Welcome in to Ben’s Building Blocks for DraftKings & FanDuel! This is a free article written daily to identify my top-overall DFS plays for cash game and small-field contests on both DraftKings and FanDuel. I truly appreciate everyone that reads and supports the content. If you’d like to support further you can click HERE to sign-up for a MLB Premium package. This gets you access to my Core Plays daily — allowing you to tail my builds, access the premium Discord channels and view our DFS Projections Portal. We’ve been on fire already this MLB season, and there’s no better time to sign-up. With that being said, let’s dive into today’s slate…
Above is an example of my MLB Core Plays for the 4/27 slate
Top Pitchers
Luis Castillo + Max Fried
We have a loaded Friday night pitching slate, but these two names stick out above the field for me. Castillo gets a home date against the Astros — and it appears the days of avoiding the Astros with pitchers are over (at least temporarily). Already missing Altuve, there are holes up and down this lineup and they have struck out more often this season than in years past. Castillo has been great this year. especially at home and it’s one of the better pitching environments on the slate.
As for Fried, this a tougher match-up against the Orioles but he has been so good it’s tough to avoid him at this price-tag. He’s been dominant this season, and while the O’s don’t strike out a ton he has some real upside in this match-up. He doesn’t walk a lot of batters, and he’s been elite to both sides of the plate. It does look like he will be pretty chalky, so in GPPs you could look to pivot to Corbin Burnes or Christian Javier in higher-upside spots.
Sean Manaea
Two immovable forces will meet head-on on Friday night – Milwaukee who is the worst team in baseball against left-handed pitching and Sean Manaea who has been arguably the worst pitcher in baseball this season. His expected stats are horrific, and he will likely see all righties tonight…why are we interested in him? Milwaukee is so, so bad against lefties that something has to give in the Bay tonight. The Brewers best hitters are all left-handed, which means they have to rely on some truly terrible hitters when matched up with a left-handed starter. Their projected lineup owns a sub-.300 wOBA and massive 28% strikeout rate vs southpaws this season. It’s a good pitching park, and Manaea has really been hurt hurt by the long ball his last few starts. Milwaukee doesn’t have much pop vs lefties either, and I’m very curious to see who wins this match-up tonight. Overall, I probably wouldn’t play him in cash games but you can do much worse in tournaments than Manaea at this price-level. He has some upside, and allows you to jam in whatever expensive stack you want.
Building Blocks
Brent Rooker
OAK/KC will be the chalk of the slate with two beatable pitchers on the mound – and Rooker checks in as my favorite option. He’s among the league leaders in homeruns, and has the most power on the team against right-handed pitching. Keller is better than you’d expect as a pitcher, but he can allow power which plays perfectly into Rooker’s game. Keller also relies heavily on his slider, throwing it nearly 50% of the time to same-handed batters. Rooker is the best slider hitter on the team – sporting a .399 xwOBA and .244 ISO in the split. Overall, most will be stacking this game on their main team and I actually want to lean more into the A’s in GPPs.
On a big slate, there’s several options and it will mostly depend on what I do at SP. St. Louis looks like another strong spot for a stack, along with the Brewers as a hedge if you play a Manaea team.
Ben’s Stat of the Day
Max Fried owns a 1.81 xERA this season.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
