Dave Gloeckner 
Happy Easter and Masters Sunday to everyone who celebrates those events. We just wrapped up another morning edition of the WinDaily Sports show on Sirius Radio and one thing Tony and I saw about today’s slate(s) is that batting stacks look to be a premium. There isn’t one pitcher above $10K on either the early or late afternoon slate. And with the weather warming up across the states, we should continue to see the early season trend of runs being scored.
This article will focus on Pitchers, from aces to value, and Hitters, from team stacks to studs to value plays. Prop bets for today will be provided in the Gophers and Gas article.
There are many tools available, but I hope you’re using the WinDaily Projection Model as that has been very helpful in rostering key players each night.
For DFS, the featured card tonight begins at 1:05 pm with 10 games on the slate. All DFS plays below will come from those 10 games and the earlier games will be captured in Discord.
PITCHERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 1:05 PM Start
DREW RASMUSSEN ($8300 DK)
The Rays are off to the best start in the MLB and their pitching has been a big reason why. Tampa Bay leads the MLB with a 2.15 ERA and their starters have posted a 2.20 ERA (good for 2nd behind the Twins). And one of those SP’s who has flashed so far is Drew Rasmussen who pitched 6 shutout innings in his first start and racked up 30.3 DK points.
The best news for DFS owners is that Rasmussen went 6 innings which is a feat he only accomplished in 9 of 28 outings in 2022. The other good news is that he faces the Oakland A’s who are 27th in batting average and 25th in wOBA to start the 2023 season. And after yesterday’s outing, they’ve already been shut out twice in 8 games.
TYLER MAHLE ($9000 DK)
Mahle is coming off an impressive first start where he struck out 7 batters in just 5 innings while allowing just 1 ER. He is facing Houston today, which is often a team we tend to fade pitchers against. However, this Houston team is struggling to start the year ranking just 21st in batting average, 21st in wRC+ and 22nd in wOBA. They are also striking out at a 22.7% clip which is 15% higher than last year’s rate of 19.5% (they were 2nd hardest team to strike out last year). So we’ll take a chance with Mahle and his career 9.6 K/9 inning rate versus a team that is struggling, to their standards, at the plate.
GEORGE KIRBY ($8100 DK)
We’re going to zag with Kirby today. After his first start, and based on the fact he’s facing Cleveland, we expect Kirby to be lowly owned (less than 10%). But this isn’t the Guardians of 2022 as they’ve started the season with no pop. They’ve managed to hit just 5 home runs which is good for 28th in the MLB. Which is reflected in their ISO (29th) and wOBA (22nd). Add to that fact that Kirby fared slightly better on the road last year going 5-2 and having an opponent batting average 20 points lower than at home. Looks like a good bounce back spot for the Mariners SP.
KOOL-AIDE MAN (SWEET SPOT VALUE PITCHER UNDER $7K)
KUTTER CRAWFORD ($5800 DK)
Our first Value Pitcher of the season was a success as we saw Kikuchi put up 2.5x his value with a 14.7 DK point outing versus KC on Tuesday. Today, we’re going with Red Sox SP Kutter Crawford. Let’s be real, Crawford is not a great pitcher. He ended 2022 with a 5.47 ERA and started this year with a 15.75 ERA. But he does have strikeout potential by flashing a career 9.1 K/9 innings and 23% K rate. When we look for value, we hope for K’s. And even in his first start his 6 K’s allowed him to stay in the positive in points.
Today he faces the Tigers who are near last in all batting categories including runs scored (T-29th in MLB). That’s enough for me to take a flier on the Kutter today.
BONUS PICKS
I do like TAIJUAN WALKER ($8200 DK) today against the Reds as he has potential to put up 6+ K’s. Keep an eye on the JON GRAY ($8600 DK) as well. Wind is blowing out at Wrigley but his FB% is just 35% (good for 6th best of SP’s pitching today). These pitchers will also be in my roster pool but at lower percentages than my core pitchers above.
HITTERS – DRAFTKINGS
CLASSIC SLATE – 7:05 PM
SWEET SPOT STACK ATTACK: The two stacks I’ll be building around (primarily) are the Tampa Bay Rays (vs Oakland) and the St Louis Cardinals (vs Milwaukee). First off Tampa is facing James Kapreilian who allowed 5 ER’s in 5 innings in his first start against LAA. And now he faces a Rays team that leads the majors in runs scored with 64. Looking at St Louis, they are facing the highest salaried pitcher, Freddie Peralta, on the board. But they’ve had success against the Brewers RHP hitting 0.289 in 100 career at-bats. Goldschmidt and Arenado are 13 for 33 in their career off Peralta with 5 home runs. And the Cards are coming off a solid offensive day where they scored 6 runs off LHP Eric Lauer.
CORE BATTERS
TREA TURNER ($6300 DK) & KYLE SCHWARBER ($5300 DK)
The Phillies have seen Hunter Greene and Nick Lodolo the last 2 days and can breathe a sigh of relief today as they face the Reds fourth starter in Connor Overton. Overton doesn’t wow like his predecessors. The Phillies have been waiting to break out and look to keep the momentum from yesterday’s rally rolling. Looks for Turner and Schwarber to be at the top of that break out today.
BRIAN REYNOLDS ($5600 DK)
The Pirates OF leads the league in home runs with 5. He’s been especially impressive against RHP’s as he’s batting 0.464 with 14 RBI’s. He faces Michael Kopech who is a fly ball specialist allowing ~47% FB rate. He also fares much worse on the road by posting an ERA ~1.5 runs higher than at home over the past 2 seasons.
SLAP HITTER (SWEET SPOT VALUE BATTER) – LESS THAN $3K
JORDAN WALKER ($2600 DK)
The Cards phenom is off to a great start leading the team in total bases (19) and slugging (0.613). He’s batting 0.355 with 2 home runs and looks to be every part of the hype he was receiving prior to the season. We’ll lock in Walker today in most of our Cards stacks.
Now that you finished reading the MLB Sweet Spot article make sure to check out MLB Lineup Optimizer and our YouTube Livestream that breaks down the entire slate of games and gives you the info to nail MLB Prop Bets and DFS Plays.
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