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
Zac Gallen
Gallen is the best pitcher on tonight’s slate, and there’s no reason for me to overthink him as my main team anchor. He gave up a few runs finally in his last start, but that was inevitable coming off a four start scoreless streak. He still struck out six batters without walking one, jumping his total to 47:1 K:BB over that five game stretch. He has a strong match-up tonight against the Miami Marlins who own a .297 wOBA against right-handed pitching this season — across their projected lineup. Overall, he isn’t overly expensive on DK despite being the clear ace of the slate in my opinion. He is more appropriately priced on FanDuel, but still checks in as my top option there as well. He should have some added motivation facing his former team tonight, and I view him as a must-play in all formats on Monday.
Miles Mikolas
There are several good pitchers on the slate tonight, and going double-spend up definitely is in play on DraftKings. Despite that, I can’t ignore Miles Mikolas at only $6,000 — which seems like a clear misprice. Mikolas is not typically the type of pitcher I use in DFS, but we get favorable pitching weather in Wrigley Field tonight and he doesn’t need to do much at this price to pay-off while allowing you to spend-up on whatever bats you want. He is the clear top value option for me — but if I choose to go with the double-spend I will likely focus on Logan Gilbert over Nestor Cortes.
Building Blocks
Brent Rooker
Rooker has been a featured part of this article for the last week it feels, but I’m going back to the well tonight against Nestor Cortes at what should be low-ownership. Cortes is projecting as the highest-owned SP tonight, which offers a ton of leverage to take a few bats against him if he isn’t in your build. Rooker has the most power on the team against left-handed hitters and matches up very well against his pitch mix. He’s throwing his fastball half the time to right-handed hitters this season and allowing a .224 ISO with the pitch. Rooker is one of the best fastball hitters on the team, with a monster .370 ISO in the split. He can be used as a one-off or in a mini-stack on Monday night.
Harrison Bader
Sticking in the same game, the Yankees will be a popular target against JP Sears. I think Sears is the A’s best pitcher, so I don’t think you need to go out of your way to stack against him with a chalky stack, but the problem is the A’s bullpen is so bad that opposing teams can still get there in the later innings even if he has a strong start. Right-handed power is the way to attack Sears, and Bader has already homered twice since getting called back up late last week. He’s priced below $4,000 on DK and will likely be one of the highest-owned plays on the slate. You can always avoid chalk in tournaments for MLB, but in cash games he is a legit starting point for me at his price-tag — pairing him up with Gleyber Torres.
Ben’s Stat of the Day
Brent Rooker ranks sixth-overall in barrels/PA this season.
Written by Ben Hossler (Follow @BenHossler on Twitter)
