-hit mark for the season. Jeffers has made just 17 plate appearances this season, he already has a home run on the board and he is at a 9.1% barrel rate with a 45.5% hard-hit percentage. Jeffers is a catcher value play at $2,500 and he can make it into the back of Twins stacks at $2,400 on the blue site. Donovan Solano and Willi Castro are in the mix at the bottom of the projected lineup, along with last night’s two-homer man Michael A. Taylor. Solano is the most frequently relevant among those hitters, he has made 41 plate appearances this year and he is slashing .342/.390/.421 with a 127 WRC+ but he is more of a correlation piece than an individual contributor. Castro and Taylor are mix-and-match pieces, while rookie Edouard Julien will be in play despite a same-handed matchup if he is in the lineup at $2,000/$2,400 at second base.
After putting up a whimpering effort with just two runs, both solo shots by Anthony Rizzo, the Yankees will be looking to set things right against rookie starter Louie Varland. The 25-year-old righty debuted last year with a 26-inning cup of coffee over five starts. Varland pitched to a 4.13 xFIP with a 3.81 ERA in that sample and he struck out 19.8% of opposing hitters while allowing a 41% hard-hit rate and a 3.77% home run rate in the small sample. Varland is a well-regarded prospect, but his pitching mechanism makes it somewhat difficult to see him making it as a long-term starter, he seems bound for a high-leverage bullpen role at some point in his career. Still, while pitching as a starter Varland has demonstrated dominance at stages in the Minor Leagues. The righty had a 32.1% strikeout rate in 21.1 innings at AAA and a 26.4% mark in 105 AA innings in 2022 in addition to his Major League marks. He was well over a 30% strikeout rate in roughly 100 innings between A-ball and high-A in 2021. Varland features a plus fastball and highly regarded secondary and tertiary pitches with strong command, he could have a very nice start against the free-swinging Yankees lineup, but he could also be in trouble against their power and overall quality. The rookie checks in at $7,100 on the DraftKings slate and he is frustratingly unavailable on FanDuel as of the morning (FanDuel is unlikely to add Varland by lock, but if they do he would be in play if he is priced at $8,500 or below. Do not mistakenly play his brother Gus, a reliever on the Brewers who is available at $5,500). The Yankees, meanwhile, are flashing good power marks as usual, with the expected three home run hitters all landing above the magic number in our model. It remains to be seen if DJ LeMahieu will return to the top of the lineup, if he plays LeMahieu is an affordable piece to stack as a great correlation play who also has individual upside. The infielder costs just $4,400 at second or third base on DraftKings and he plays second base as well as both corner infield spots for just $3,000 on the blue site. LeMahieu is slashing .263/.333/.500 with a .237 ISO while creating runs 29% better than average to start the season, but he has been dealing with soreness and has missed the last two games. Aaron Judge, Anthony Rizzo, and Giancarlo Stanton are the three players above 10.0 in our home run model, with Judge leading the way at 15.41. Last year’s home run king has four long balls on the year to go with his .277 ISO and 162 WRC+. Judge has barreled the ball at a 17.2% rate with a 65.5% hard-hit percentage over his 55 plate appearances this season, last year he was at an absurd 26.2% barrel rate with a 60.9% hard-hit mark on his way to 62 home runs. Judge is always in play, but he costs $6,400/$4,500, so budget wisely. Rizzo hit 32 home runs last year and has been over 30 frequently in his excellent career. The lefty first baseman has three home runs this season and he is slashing .326/.523/.581 with a .256 ISO while creating runs 79% better than average. Rizzo is cheap at $4,400/$3,300, he is an excellent play as part of a stack at the top of this batting order. At $4,900/$3,400, Stanton is also too cheap for his upside. The premium power hitter has crushed three dingers already this season, including one of the longest home runs ever hit in the new Yankee Stadium. Stanton has titanic power, he has a 20% barrel rate and a 60% hard-hit mark this season, last year he was at 19.2%/52.1%, hitting 31 home runs in just 452 plate appearances. When he is on the field Stanton is always capable of a massive MLB DFS performance. Gleyber Torres has been arguably the Yankees’ best player this season. The second baseman has created runs 101% better than average and has a pair of home runs and five stolen bases. Torres benefits from his position in the lineup, he is a strong correlation piece and one of the top plays at his position on most nights. Oswaldo Cabrera is a good utility player but might be miscast in an everyday role, he is sitting at a 61 WRC+ over his first 40 plate appearances this season but managed a 111 mark over 171 opportunities last year. Franchy Cordero has made the Yankees’ front office look incredibly sharp in early returns. Cordero has four home runs in 30 plate appearances, slashing .250/.300/.714 with a .464 ISO and a 171 WRC+ to open the season. The lefty has eligibility at first base and in the outfield for $2,800/$3,100, he is in play across the industry if he is in the lineup, but the Yankees could opt for Willie Calhoun, Isiah Kiner-Falefa, or Aaron Hicks in alternate versions of this lineup. Jose Trevino is a playable catcher, but his skill is his fantastic defense and pitch-framing ability, Kyle Higashioka is the better bat behind the plate. Rookie Anthony Volpe is slashing .158/.256/.237 with three stolen bases, a .079 ISO, and a 41 WRC+ over his first 43 plate appearances, he could be another regular starter due for a day off to get himself situated.
Play: Nestor Cortes Jr., Yankees stacks, small doses of Twins bats, small doses of Louie Varland where available/cheap/unpopular
Update Notes: The Twins lineup is roughly as expected with a minor shuffling of the batting order. The Yankees are again without DJ LeMahieu and will have Anthony Volpe leading off, which is an interesting place to land a rookie with a .256 on-base percentage in his 43 career plate appearances. Isiah Kiner-Falefa is in the nine-spot in the lineup, he is not a good option at the plate. The heat did in fact reach up to about 90-degrees ahead of game time so we may well see the Stadium play like a late June game again tonight.
Cleveland Guardians (-149/4.99) @ Washington Nationals (+137/4.11)
A matchup between the Guardians and Nationals sounds like bad news for baseball fans in our nation’s capital. The excellent Guardians lineup is facing right-hander Trevor Williams, who is making his third start of the season. Williams has just a 16.3% strikeout rate over his first two outings and 10.1 innings of the season, pitching to a 4.71 xFIP and a 4.35 ERA. The righty has allowed a 4.65% home run rate and an 11.4% barrel rate in the tiny sample. Last season, Williams posted a 22.6% strikeout rate over 89.2 innings and he had a 22.2% mark in 91 the year before, so there is probably slightly more strikeout quality, but he will be very hard-pressed to find it against the stingy Guardians lineup. Williams yielded a 3.23% home run rate in 2022 and a 2.72% mark the year before, and his 3.93 and 3.96 xFIP marks the past two seasons tell us he is essentially a league-average pitcher. Without much strikeout potential, it is difficult to recommend Williams, but his $5,600/$6,700 salary is somewhat enticing, particularly on the two-pitcher site. Williams would need only to pitch through a handful of clean innings and have his team come through against the flawed starter that is on the mound for the Guardians to provide value at his pricing, he is probably in play at least as a cheap low-end SP2 on DraftKings. The better side of the equation, however, is most certainly the Guardians lineup. Cleveland is very difficult to strike out and they are terrific at putting the ball in play. The projected starting lineup has an average strikeout rate of just 18.4% so far this season and the team features an excellent blend of power and speed, even if it has not fully come together so far this season. The Guardians have one of baseball’s best leadoff men in Steven Kwan, who is too cheap at $4,300/$3,200 in the outfield. Kwan struck out at a microscopic 9.4% rate over 638 plate appearances while slashing .298/.373/.400 with a 124 WRC+ last season, he is a very underrated player when it comes to MLB DFS. The outfielder hit six home runs and had just a .101 ISO, power is not his game but he puts the ball in play constantly and has a great motor on the basepaths, making him a dynamite correlation piece. Kwan stole 19 bases in 2022 and he already has three on the board this season while striking out at a 10.9% clip and walking 14.1% of the time. Amed Rosario is sitting at just a 46 WRC+ after 59 plate appearances this season, he has one home run and three stolen bases, but we know he is a better player than that. Last season the multi-category player hit 11 home runs and stole 18 bases with a 103 WRC+ over 670 plate appearances. Rosario slashed .283/.312/.403 in that sample, if he can pick up his lousy 3.7% walk rate and boost his on-base acumen during the season (not a good start at .254 on-base in 2023) he will make a leap as a star. Jose Ramirez is the best third baseman in baseball, with apologies to column favorite Matt Chapman who we will get to eventually. Ramirez hits from both sides of the plate and provides excellence across the board for fantasy purposes. He has made 61 plate appearances this season and is off to a .294/.393/.451 start with a 121 WRC+ and four stolen bases. The one surprising thing is that the slugger has no home runs and just a .157 ISO to this point in the season, Ramirez hit 29 home runs with a .235 ISO last year and had 36 homers and a .272 ISO the year before, the power is in the mail. Lefties Josh Naylor and Andres Gimenez slot into the next two spots in the projected lineup. Naylor costs $4,100/$2,600 and provides potentially sneaky upside for power. So far this season he is slashing just .209/.280/.349 with a 66 WRC+ but he has two home runs and his contact profile has been strong with a 10.8% barrel rate. Gimenez has been his typically excellent self, he has a home run and has stolen three bases while posting a 129 WRC+. Gimenez is a $4,500 second baseman on DraftKings and a $3,500 option at both middle-infield spots on the blue site, he is a strong play who does not spike the popularity that he should on most nights. Switch-hitting Josh Bell has had a poor start to his season but he is a strong bat who comes cheap at $3,600 on DraftKings and a bargain-basement $2,200 on the FanDuel slate. Bell joins Jose Abreu and Carlos Correa as strong FanDuel one-off values on this slate, he hit 17 home runs in 2022 and had 27 the year before, he will find his game eventually, get ahead of the curve. Will Brennan is a mix-and-match piece from the bottom third of the lineup, while Mike Zunino is always in play when he starts. Zunino is a $3,500 catcher on DraftKings and a $2,600 option on FanDuel, he has a home run and a 191 WRC+ so far this season in 32 plate appearances, and his contact profile is as excellent as ever at an 11.8% barrel rate. The Guardians are a strong play tonight.
The hometown Nationals are facing a pushover pitcher as well, this could turn into a bit of an early shootout with all of the contact available, but the Nationals’ lineup falls short of rivaling the team fielded by the Guardians. Cleveland right-hander Cal Quantrill brings little to the mound in terms of strikeout upside or MLB DFS quality, he is a tough ask at $8.700 on the DraftKings slate and there is only a thin path to success at $6,900 on FanDuel. Quantrill made 32 starts and pitched through 186.1 mediocre innings last season, posting a 4.39 xFIP beneath his deceptive 3.38 ERA. The righty had just a 16.6% strikeout rate, he induced swinging strikes at just an 8.2% clip and had a 23.8% CSW%. Quantrill is good at limiting hard contact, he allowed just a 35.6% hard-hit rate last year and had a 34.2% mark the season before, and he does not yield much power, but there should be plenty of action on balls in play. Quantrill has made two starts this season, he has a 5.96 xFIP over 9.2 innings and has struck out 12.8% of hitters while inducing a 6.0% swinging-strike rate. The Nationals’ projected lineup has one hitter who has created runs better than average this season, naturally, he hits ninth for this team. The average WRC+ for the other eight hitters in the lineup is currently sitting at just 68, or 32% below average. This is not a good baseball team. Alex Call leads off and does not do anything particularly noteworthy, but he is inexpensive and facing a pitcher who will allow contact. Call has a home run and a 96 WRC+ over 49 plate appearances, making him the team’s second-best hitter this year. Jeimer Candelario has two home runs but just a 63 WRC+ this year in 57 plate appearances. In a fair sample of 467 opportunities last year, Candelario had a WRC+ that was 20% below average and he hit just 13 home runs. Did we mention that this is not a good baseball team? Lefty Dominic Smith has flashed reasonably OK premium contact numbers in the past, but he has never put things together with any consistency, his best attribute tonight is a $2,900/$2,500 price tag. Joey Meneses slashed .324/.367/.563 with 13 home runs in just 240 plate appearances last year, he has been slow to start this season with no home runs and a 59 WRC+, slashing .224/.283/.306 with a .082 ISO over 53 plate appearances. Meneses still costs $4,200 on DraftKings but he is just a $2,600 player on FanDuel. Catcher Keibert Ruiz has a decent stick behind the plate but there are typically much better catching options, he should only be deployed in the rare instance that one is stacking Nationals. The bottom of the projected lineup includes Luis Garcia, Lane Thomas, C.J. Abrams, and the lone player with an above-average WRC+, outfielder Victor Robles. The former top prospect costs just $2,400/$2,500 and has long been regarded for his mid-range pop and excellent speed. So far this season, Robles has made 47 plate appearances and he is slashing .359/.444/.410 with two stolen bases and a 138 WRC+. He has shown no power, coming in at a .051 ISO with no home runs, but he is one of the better options on this team.
Play: Guardians stacks, cheap tournament pitching value in minor shares for the bold.
Update Notes: Both of these lineups are as-expected, take this moment instead to account for any “multiple Luis Garcias tonight” changes you need to make in your process.
Tampa Bay Rays (-131/5.10) @ Toronto Blue Jays (+121/4.50)
One of the best matchups on the slate sees the Tampa Bay Rays take on the Blue Jays in Toronto in what should be a fun rivalry this season and for years into the future. Tampa Bay is one of the featured teams in our Power Index in their excellent matchup against Jose Berrios. The starter has looked like a very targetable pitcher since the start of last season and was never the ace that people seem to misremember. Just like the Berenstain Bears were – apparently – never the Berenstein Bears, Berrios was never one of the best pitchers in the league, he was merely a little bit above average. The starter’s best season to date by a fair margin was 2021, a year in which he pitched to a healthy 3.59 xFIP with a 3.52 ERA and a good-not-great 26.1% strikeout rate. Last season he dropped to a 19.8% strikeout rate over 172 innings in 32 starts, while pitching to a 4.21 xFIP and a 5.23 ERA. His contact profile also shifted radically, his average exit velocity allowed jumped from 88.4 mph to 90.0, on the back of a hard-hit mark that spiked from 38.3% to 43.4% with a barrel rate climbing from 9.1% to 9.5%. Those contact changes resulted in a leap from a 2.82% home run rate to a 3.85% mark, and Berrios has been worse over two starts this season. The righty has a 26.1% strikeout rate in his 9.2 innings and he has pitched to a 3.20 xFIP with a sharp 14.4% swinging-strike rate, but he has an unsightly 11.17 ERA and has allowed a massive 51.6% hard-hit mark with a 9.7% barrel rate. The resulting average exit velocity has jumped to 91.7 mph, and he has allowed one home run on the season. Even if the strikeout numbers return to 2021 form, Berrios will not survive with that amount of premium contact, and the Rays look like an excellent option for power again this evening. Tampa Bay’s projected lineup begins with the excellent Yandy Diaz, who is slashing .275/.388/.600 with a .325 ISO and four home runs to start the season. Diaz has created runs 74% better than average this year, he was 46% better than average over a full season of 558 plate appearances last year, this is an under-appreciated player who still only costs $4,900/$3,300. Lefty masher Brandon Lowe is one of the game’s best second basemen at the dish. Lowe missed much of last season, he made just 266 plate appearances and hit eight home runs, but the year before he blasted 39 long balls with a .277 ISO. Healthy and in the lineup regularly, Lowe looks like that hitter again in 2023, he is slashing .333/.463/.818 with five home runs and a titanic .485 ISO. The left-handed second baseman is currently 149% better than the league average for run creation, he is well worth the $4,100 that FanDuel is asking, his $4,300 DraftKings price is inexplicable. Lowe should be priced in the $5,500-$6,000 range on DraftKings, joining teammates Randy Arozarena and Wander Franco, who are priced at $6,000/$3,800 and $5,900/$4,100 respectively. The duo hit third and fourth in the projected lineup, bringing excellence for the salary. Arozarena has hit three home runs and stolen two bases this year, Franco has four dingers and three stolen bases. The top four hitters in the Rays’ lineup are hitting .311/.400/.662 with a .351 ISO and a 194 WRC+, no wonder they are 13-0. Arozarena and Franco are both proven multi-category stars, the former hit 20 home runs and stole 32 bases last year, while Franco managed just six and eight he still created runs 16% better than average in a short 344 plate appearance season in 2022. They are followed in the projected lineup by Luke Raley, who costs just $3,600/$2,900 from the left side of the plate. Raley has eligibility at first base and in the outfield on DraftKings, he is exclusively an outfielder on FanDuel. After posting a 13.2% barrel rate in his 72 plate appearances in 2022, Raley has an absurd 26.3% barrel rate over his first 32 plate appearances this season. He has three home runs and has created runs 68% better than average in the tiny sample while generating a 63.2% hard-hit rate. While the contact marks are coming down with time as a certainty, Raley has demonstrated the ability to hit the baseball very hard with some reliability, he is pulling a strong 8.90 in our home run model. Isaac Paredes costs $3,900/$3,100 which still seems cheap for a player slashing .308/.386/.538 with a .231 ISO and a 164 WRC as well as three home runs in the early going. Paredes hit 20 homers in just 381 plate appearances last year and his contact profile has actually been poor to start the season, there is upside beyond what the third baseman has shown to this point in 2023. Taylor Walls, Christian Bethancourt, and Josh Lowe bring up the bottom third of the batting order. Walls hit eight home runs last year with a .113 ISO, he is the only player in the Rays’ projected lineup without a home run in 2023. Bethancourt has a terrific contact profile in the small sample and was very good with an 11.7% barrel rate and a 44.4% hard-hit mark over 333 plate appearances in which he hit 11 home runs last year. Lowe has already matched his 2022 home run output with two long balls so far this season. The quality is primarily from 1-6, but the Rays can be deployed in stacks from top to bottom and around again on both DraftKings and FanDuel tonight.
The Blue Jays will be facing quality Tampa Bay righty Drew Rasmussen, who has provided solid value to MLB DFS gamers in his first two starts of the season after a good 2022. Rasmussen made 28 starts last year, pitching 146 innings and striking out an average 21.4% of hitters. He had a 3.56 xFIP and a 2.84 ERA but induced a sharp 12.1% swinging-strike rate. Over his first two starts this year, Rasmussen has leaped to a 35.7% strikeout rate and a 13.3% swinging-strike rate, with a 34% CSW%. The righty has yet to walk a hitter, he has a 2.22 xFIP and a 0.00 ERA with a 0.23 WHIP and excellent contact metrics so far. Of course, citing any of this season’s numbers ignores both the ridiculously small, largely meaningless, two-game sample, as well as the fact that those two starts came against easily the two worst teams in the league, namely the Nationals, and the Athletics. Rasmussen is undoubtedly a good pitcher, but he will be challenged by an excellent Toronto lineup that has been firing on all cylinders in a favorable hitter’s park. The starter is priced up to $10,000 on the DraftKings slate and a ridiculous $11,200 on FanDuel, both of which might price him out of reasonable consideration. If he is dramatically under-projected for ownership around the industry there would be arguments for getting to the Tampa Bay righty in greater shares than the field simply as a contrarian angle on a good starter, but there are better options for less salary on both sites. The Blue Jays lineup is playable against this pitcher, Rasmussen is more likely a mid-20s strikeout rate starter and he is fairly unlikely to maintain a 0.00 ERA and home run rate all season. George Springer is a $5,300/$3,700 option in the outfield, he is too cheap on FanDuel. Springer has two home runs and two stolen bases but just a 90 WRC+ in his first 59 plate appearances. He hit 25 home runs and stole 14 bases last year with a 132 WRC+ and a .205 ISO, he is a great play atop a Toronto stack. Bo Bichette was our Toronto home run pick for the day. The righty shortstop hit 24 long balls last season with a .179 ISO, he has four already this year with a .237 ISO and improved marks for premium contact in 62 plate appearances. Bichette is slashing .339/.371/.576 with a 163 WRC+ so far. Fellow second-generation star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. continues the run of excellent right-handed bats to start the lineup. Guerrero is off to a phenomenal start and it is easy to envision him chasing a triple crown this season. The first baseman is slashing .412/.492/.549 with a 197 WRC+. The power has been slow to arrive over his first 61 plate appearances, Guerrero has two home runs and just a .137 ISO so far this year, but he hit 32 with a .205 mark last year and 48 with a .290 ISO the season before. He costs a full $5,800 on the DraftKings slate, but comes as a bargain at $3,900 on FanDuel. Outfielder Daulton Varsho has hit just one home run but he has been solid slashing .289/.389/.422 with a 131 WRC+ so far this season. Varsho hit 27 home runs with a .207 ISO last year, he will find his power in this lineup. Matt Chapman is the most expensive player on the FanDuel slate at $4,600, he costs $5,600 on DraftKings where he is arguably cheap, at least for his production to this point in 2023. Chapman has been a daily fixture in this space, he is slashing .489/.538/.851 with three home runs and a 286 WRC+ over 52 plate appearances, but the slugger scratched just before lock last night with an illness, and he could be out again this evening. That situation would likely put Santiago Espinal back in play along with Cavan Biggio at the bottom of the lineup. Alejandro Kirk makes for a good catcher on DraftKings, where he costs just $3,500. Kirk slashed .285/.372/.415 last year but drops in at just .226/.324/.323 with a 77 WRC+ so far this year. Lefty Brandon Belt is a good power play from the six or seven spots in this matchup, the slugger is cheap at $2,300/$2,200 at first base, he could be a compelling one-off play on both sites and is worth including in some stacks of Blue Jays bats.
Play: Tampa Stacks, Blue Jays stacks, some contrarian Drew Rasmussen if projected to be unpopular for price/matchup
Update Notes: These lineups are as-expected but Bethancourt is hitting ninth with Josh Lowe hitting eighth for Tampa Bay. Matt Chapman is back in the lineup for Toronto.
Los Angeles Angels (-113/4.91) @ Boston Red Sox (+104/4.70)
The Angels are in Fenway Park to face righty Tanner Houck, who has put up two serviceable starts to open the season while filling in for missing arms in the Red Sox rotation. Houck is ultimately better in an extended bullpen role, but he can get by in the rotation as well. He had a 22.7% strikeout rate in 60 innings and four starts last season and is at a 23.1% mark over his first 10 innings in two starts in 2023. Houck has allowed a 44.4% hard-hit rate so far this season and he gave up a 39.3% rate last year, but he has been quite good at keeping the ball down. The righty allowed just a 4.9% barrel rate with a 4.5-degree average launch angle last season, amounting to just a 1.21% home run rate. This year Houck has given up a 7.4% barrel rate and 92.7 mph of average exit velocity with a 5.13% home run rate, which amounts to the two home runs he allowed in his first start this season. Houck can suppress power and he could impact the quality of an Angels stack this evening, the team is showing less power than usual in our home run model, so they would potentially have to rely on sequencing. There are strikeouts in the Los Angeles lineup, and Houck is affordable at just $6,500 on the DraftKings slate, making him worthy of a few darts in large field tournaments. At $8,100 on the single-pitcher site, rostering Houck would be a more difficult trick to attempt. The Angels are playable at the top of the lineup as well. Taylor Ward costs $5,100/$3,700 and brings a very good bat to the top of the lineup as both an individual and a correlation piece with the team’s superstars. Ward has hit two home runs and is slashing .292/.393/.438 with a 136 WRC+ over 56 plate appearances in 2023. In 564 opportunities last year, the outfielder hit 23 home runs and had a 137 mark for run creation. Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani may not be familiar names to our intergalactic readers, or new AI chatbots just consuming this as part of their language-learning model, but the rest of the baseball world should be familiar with two of the best players on the planet. Or in the galaxy, for that matter. Probably. Trout is slashing .262/.436/.524 and creating runs 71% better than average over 55 plate appearances, Ohtani has an equal number of home runs and is slashing .300/.404/.575 while creating runs 66% better than average in his 47 tries. They’re pretty good. The lineup continues with right-handed power bats Anthony Rendon, who has scuffled out of the gate this season after an injury-marred 2022, and Hunter Renfroe, who has three home runs and a .273 ISO in his 52 plate appearances. Renfroe has equaled the production of the two superstars above him in the lineup in the early part of the season, he is no slouch and this is not overly surprising, though he is unlikely to entirely keep pace all year. Renfroe hit 29 home runs in 2022 and 31 in 2021, he is a very good power bat for $4,900/$3,400 from site to site. Switch-hitting Luis Rengifo slots in at both second base and shortstop for $3,500 on DraftKings and is eligible at both middle infield spots as well as third base for merely $2,500 on the blue site. Rengifo is in play for stacks, he helps offset price and popularity and has ceiling-score potential. The infielder slashed .264/.294/.429 with a 103 WRC+ and 17 home runs in 511 plate appearances last year. Lefty Jake Lamb is fine as a low-owned value play with some upside for power, but he has not shown much in recent years. Gio Urshela puts the ball in play but does not offer a ton of power or speed, he can hit the infrequent home run and is currently sporting a 113 WRC+ for a small investment at multiple positions, keeping him afloat for now in MLB DFS lineups. Logan O’Hoppe has had a solid start as well, the catcher remains cheap at just $4,100/$3,200, he is a good option at the position on DraftKings, and his lineup position should keep ownership light. The highly hyped hitting backstop has four home runs and a 146 WRC+ with a .371 ISO in his 39 plate appearances this year.
Lefty Patrick Sandoval is having the same impact on the Red Sox’ power marks as Houck is on his team’s lineup. Sandoval has been good at limiting home runs and inducing soft/medium contact for the past few seasons, he is a demonstrably good pitcher in those areas. The southpaw made 27 starts and pitched to a 3.67 xFIP with a 2.91 ERA last year. He allowed just 33.9% hard hits for the season with just a 1.25% home run rate. Those numbers were fairly consistent with the year before, Sandoval’s hard-hit rate was 35.4% over 87 innings and 14 starts that season. He is a mid-range option for strikeouts, sitting down 23.7% of hitters last year and 25.9% the season before on the back of an excellent ability to induce swinging strikes. There is game-to-game strikeout upside lurking in the pitcher, he could find a few against this version of the Red Sox lineup. Sandoval is in play as a mid-range option at $8,500/$9,400, but this is not the greatest of matchups. If he comes up with low ownership projections industrywide, Sandoval makes for a good contrarian pitcher to include in a full portfolio of lineups. The Red Sox are playable but do not look great on this slate. The projected lineup includes Enrique Hernandez, a journeyman who is off to a rough start but checks in at $3,600/$2,700 in the leadoff role. Hernandez would primarily be a correlation piece alongside Rafael Devers, the Red Sox’ star third baseman. Devers is slashing .280/.321/.640 with five home runs while creating runs 50% better than average to start the year. He hit 27 home runs last year and 38 the year before, the lefty is one of the best in the game at the hot corner, but he is in a difficult matchup for same-handed power tonight, making his $6,300/$4,200 a tough pill. Justin Turner is cheap but has not been overly productive to this point in the season with a 101 WRC+. The veteran has extended quality however, he is very much a part of things when stacking Red Sox bats tonight. Masataka Yoshida is slashing .216/.356/.324 to begin his MLB career. He has one home run and two stolen bases in his 45 plate appearances after coming over from the NPB in the offseason, Yoshida can be included when stacking Red Sox bats, but he does not stand out given the performance to date in the small sample. Alex Verdugo at $4,800/$3,000 in a same-handed matchup that further limits his already-light power potential. Verdugo has a .093 ISO in 607 career plate appearances against fellow lefties with an 84 WRC+ compared to a 118 mark against right-handed pitching. Rob Refsnyder, Christian Arroyo, and Connor Wong are cheap mixers at best, but column favorite Bobby Dalbec would be in play if he gets the starting nod again. Dalbec has not given us much the last two days, but he comes with excellent contact marks when he connects, he has a more discerning eye than he is given credit for, and he costs just $2,200/$2,000 while carrying eligibility at shortstop on DraftKings in addition to the first base positioning that he features on both sites. Dalbec is carrying a 5.64 in our home run model, an average mark but one that puts him second behind Devers in the projected Red Sox lineup tonight.
Play: Patrick Sandoval, minor shares of Houck as a value SP2, light shares of Angels and Red Sox bats.
Update Notes: Brandon Drury is back in the lineup for the Angels, he will hit seventh with Rengifo dropping to eighth. The Red Sox will have Verdugo leading off despite the lefty-lefty, they will also have Rob Refsnyder hitting third for reasons only they understand. Yoshida is out of the lineup once again. Triston Casas is getting the start instead of Bobby Dalbec as well, as the Sox seem to be abandoning their platoon constructions.
Baltimore Orioles (-116/4.68) @ Chicago White Sox (+107/4.42)
The Orioles take to the Windy City for a game against Mike Clevinger, who costs $8,300/$8,700 which seems high for this starter in this matchup. The upstart Orioles lineup is loaded with young talent and they have been showing off in the early part of the season while Clevinger has been below average in his first two outings. The diminished righty had just an 18.8% strikeout rate over 114.1 innings in 22 starts last season, which makes his current 18.4% mark over 10.1 innings in two starts this year believable. Clevinger has walked 10.2% this year with a 6.06 xFIP but he is yet to allow a home run and has a deceptive 3.48 ERA. The fact that he is yet to allow a home run despite giving up a 42.4% hard-hit rate with a 91 mph average exit velocity and a 9.1% barrel rate on the back of a 20.1-degree average launch angle is somewhat miraculous and cannot last, that contact profile shapes a home run nicely. Clevinger is not a good option in this matchup, the Orioles can be deployed against him. Baltimore’s lineup has hit for power and created runs exceedingly well so far this season. The team also features league-leading speed and a willingness to run the bases aggressively. The Orioles’ projected lineup has six hitters who are well above average for run creation so far this season while two of the underperformers are highly regarded veteran bats, namely Cedric Mullins II and Anthony Santander. Mullins has just a 68 WRC+ and Santander has created runs 48% below average at a 52 WRC+. The two can be relied on to get their seasons in gear soon, which will make this lineup even more devastatingly good. Mullins still costs $5,500/$3,400, but he should be included in stacks of Orioles. Catcher Adley Rutschman is rapidly becoming one of the league’s best bats behind the plate. The young catcher is already a star and he is off to an outrageously good start at .373/.467/.627 with a .255 ISO and four home runs. Rutschman has created runs 104% better than average atop the Orioles lineup this year, he is an excellent play on both sites. Santander slots in third on most nights, the switch-hitter blasted 33 home runs last year and 18 in just 438 plate appearances the season before, he will be fine, gamers should not sweat the lack of home runs or discernible production so far in 2023, it is a minor blip in a long season. Ryan Mountcastle has more than made up for any lack of production from his veteran teammates. The first baseman has six home runs and a massive .415 ISO so far this season, he has created runs 53% better than average while slashing .254/.293/.679 in 58 plate appearances. Mountcastle had a fantastic contact profile last year when he sported a 15% barrel rate and a 45.8% hard-hit mark, so far this season he is at a “Judgian” 26.3% barrel rate with a 55.3% hard-hit mark. Mountcastle is still too cheap at $4,700/$3,600, the MLB DFS sites will catch up eventually if we keep talking about it, get him while you still can. Rookie Gunnar Henderson is looking to join the club of excellent young players, it is only a matter of time. Henderson has been slow out of the gate at just .162/.354/.297 but he is one of the top prospects in baseball and he is inexpensive with multi-position eligibility on both sites. With hopes that he also checks in under-owned, Henderson is a strong value play in the middle of the Orioles lineup. Austin Hays brings power from the right side of the plate. Hays has three home runs already this year after hitting just 16 in 582 plate appearances last season. He has barreled the ball consistently at a 22.9% rate so far, which has also translated to slashing .340/.380/.638 with a 180 WRC+. At only 27, Hays is not so far removed from being a highly regarded prospect that it would be inconceivable for him to also join the list of premium young bats on this team, a list whose length will begin to look unfair to the future if he does. Adam Frazier and Ramon Urias are capable options, Urias is the better hitter who can provide some sneaky power from time to time, but the interesting hitter at the end of the lineup is, say it with us, Jorge Mateo. The shortstop has seven stolen bases already and he has gotten on base at a .350 clip so far this season, making him a terrific MLB DFS asset at a cheap price as a wraparound play. Mateo is slashing .286/.350/.486, he has added two home runs with a .200 ISO and has created runs 30% better than average. Do not skip the shortstop in many Orioles stacks, he is as good as advertised.
With right-hander Tyler Wells on the hill, the White Sox are looking like a sharp play, but they are still missing key bats in the lineup, which has to knock them back a peg in overall stack rankings. Wells has not been very good to this point in his career. The righty had a 4.60 xFIP and a 4.25 ERA over 103.2 innings in 23 starts last year and a 4.11 xFIP in 57 innings out of the bullpen in 2021. In the relief outings, he posted a very good 29% strikeout rate, but that plummeted to just 18% in his starting role last year. Wells allowed a 38.8% hard-hit rate with a 3.78% home run rate last year and he yielded an 11% barrel rate with a 41.1% hard-hit mark and a 4.02% home run rate in the bullpen season. This year he has thrown 11 innings in one start and one relief appearance. He has a 20.5% strikeout rate with a 5.13% home run rate and 9.7% barrel rate allowed. Wells does not seem overly playable on either site. The White Sox lineup features Andrew Benintendi who sports a premium hit tool but only light power in the role. Benintendi costs $3,800/$2,800, he is cheap for his contact and ball-in-play skills, and he will run a little bit when he gets on base. The outfielder has two stolen bases but has created runs 31% below average so far this season. He hits in front of fellow outfielder Luis Robert Jr. who has excelled so far this season after playing for his home nation of Cuba in the World Baseball Classic. Robert has hit five home runs and created runs 83% better than average to carry the team early. He is slashing .340/.340/.698 with a .358 ISO and an excellent 17.1% barrel rate. Robert is a $5,400/$3,900 option who is well worth the money and should not be skipped in White Sox stacks. Andrew Vaughn and Gavin Sheets are a solid righty-lefty power-hitting combination in the middle of the lineup. Vaughn hit 17 home runs last season but is yet to go deep in 53 tries so far this year, Sheets is also lacking for a 2023 home run, but both players are pulling in quality marks in our home run model this evening. Vaughn sits second on the White Sox behind Robert’s 9.61 at a 9.29, while Sheets lands at an 8.97 from the left side of the plate. The trio makes for a solid three-man power stack, they can be combined with Benintendi or catcher Yasmani Grandal, who has returned to form with a 117 WRC+ and a .349 on-base percentage. Jake Burger is in the projected lineup, he is cheap and offers a bit of power upside, but left-handed rookie outfielder Oscar Colas is more interesting for just $2,600/$2,700. Colas is slashing .275/.326/.375 with a home run and two stolen bases over the first 44 plate appearances of his career, he is a cheap way to differentiate a Chicago stack. Lenyn Sosa and Elvis Andrus are not this space’s favorite infield plays, but either can be deployed as needed for value and offsetting popularity. Andrus provides infrequent MLB DFS upside but his decent 2022 is under the microscope after a -11 WRC+ start to his 2023 campaign over 51 plate appearances.
Play: Orioles stacks, some White Sox stacks
Update Notes: Terrin Vavra is starting for Mateo and hitting ninth for the Orioles, scratch one good play from the deck. The White Sox will see a major boost with the return of Eloy Jimenez to the middle of their lineup, big bump to Chicago in relative rankings in this matchup. Gavin Sheets will not start, Vaughn is hitting third making for a dynamite 1-4 stack.
Atlanta Braves (-136/4.88) @ Kansas City Royals (+126/4.21)
A quality pitching matchup in Kansas City has the Braves lineup slightly lower-rated than they normally land in models. Atlanta’s fantastic offense is facing quality righty Brady Singer, who makes for a compelling price play at $7,600/$8,400. Singer struck out 24.2% of opposing hitters over 153.1 innings last year, up from the 22.4% he posted in 128.1 innings as a rookie in 2021. The right-hander has given up some lousy contact marks and struck out just 15.9% in two starts this season, but he seems like a good candidate to work out any early-season yips, and he could find additional strikeouts against Atlanta’s aggressive offense. Of course, the Braves could connect with the 11.8% barrel rate and 64.7% hard-hit marks that Singer has allowed in his 11 innings so far this year, but it seems unlikely that he will continue to be that bad for contact. Singer should be low-owned across the industry, so it will not take many shares to get beyond the field and gain a touch of leverage. The Braves can also be rostered in this situation, particularly with the current-year contact marks in the ignorable sample. Singer allowed too much premium contact last year as well, he was at a 40.9% hard-hit rate allowed and an 8.2% barrel rate, but he managed to hold hitters to just a 2.9% home run rate. Atlanta’s lineup begins with significant star quality, particularly five-tool superstar Ronald Acuna Jr., who has two home runs and six stolen bases with a 166 WRC+ so far this year. Acuna costs $6,500/$4,100, putting him on a value pitcher price tier on the DraftKings slate, but he is easily worth the salary. Acuna is followed by Matt Olson who has hit four home runs with a .333 ISO and a 169 WRC+ while carrying a massive 27.6% barrel rate and 51.7% hard-hit mark over 61 plate appearances this year. Olson is one of the top power bats in baseball, he hit 34 home runs last year and 39 the season before, and is carrying a team-leading 9.18 in our home run model this evening. Austin Riley comes damn close to matching his star teammates in power and he created runs at a 42% above-average pace last season. Riley is a $5,500 third baseman on DraftKings but somehow checks in at just $3,500 on FanDuel, which is just way too low. Riley should be in basically every Braves stack, particularly at the blue site’s pricing. For just $4,200 where catchers are mandatory, Sean Murphy also makes a ton of sense in the Braves lineup. While the team should likely ultimately be deployed in a somewhat limited fashion tonight, Murphy can be played aggressively within those stacks. The catcher has a lone home run but is sporting a .219 ISO early in the season, he hit 18 home runs with a .177 ISO last year while creating runs 22% better than average, he is an excellent bat behind the dish. Outfielder Eddie Rosario has been slow to start 2023, as have second baseman Ozzie Albies and right-handed outfielder Marcell Ozuna. The trio of hitters has been highly capable of both power and run creation throughout their careers, all of them can be expected to turn things around for the season, but Albies is currently the most playable as a multi-category option at a premium position. The outfielders are more easily skipped, but either could hit the random home run at a cheap price and with no popularity. Sam Hilliard is interesting as a cheap left-handed bat late in the lineup, he offers a touch of power as has been mentioned in this space several times since he joined the team, and young top prospect infielder Vaughn Grissom is a highly regarded player set to make his season debut in the absence of injured Orlando Arcia. Grissom is not on the FanDuel slate, but he is a good option for just $3,100 on DraftKings. Grissom hit 14 home runs and stole 27 bases across 442 plate appearances between high-A and AA last year before hitting five home runs and stealing five bases in a 156 plate appearance opportunity with the MLB club. In 48 plate appearances in AAA this season, Grissom was slashing .366/.458/.585 with a .220 ISO, a home run, and two stolen bases; he is a ready-now player.
Braves starter Charlie Morton rides into Kansas City with a 5.53 xFIP and a 4.35 ERA and a frighteningly low 13.5% strikeout rate in 10.1 innings and two starts to open the season. Morton was very good last year, he struck out 28.2% of opposing hitters with a 3.61 xFIP but it is not beyond possibility that that was the end of the line for an over-40 starter. Morton has a 9.6% walk rate and a 1.94 WHIP so far this season and has gotten by only with the ability to limit premium contact, this does not look good. It is difficult to recommend the starter at his $9,100/$9,000 price tag. Morton’s velocity has been down more than a mile per hour on his fastball, but most concerningly his spin rate on the pitch has dipped from an 81st percentile 2374 to a 42nd percentile 2248 rpm. Morton has a long track record of success and he has experienced blips before, but he is difficult to trust against the hard-hitting Royals lineup. There are strikeouts available here for the bold, if Morton is entirely untrusted by the public he is worthy of a few uncomfortable tournament shares given Kansas City’s strikeout rate, but it will not feel good. The Royals are sporting mid-range marks for power as the model does not account much for Morton’s lack of quality in this year’s two outings, but they are looking very good for MLB DFS projections overall and the team is exceedingly cheap on both sites. The top four hitters in Kansas City’s projected lineup come in at an average salary of $2800, rounding up. The team does not have a hitter priced above the $2,900 that the blue site is asking for Bobby Witt Jr. on this slate. They are also cheap on DraftKings, but that site at least prices the stars into the high $4,000s and they have Witt at $5,200. FanDuel’s prices for Royals bats are broken this evening, this is a very strong opportunity for value stacking. Kansas City’s projected lineup has MJ Melendez at the top, the slugger hit 18 home runs last year but he has just one and a 73 WRC+ so far this season. Melendez is sporting a 26.1% barrel rate and a 65.2% hard-hit mark in his 48 plate appearances however, more home runs are imminent with that type of premium contact. With catcher and outfield eligibility on both sites, Melendez is a dynamic inexpensive play. Bobby Witt Jr. is slashing .229/.288/.396 with a .167 ISO and an 85 WRC+ but he hit 20 home runs and stole 30 bases last season and is a star-caliber play on any given slate. Witt is a must in Royals stacks even at the DraftKings price, his discount on FanDuel makes him a viable shortstop one-off play. Vinnie Pasquantino has created runs 62% better than average while slashing .293/.408/.561 with two home runs and a .268 ISO this season. The first baseman slashed .295/.383/.450 with 10 home runs and a 137 WRC+ in 298 opportunities last year. Why Pasqantino costs just $3,400/$2,700 is anyone’s guess, he should be deployed enthusiastically. Sal Perez costs $4,700 where catchers are needed and $2,700 where they are not. He hit 48 home runs in 2021 and has two already this season, despite otherwise struggling for quality. Perez leads the team with a 6.98 in our home run model in this matchup, he is in play and should be included in most Royals stacks. Lefty Kyle Isbel has not been much of a factor for MLB DFS scoring in his career, but Franmil Reyes and Michael Massey are intriguing names later in the projected Royals lineup. Reyes has hit two home runs and has a .214 ISO in 31 opportunities this season, he hit 14 homers last year and 30 in 466 plate appearances in 2021, he should cost more than $2,700/$2,300. Massey is a decent left-handed bat who costs $2,100 on both sites, while outfielder Edward Olivares is yet another cheap late-lineup play. Kansas City looks like the value play du jour, but they will be a make-or-break option, depending on whether Morton finds his game or not on the mound.
Play: some Braves stacks but fewer than usual, Royals value stacks aggressively, some Morton shares if you believe, some value-based contrarian Singer if you are one to embrace risk
Update Notes: The Braves confirmed lineup is as planned at the top end, with Rosario hitting fifth and Albies sixth before things change with Grissom bumping up to seventh, Hilliard sliding to the nine spot, and Kevin Pillar getting a start in place of Ozuna. Pillar is not much of an MLB DFS option, he does not rival Ozuna’s power potential or run creation output, minor bump to Grissom for the better lineup spot. The Royals are rolling with a lineup that is as expected but in a slightly different order. Isbel is hitting fifth behind the primary core, with Olivares-Massey-Reyes-Lopez following him.
Texas Rangers (+141/3.85) @ Houston Astros (-153/4.75)
Right-handed starter Luis Garcia is taking on the Rangers in a battle of Texas teams in Houston tonight. Garcia has been good for the past two seasons, he posted a 26.4% strikeout rate in 155.1 innings in 2021 and a 24.4% mark in 2022 while pitching to a 3.82 xFIP over 157.1 innings. The righty allows a medium amount of contact and power, but he is a fairly reliable option when he comes in at fair prices like tonight’s $8,600/$8,900 rates. Garcia projects to be in the middle of the pack in his start against the Rangers, with an upside for a ceiling score, but he has been slow out of the gate, striking out just four in each of his first two starts while allowing a home run in each game. Those matchups against the White Sox and Twins were of similar quality to the team he is facing tonight, Garcia will have to be on his game against the Rangers, but the lineup will be without Corey Seager, who is out for an extended period with an injury. This will help Garcia’s potential to pitch cleanly through this game while adding to his strikeout upside. The Rangers lineup opens with Marcus Semien who has excellent power and strikes out at just a league-average rate but has been rough so far in 2023. Semien is followed by Josh Smith who has a 29.6% strikeout rate so far this season but was at a 19.8% rate in 253 weak plate appearances last year. Smith hit just two home runs and created runs 32% worse than average in that sample, he has not been a great option for MLB DFS for most of his career. Nathaniel Lowe and Adolis Garcia are much better options at the dish, they have each hit two home runs this season and they each hit 27 last year. For just $4,600/$3,200 and $4,900/$3,400 the duo is an inexpensive power core with upside for stolen bases and balls in play. Josh Jung is drawing a solid power mark in our home run model, he is coming around in the early part of the season, slashing .286/.348/.476 with a .190 ISO and a 129 WRC+. Robbie Grossman, Jonah Heim, Brad Miller, and Leody Taveras are mix-and-match options from later in the Rangers lineup, the lean currently is toward conservatively using Garcia shares with minor investment in Rangers hedge positions, but both sides have pluses and minuses.
The Astros are one of the top teams in today’s Power Index in their matchup against veteran Rangers lefty Martin Perez. The starter is no pushover, Perez made 32 starts in 2022, posting a quality 3.80 xFIP with a sparkling 2.89 ERA and just a 1.34% home run rate. The southpaw gave up a 34.5% hard-hit rate and just a 4.3% barrel rate to opposing hitters, both landmark improvements from the season before. Perez was a different pitcher in 2021, he made 22 starts and posted a 4.48 xFIP with a 4.74 ERA, and a 3.73% home run rate that came on the back of a 42% hard-hit rate and a 9.3% barrel mark. Over his first two starts of this season, the 32-year-old has thrown 10.2 innings while yielding a 2.17% home run rate and inducing a 26.1% strikeout rate. Perez has a 3.52 xFIP and a 2.53 ERA in the microscopic largely meaningless early sample. The Astros lineup can terrorize even the best starters in the game, they have power and quality contact profiles from top to bottom, in addition to their speed and sequencing abilities. The projected Astros lineup includes column favorite Chas McCormick in the leadoff role once again. The outfielder checks in for just $3,900/$3,400 and has a nice 8.24 in our home run model. McCormick has made 47 plate appearances and he has two home runs and four stolen bases while slashing .275/.370/.500 with a strong .225 ISO. McCormick has created runs 44% better than average in the small sample this season, and all of this is in the absence of his typically sturdy contact. Last year, McCormick had a 10.2% barrel rate and a 39% hard-hit mark, early this season his barrels are at just 3.4% and he has a 34.5% hard-hit mark, when the contact quality comes around the player will make another leap. Hitting in front of third baseman Alex Bregman should help ensure that McCormick’s run-creation totals stay healthy regardless. Bregman has actually scuffled a bit out of the gate this year, slashing just .196/.339/.333 with two home runs and a 97 WRC+ but we know this hitter very well. The veteran had 23 home runs and a 136 WRC+ over his 656 plate appearances last season and he is priced down on both sites for the slow start. Bregman has a 10.32 mark in the home run model, putting him third on the team and slightly over the “magic number.” Superstar outfielder Yordan Alvarez clears that mark by a wide margin, he lands at a 15.42, barely edging out Aaron Judge at 15.41 for the slate lead. Alvarez is a spectacular hitter, he costs $6,200/$4,500 and is with the investment. Over his first 50 plate appearances this season, Alvarez is slashing .300/.420/.575 with a .275 ISO while creating runs 71% better than average, all after missing most of Spring Training. If this is Alvarez rounding into regular season form, the league could be in a lot of trouble when facing the slugger all Summer. Alvarez hit 37 home runs and created runs 85% better than average last year, he was at 33 long balls with a 138 WRC+ the year before, this is an excellent baseball player who can be deployed in all situations in all formats. Alvarez, like fellow lefty teammate Kyle Tucker, loses no quality against same-handed pitching. For his career, the outfielder is slashing .305/.382/.584 with a .279 ISO and a 163 WRC+ against fellow lefties and .291/.387/.593 with a .302 ISO and a 165 WRC+ against righties. 33 of Alvarez’s 101 home runs have come against lefties, in roughly 35% of his career plate appearances. Right-handed first baseman Jose Abreu hits between Alvarez and Tucker in the projected lineup. Abreu is out to a .291/.339/.327 start to his first season in Houston, but he has hit no home runs and has an 86 WRC+, both of those numbers will climb very soon, Abreu is far too good to struggle in the heart of this lineup for very long. In his final season in Chicago, the first baseman hit 30 home runs and created runs 26% better than average, he is another excellent bat that is somewhat discounted for a slow start at $4,300 on DraftKings, he is aggressively cheap at $2,700 on FanDuel. Tucker lands at $5,600/$4000, the star outfielder has four home runs and has stolen three bases while slashing .311/.429/.622 over 61 opportunities this year. Tucker has a fantastic 15.8% barrel rate so far this year, trailing only Alvarez at 16.7% for the team lead. Last season the outfielder mashed 30 home runs and stole 25 bases, providing MLB DFS gold all season, he could be even better this year. Tucker is second on the team tonight with a 13.09 mark in our home run model. Jeremy Pena slots in as an affordable shortstop option at $4,600/$3,100. Pena had an excellent first season, fully replacing Carlos Correa with 22 home runs and an 11-stolen-base campaign. The shortstop has been slow to start in 2023, he is slashing just .214/.279/.393 but he has at least hit two home runs and stolen a base for gamers, and he sits at an 8.94 in our home run model. Corey Julks is the only player in the bottom third of the projected lineup who has a home run this season, but Mauricio Dubon hit five last season and Martin Maldonado hit 15, any of the trio can be deployed as a low-end mix-and-match option on this slate.
Play: Astros stacks aggressively, some Luis Garcia, some Rangers stacks, Martin Perez as an SP2 on DraftKings ($10,100, FanDuel? Really?!)
Update Notes: David Hensley is in at $2,700/$2,400 in place of Julks in the Astros lineup.
Pittsburgh Pirates (+144/4.05) @ St. Louis Cardinals (-157/5.06)
The Pirates draw limited right-hander Jake Woodford on this slate, creating an odd situation where a bad lineup runs into a bad pitcher. Woodford has an 18.6% strikeout rate over nine innings in two starts this year and he posted a 12.8% rate mostly out of the bullpen in 2022. Woodford gave up three home runs to the Braves in his first start of the year and allowed one to the Brewers the next time out, he struck out three hitters and then five in his second outing. With a $5,000 price tag, in this matchup, Woodford is not entirely crazy to roster in a few tournament shares for SP2 value, but the upside is incredibly thin. The hope would be for a few prime options to go bust on a low-scoring pitching slate where a handful of MLB DFS points can get by at this price tag in the two-starter format. The Pirates lineup has a few playable bats, but they do not make an overly appealing stack. Even from a value perspective, Kansas City is more appealing from top to bottom, despite the potentially worse matchup against Morton. Playable Pirates include Ji-Hwan Bae who is slashing .231/.286/.436 with two home runs and three stolen bases while being treated like the second coming of Roberto Clemente in Pittsburgh for it. Bae is fine, but he is not by any means a star. Bryan Reynolds is the team’s lone star in this current form, he lands at $5,900/$4,000, making him a pricey component in what would otherwise be a value play or an expensive one-off option. Reynolds has hit five home runs in the early going of this season. Veteran Andrew McCutchen and switch-hitting Carlos Santana bring power potential to any game, but they have produced diminishing returns in recent seasons. Santana is favored of the two in this space, but McCutchen has been more productive early in the season with an excellent 160 WRC+ in 47 plate appearances. Santana has a 116 mark and two home runs in 54 tries. Ji-Man Choi, Ke’Bryan Hayes, and Rodolfo Castro, as well as Jack Suwinski add mix-and-match pieces to the bottom of the lineup, but they all come with flaws. Suwinski has the best home run upside with a 5.50 in our model, while Castro is the only player in the group creating runs at an above average pace. The infielder is slashing .292/.433/.458 with a 147 WRC+ in his 30 plate appearances early this year.
The fantastic Cardinals lineup checks in with better than a five-run implied team total once again tonight, they are one of the prime stacking options across baseball on tonight’s huge slate. St. Louis will be facing Pirates righty Johan Oviedo, who pitched to a 22.3% strikeout rate with a 4.14 xFIP and a 2.07% home run rate last year. Oviedo has made two starts and thrown 11.1 innings this season, posting an 18% strikeout rate and allowing a 45.9% hard-hit rate so far. This seems like a pitcher who can be targeted with Cardinals bats, Oviedo has talent but it is difficult to believe in a ceiling score against this lineup. At $6,000 on DraftKings, he can be utilized in a conservative SP2 role, but $9,200 is too expensive on FanDuel, it is unlikely that Oviedo pays off that price on this slate. The St. Louis lineup is featured on a daily basis all around the industry. It will be in its common configuration for facing a righty, with left-handed Brendan Donovan leading off followed by Alec Burelson. The duo has three home runs on the season, with Donovan hitting two of them, but Burelson posting the above-average run creation mark at a 135 in his 38 plate appearances. Donovan has slipped to 15% below average in his 52 plate appearances while slashing .234/.288/.383, which would be a good basis on which to move him out of the leadoff role. Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado are pressing the limits of ways to describe a fantastic pair of hitters on a daily basis, and it is only mid-April. Goldschmidt has a 176 WRC+ and Arenado is at 126. They were at 177 and 156 respectively last year. There are very few better duos in baseball, and none of them compete to fill both first and third base with such quality. The pair of future Hall of Famers are expensive at $6,000/$3,900 and $5,600/$3,700, but they should be aggressively pursued in stacks of Cardinals hitters. The St. Louis lineup does not relent at any point. Willson Contreras is one of the top hitters at the catcher position in the entire sport, he costs just $4,500 on DraftKings and is highly playable at $2,400 on the blue site. Contreras has scuffled to start the season but he will come around sooner than later. Lefty masher Nolan Gorman is pulling in a respectable home run projection in our model from late in the lineup at a very fair price. Gorman has barreled the ball in 12% of his batted ball events this season with a 48% hard-hit rate and four home runs. He hits ahead of Tyler O’Neill in a power core that would be hitting third and fourth on most teams. O’Neill has two home runs and a stolen base on the season, he costs just $4,500/$2,600 (far too cheap on FanDuel) and he has a fantastic 14.3% barrel rate with a 60.7% hard-hit mark. O’Neill is one of the better power bats in the game when he is right, this duo is potentially lethal. All of that quality comes before reaching surging rookie sensation Jordan Walker, who checks in slashing .294/.333/.451 while creating runs 14% better than average in his first 54 plate appearances. Walker and nine-hitter Tommy Edman make for excellent wraparound options, the Cardinals lineup can and should be deployed in a variety of configurations from one through nine on this slate.
Play: Cardinals stacks aggressively, value pitching for the bold as SP2 on DraftKings.
Update Notes:
New York Mets (-206/4.79) @ Oakland Athletics (+187/3.32)
Nine games and many thousands of words into this breakdown and we finally reach one of the night’s truly lopsided games. The hometown Athletics are pulling in just a 3.32-run implied team total in their matchup against the visiting Mets, who look like a strong option against starter James Kaprielian. The right-hander threw 134 innings in 26 starts, pitching to a 5.06 xFIP last year while striking out just 17% of opposing hitters. This season he has made two starts, pitching just 9.2 innings of 5.83 xFIP and 11.17 ERA baseball. Kaprielian has allowed a 15.6% barrel rate with a 43.8% hard-hit mark and an 8.0% home run rate (four home runs allowed to 50 hitters in two games). This is a targetable pitcher who should not be played for MLB DFS contests. Mets bats can be thrown at this starter aggressively, the skilled team has power, sequencing, and speed, all the necessary ingredients for a healthy point total in fantasy contests tonight. The projected lineup is in typical form, with Brandon Nimmo leading off at a cheap $4,000/$3,000 price. Nimmo created runs 34% better than average over 673 plate appearances in 2022 and he is at a 122 WRC+ this season in his 51 opportunities. Nimmo is slashing .243/.431/.297, he is a dynamite correlation piece who adds stolen base upside. Starling Marte has speed to burn, he swiped 18 bases in 2022 and a whopping 47 in 2021. Marte has four steals so far this season while getting on base at a .348 clip and creating runs 13% better than average, he also hits for mid-range power and costs just $4,900/$3,400. Francisco Lindor is a star-caliber player for just $4,700/$3,600 at shortstop, he has hit two home runs and created runs 26% ahead of the league average while driving the ball with a 48.1% hard-hit rate and a .227 ISO over 55 plate appearances this year. Lindor has a 7.81 in our home run model, landing second behind Pete Alonso in the Mets projected lineup. Alonso has a 12.02 in the home run model and looks like a strong bet to get to his seventh long ball of the season in this matchup, despite any ballpark-based handicap. Alonso is at the absolute peak of home run hitters across baseball, he hit 40 last year and 37 the season before, there are no holes in his game as he is at a 162 WRC+ for the current season while joining the club of six excellent options in this lineup who all struck out at less than a 20% clip last year. Jeff McNeill is in that club, as is Mark Canha, they are hitting fifth and sixth in the projected lineup and they bring inexpensive correlated scoring potential with quality hit tools and on-base acumen. Daniel Vogelbach is in the projected lineup at first base with a reasonable home run projection and a $2,400/$2,300 salary, Eduardo Escobar costs $3,100/$2,200, and Tomas Nido is a lesser option at the bottom of the lineup as a defense-oriented catcher.
Kodai Senga takes the mound in his third MLB start and he checks in as the one of the most expensive options on the slate at $10,400/$10,800. Senga is our top projected pitcher, he is in the best matchup and ballpark combination of the day and he looks to have excellent strikeout upside and a great shot for a win and quality start bonus against the Athletics. The former NPB ace was one of the Mets’ free agent acquisitions in a busy offseason, he has more than delivered in his first two starts. Senga has covered 11.1 innings in those two outings, pitching to a 3.38 xFIP and a 1.59 ERA while striking out 31.1% of opposing hitters. The rookie hurler has allowed a bit of premium contact with a 44% hard-hit rate and a 92.9 mph average exit velocity allowed, but he has given up just a four percent barrel rate and one home run to 45 hitters. Senga is a good option for the salary on both sites, he can be played aggressively in this matchup. The Athletics lineup does not have much in the way of MLB DFS quality, Brent Rooker has provided recent power at a cheap price, he has a terrific barrel rate in the short sample but is difficult to trust and does not look good in the matchup. Rooker is the best individual one-off option in the lineup. When stacking Athletics, Tony Kemp, Ryan Noda, Rooker, and Ramon Laureano would be a good focus at the top of the batting order, but this is not a good situation in which to be rostering large portions of Oakland hitters.
Play: Mets stacks and Kodai Senga both aggressively
Update Notes:
Milwaukee Brewers (+130/3.94) @ San Diego Padres (-160/4.80)
The game in San Diego features two middling starters in Michael Wacha and Eric Lauer, which should lead MLB DFS gamers more toward the bats on both sides of the contest. The pitchers are not bereft of ability, either could put up a competitive start in this situation, but neither seems very likely to do so. Wacha checks in with a 25.5% strikeout rate over his first 12 innings but he had a 20.2% mark last year and a 22.9% the season before in more complete samples. Lauer is at a 23.3% strikeout rate with far too much premium contact and too many runs allowed over 9.1 innings in two starts early in 2023 and he tapered off badly as 2022 went on after making a strong start to the season. Ultimately both pitchers are capable, they can be mixed and matched through lineups if so desired, but neither is so cheap as to be a true value play. Wacha at $9,600 on FanDuel is downright unplayable. His $8,100 DraftKings price and the $8,400/$7,900 asking prices for Lauer are somewhat more palatable, but tastes still lean toward the hitting. The visiting Brewers have a fair amount of quality from top to bottom in the projected version of the lineup. In this year’s limited sample so far, the top six hitters in the Brewers lineup average a 46.4% hard-hit rate and a 110 WRC+. Christian Yelich is inexpensive at $4,100/$3,100. For all his flaws, Yelich still has a 53.1% hard-hit rate this season, the ball is just on the ground too frequently. Regardless, the player is too talented to linger for long at his current 77 WRC+, getting on board early and inexpensively is the right way to roll with this hitter. Jesse Winker is expected back after battling an illness all week. The lefty slugger has a solid hit tool and good power, he hit 24 home runs in 2021 while with Cincinnati, and he costs just $3,300/$2,800. If Winker plays he is a good option against a mid-range righty without a big strikeout profile. Willy Adames and Rowdy Tellez combined for 66 home runs last year and they have six this season in an even split. Adames hits from the right side at shortstop and costs $4,800/$3,600, which can be averaged down by also rostering Tellez who costs only $3,000/$2,700 in what seems like a misprice in this matchup. Tellez leads the Brewers with an excellent 13.37 in our home run model and looks like a strong play for another long ball, he is too cheap but so are a number of first basemen on this slate. William Contreras is slashing .351/.415/.405 with a 127 WRC+ behind the plate to start the season. The righty catcher hits in front of Garrett Mitchell, who lands as a $2,700/$3,100 outfielder who is underpriced around the industry. Mitchell has an 11.1% barrel rate and a 48.1% hard-hit rate this season, he has mashed three home runs and is sporting a .279 ISO while creating runs 30% ahead of the league average. The lack of a price increase is something of an early-season MLB DFS mystery. Brian Anderson has ripped three home runs and has a .256 ISO of his own, Anderson has created runs 46% better than average in his 48 plate appearances, he hit eight home runs in 383 plate appearances last year but appears to have found his form, the righty is currently tattooing batted-ball events. Anderson has a 22.2% barrel rate and a 48.1% hard-hit mark so far this season, he is cheap and makes for a strong late-lineup play. Brice Turang and Joey Weiemer are mix-and-match options.
The excellent Padres top half is very much in play on this slate, with the full lineup being deployable in mix-and-match form. San Diego’s projected lineup reaches one of the league’s highest peaks before a somewhat steep descent. Xander Bogaerts, Manny Machado, and Juan Soto are as good as any three-hitter combination in baseball. Bogaerts slashed .307/.377/.456 with a 134 WRC+ his last season in Boston in 2022, came to San Diego, and kept right on rolling with a .340/.419/.623 triple-slash and a 177 WRC+ over his first 62 plate appearances. The shortstop star has four home runs and a stolen base and seems determined to burn season-long fantasy gamers who let him slip in drafts all preseason. Bogaerts hits ahead of Manny Machado, who has a lone home run and has scuffled to a 74 WRC+ so far but is a known and highly trusted star commodity. Machado comes cheap at $4,900/$3,000, his FanDuel price is borderline absurd in fact, Machado is way too good to be at that price, he makes yet another stellar one-off play and a great part of stacks. The third baseman hit 32 home runs and created runs 52% better than average last year. Soto has three home runs and has created runs 12% better than average so far this season, but his hit tool has been slow to come around. Regardless, Soto has an excellent profile for his on-base acumen and run-creation abilities, and he is driving the ball with authority to the tune of a .240 ISO, a 16.2% barrel rate, and a 51.4% hard-hit rate. Nelson Cruz is projected to hit cleanup, which has historically meant bad things for left-handed starting pitching. Cruz is slashing .310/.333/.586 and creating runs 45% better than average with two home runs and a .276 ISO so far this year, primarily in a platoon role against lefties. At just $4,500/$3,300, Cruz is in play, but his FanDuel price just serves to illustrate how stupid it is to have Machado at $3,000. Jake Cronenworth and Ha-Seong Kim provide quality hit tools, mid-range power, and quality run creation for fair prices in the middle of the lineup. Cronenworth hit 17 home runs last year but has scuffled so far in 2023. Kim has a blend of light power and speed, he hit 11 home runs and stole 12 bases in 2022. Trent Grisham is a late lineup play but the hope would be to get him against right-handed relievers later in the game, the balance of the lineup is filler for mix-and-match play.
Play: Brewers stacks, Padres top-half stacks
Update Notes:
Colorado Rockies (+156/3.51) @ Seattle Mariners (-170/4.58)
Colorado heads north and west to Seattle for a series against the Mariners that will have a pair of lefties dueling on the mound tonight. The visiting Rockies will throw their right-handed power at Marco Gonzales, who has been fairly lousy for allowing power over the past few seasons. Gonzales gave up a 3.83% home run rate in 183 innings last year and he allowed a 4.96% mark with an 11.4% barrel rate the year before. The lefty has struggled for strikeouts and he allows far too much contact, last season Gonzales struck out a mere 13.2% of opposing hitters, this year he is at 13% in his 10.2 innings. Gonzales is a significant target for opposing bats and the Rockies offer just enough to be interesting at the dish. The starter is moderately playable for those who enjoy risk and losing, his total lack of strikeout upside costs $7,400/$7,700 but will not find his way into any of our lineups on either site. The Rockies lineup gets started with switch-hitting Jurickson Profar who is slashing .222/.275/.417 with a 66 WRC+ to start his Rockies career. Profar has hit two home runs in his 41 plate appearances, but the lack of quality may cost him a job if he does not turn things around quickly, the Rockies have a number of quality prospects waiting in the wings, including recently recalled Nolan Jones, who would be in play if he sees a start, though he is unlikely to lead off in that case. Kris Bryant is second on the team with a 9.09 home run mark in our model, trailing only C.J. Cron, who lands at 11.34. The trio of Bryant, lefty Charlie Blackmon, and Cron bring quality and power to the matchup against the lousy pitcher, the lefty-lefty should not be a factor for Blackmon in this matchup. All three are playable, and they can be combined with Profar up top and/or Elehuris Montero, who hits for power on the right side of the plate. Montero has made 37 plate appearances and is creating runs 12% better than average. Ryan McMahon has significant power and has hit three home runs with a .273 ISO early in the season. The lefty hit 20 home runs last year and 23 the season before, he is in play even with a left-handed starter and would be a great option against right-handed relievers. Elias Diaz, Yonathan Daza, and Ezequiel Tovar are mix-and-match pieces primarily. Tovar has plenty of speed but has yet to develop on-base skills or much of a hit tool at the Major League level, he is slashing just .209/.227/.302 to start the season and he has a lowly WRC+ of just 24. The rookie may need more seasoning in the Minors before he is truly ready. The focus should be from 1-6 in Rockies stacks, with a sprinkling of Diaz and Daza.
The hometown Mariners should be able to get to limited lefty Austin Gomber, who costs $5,800/$7,200 on tonight’s slate. Gomber has had serviceable starts for MLB DFS gamers at cheap prices in the past, he is not entirely out of play at the discount SP2 price on DraftKings, but the ceiling is probably out of reach at his FanDuel cost. Gomber had an 18% strikeout rate while pitching to a 4.19 xFIP last year and he had a 23.2% mark with a 4.17 the year before. Gomber is a roughly league-average starter, he is very much as advertised on the surface and he is better than he has been in two starts to open 2023, but expectations should be tempered against Seattle’s high-octane offense. Julio Rodriguez opens things for Seattle with a $5,600/$4,000 price tag that gamers should be happy to pay on both sites. Rodriguez a star, he hit 28 home runs and stole 25 bases on his way to the Rookie of the Year Award in 2022 and he has two homers and four steals so far this year in just 64 plate appearances. He has created runs nine percent better than average and has barely gotten his season in gear yet, this is one to watch all year. Ty France is underrated across MLB and MLB DFS. France is slashing .357/.419/.518 with a 170 WRC+, a home run, and a stolen base in 62 plate appearances this season. He hit 20 home runs while slashing .276/.340/.437 in 613 tries last year on his way to creating runs 27% better than average. France does not have a great contact profile, but he puts the ball in play as frequently as anyone in baseball and is a great option for individual and correlated scoring. Eugenio Suarez has elite power at third base, he has hit one home run and has just a .109 ISO so far but he hit 31 long balls each of the last two seasons and is on his way to around that total this year as the season winds along. Teoscar Hernandez has three home runs on the young season, he hit 25 last year and 32 the year before, he has been a quietly effective under-appreciated power option the past few seasons and is now getting more focus in the heart of the Mariners lineup. He is cheap on FanDuel at $2,900 but costs a full $5,100 – and is worth it – on the DraftKings slate. Cal Raleigh has massive power at the catcher position, he hit 27 home runs in just 415 plate appearances last year but has just one in 48 opportunities so far in 2023. Raleigh is cheap behind the dish and he has maintained an excellent contact profile despite the lack of output, currently he is sporting a 19.4% barrel rate for the season. A.J. Pollock and Sam Haggerty are playable cheap options later in the batting order. Pollock has long been a quality MLB DFS replacement piece when he starts, the outfielder has hit two home runs and has a 142 WRC+ over his first 19 plate appearances this year, he hit 14 home runs last season and 21 the year before. Tom Murphy has major power potential as a cheaper lower-owned catcher whose output exists largely as a theory. J.P. Crawford is minimally playable as a wraparound.
Play: Mariners stacks, Rockies stacks
Update Notes: Gonzales was scratched for the Mariners, heading to the paternity list so congratulations to him on the new arrival and avoiding the drubbing at the hands of a bad team. Seattle is starting lefty Tommy Milone, who changes little about the forecast for Colorado other than giving a moderate bump to right-handed power numbers that were already looking strong. The 36-year-old Milone has a 4.38 career xFIP with a 17.5% strikeout rate.
Chicago Cubs (+145/3.82) @ Los Angeles Dodgers (-158/4.78)
Are your eyes as tired as my fingers? We made it! Last game of the night! The Cubbies are in LaLa Land to face the Dodgers in what might be an interesting test for Noah Syndergaard. The veteran righty is trying to reclaim relevance in the Dodgers rotation. He has made two starts and posted an 18.2% strikeout rate with a 4.19 xFIP and a 4.55% home run rate to start the season. Syndergaard struck out six Diamondbacks in his first outing but dropped to just two strikeouts and gave up six runs and two home runs to the same team in his second start. With a fairly good matchup against the Cubs and a cheap $7,000/$8,000 price, it is not beyond imagining that “Thor” could have a throwback outing here. It is important to remember, of course, that Syndergaard’s highs were never quite as high as his reputation soared. The righty was far better for strikeouts once upon a time, but he was never a 30%+ strikeout arm, even at his best. Syndergaard is diminished, but he knows how to pitch quality innings and limit power and run creation, and he may find a few strikeouts along the way. At price and potentially low popularity, he is worth deploying with reasonable expectations of failure. The Cubs will counter with a lineup that has several players off to good starts to their 2023 campaigns. Nico Hoerner has stolen five bases already and has created runs 13% better than average, he checks in for just $4,200/$3,200 across sites and has good multi-category production. Hoerner hit 10 home runs and stole 20 bases in 517 plate appearances in 2022. He is followed by another column favorite in Dansby Swanson, who only gets love in this space and from DraftKings’ pricing algorithm. FanDuel has Swanson miscast at $3,400, he is a good buy at that price. Ian Happ provides power from both sides of the plate and is currently creating runs 45% better than average, while Trey Mancini drops into the projected lineup for just $2,700/$2,500 with first base and outfield eligibility. Mancini has just one home run and has struggled early, but seems likely to find his form and some power upside. He created runs four percent better than average and hit 18 home runs last year. Cody Bellinger is another lost player seeking redemption in Chicago, he has two home runs and a .167 ISO to start his year. Patrick Wisdom packs a punch and can hit one out against anyone, he leads today’s Cubs lineup with a 6.57 in our home run model. Wisdom has three long balls and a .324 ISO while creating runs 34% better than average in 39 plate appearances to start the season, he is cheap for that level of power production. The bottom third of the projected lineup is somewhat weak with Eric Hosmer, Yan Gomes, and Miles Mastrobuoni rounding things out, the Cubs are best played from 1-6, but they are a mid-level option at best against Syndergaard in the late game.
The Dodgers will be facing breakout Cubs starter Justin Steele who lands at $7,900 on DraftKings, which should make him wildly popular even in a terrible matchup, and a completely bananas $10,500 on the FanDuel slate. Steele has a 23.4% strikeout rate over 12 innings in his two starts, he has pitched to a 0.75 ERA, but notable has a 4.04 xFIP and a 10.6% walk rate that show his true quality. Hitters are yet to barrel a ball or homer against Steele this season and he has been excellent with just a 25.8% hard-hit rate and a 13.2% swinging-strike rate, but it is difficult to see this continuing at an elite level. Steele had a 24.6% strikeout rate with a 9.8% walk rate last year in his 119 innings, posting a 3.48 xFIP but a 1.35 WHIP. His ability to keep hard-hits and home runs off the table is his saving grace, Steele yielded just a 3.9% barrel rate and a 33.3% hard-hit mark with a 1.56% home run rate last year. Still, the Dodgers’ ability to avoid the strikeout and sequence against the starter is raising red flags on the aggressive Steele play. He is a major reach at the FanDuel price and the matchup could be problematic if he comes up popular on the DraftKings slate, which seems likely. Steels is a tough call, but it seems wise to undercut the field unless he is tracking to be unpopular, in which case grabbing a few shares makes sense. The Dodgers bats are in play, but we will be relying on sequencing and run creation, rather than power, with Steele’s track record. Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Will Smith are capable of excellence, and of hitting home runs, against any starter in the league. The trio comes at a high combined price on DraftKings, but Betts and Freeman are priced below $4,000 on the FanDuel slate, which is discounting hitters all over the place today. Betts has two home runs and has created runs 50% better than average so far this season, he was 44% better than average with 35 homers and 12 stolen bases in 2022. Freeman has hit one home run and has equaled Betts with a 150 WRC+. Last year, Freeman slashed .325/.407/.511 with 21 home runs and created runs 57% better than average, he remains one of baseball’s best first basemen. Smith is a $5,800 catcher on DraftKings, if the price and matchup render him unpopular he is a good pay-up to be a contrarian option. J.D. Martinez has shown signs of life with a .280 ISO and a 126 WRC+ and one home run to start the 2023 season. Martinez has lost something in his power output but he still drives the offense and should be a nice cog in the machine for Los Angeles all season. Max Muncy mashes on the left side and costs just $4,800/$3,300 tonight. Muncy has five home runs and a 29.2% barrel rate with a 50% hard-hit mark in his 51 opportunities this year, he hit 36 home runs in 2022 and is a terrific power bat who homers in bunches. Trayce Thompson is a great right-handed power bat to throw at Steele late in the lineup. Thompson has barreled the ball in a ridiculous 36.4% of his batted ball events with a 72.7% hard-hit rate in his limited 24 plate appearances. He has four home runs in the small opportunity and his 6.42 in our home run model is an equal mark to Muncy’s in this matchup. Miguel Vargas, James Outman, and Miguel Rojas are playable late lineup options, as are other possible configurations of the Dodgers batting order.
Play: Dodgers stacks, some Cubs bats, some Noah Syndergaard, and some Justin Steele on DraftKings, if unpopular.
Update Notes:
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