The Friday evening main slate is loaded with 12 games on both DraftKings and FanDuel, and the slate is taking shape as a potential offensive bonanza. The pitching slate has options, but lacks true aces, while the lower third of the available arms are replacement-level or worse. There are several spots to look at for power on this slate, including the Yankees, who will be looking to get even with Minnesota for last night’s drubbing and will be facing a rookie starter; the Astros, who are always in play, given their immense power; and the scorching hot Rays who are on their way to 162-0. The list continues beyond those options and several of the teams near the top of the board could be under-appreciated by the general public, leading to low GPP ownership across the industry.

Main Slate Power Index – 4/14/23 – DraftKings & FanDuel Main Slates

The power index represents a team’s opportunity for home run upside in the matchup against the scheduled starting pitcher. This is not a direct guideline for stacking, but it can be utilized to determine the most likely sources of power-based contact, hitters who are not homering are frequently hitting doubles and driving in runs, and providing valuable MLB DFS scoring. The “Full” column is the average of our home run opportunity score for each player in the lineup from 1-9, while the “Top 6” column averages only hitters 1-6, where teams typically place their biggest bats.

The excellent Astros lineup leads the way 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.

The red-hot Rays are facing the division rival Blue Jays in Toronto this evening while looking to reach the 14-0 mark to start the season. Tampa Bay is a phenomenally constructed baseball team, they play an incredibly smart strategic game and there are very few holes in their lineup or their pitching staff. The team has a premium blend of power, on-base acumen, hit tools, and speed that makes them one of the most dynamic lineups in baseball. They will be facing righty Jose Berrios, who 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 above average. The starter’s best season to date 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.