It feels odd to see a small FanDuel slate on a Friday, especially after a full day of action yesterday. But we’ve all waited so long for our baseball fix that a six game main slate isn’t going to stop us from building some lineups. Smaller slates arguably provide more of an edge than usual if you commit to stacking players from the same lineup, which is an important part of winning DFS contests. You will be rewarded for hitting on the right teams and making smart pitching decisions.
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Blake Snell, SP: $9,500 – Snell should enjoy his move to the National League now that the universal designated hitter is gone, and he’s in one of the best pitcher’s parks with a tremendous offense that will provide him wins. Snell had a 31.0% K-rate last year and faces the Diamondbacks, who were one of the weakest lineups against left-handed pitching last year with a .291 wOBA. Snell’s combination of high ceiling and high floor put him as the top starting pitcher option in all contests.
Pablo Lopez, SP: $7,800 – Lopez crushed it last year with a 3.09 FIP after boosting his swinging strike rate up to 12.1%, and his home park provides a pitcher-friendly spot against the Rays. Tampa was quietly an extremely strikeout prone team in 2020, fanning more than any other team against righties at 28.5% of the time. Lopez is a steal at this price and can provide tons of value.
Matt Olson, 1B: $3,400 – Home runs are one of the keys to winning GPP tournaments, so Matt Olson’s power upside at an affordable price is make him a perfect target. Opposing starter Cristian Javier had an exploitable 1.82 HR/9 and 4.94 last year.
Ty France, 2B/3B: $2,600 – France was a spring breakout for the Mariners and is batting second at an extremely low price. And 2B/3B isn’t a typo by the way, as FanDuel now has multi-position eligibility this season.
Justin Turner, 3B: $3,500 – Coors Field is the best offensive environment in baseball and the Dodgers are one of the best lineups in baseball, so they’ve got absurdly high projected run totals to start the season. In cash games you should be loading up on all of the Dodger bats that you can afford. However it makes for a conundrum in tournaments, as the Dodgers will all come at extremely high rostership rates. Your options are to either fade them entirely (at your own peril) or get unique elsewhere in your lineup to differentiate yourself from the rest of the field.
Fernando Tatis, SS: $4,300 – Outside of Coors, Tatis is the highest projected player according to the Razzball DFS tools. Not that you really needed a robot to tell you that, but they can tell you lots of other valuable things to help take your DFS game to the next level.
Mitch Haniger, OF: $3,100 – The Mariners are an awesome value stack against Johnny Cueto, who is the weakest non-Coors starter on the slate after rocking a 5.40 ERA in 2020. It’s uncommon to find cheap players like Haniger and France batting at the top of the order in a good matchup.
J.D. Martinez, OF: $3,500 – If you happen to be playing the all day slate, the Red Sox hitters have a ton of upside at home against lefty John Means, owner of a 2.47 HR/9 last year. Martinez sticks out in particular, as just recently in 2019 he posted an unbelievable .404/.484/.887 line against southpaws.
I’m Only Happy When It Rains
Unlike yesterday it looks like clear skies all around, which means no rain or snow to worry about.
Doing Lines In Vegas
If you do some line shopping and can find Miami at +104 you’re getting good value in a coin flip game.
