April 18th DFS Analysis
I see that several of you pounced on the opportunity to puff me up yesterday after this piece came out. A handful of you reached out to tell me that you like the DFS pieces and hope they keep on coming.
So here we are again! You have inflated my ego into giving you more of what you want! It also helps that we once again put out a really good cash lineup last night. I went 0/5 in double-ups to start the year but since then I’m eight-for-eleven, and this article is still undefeated in giving good picks. One dude even netted a few hundo last night and gave ME credit for some dumb reason! You could’ve done it yourself, my man!
You can also thank DraftKings for not putting these double header games on the slate, because man was that a nightmare for me this morning refining the projection system to be able to handle double headers. But all is well now and we have projections and a clean weather report, so let’s get into this bad boy.
THIS TIME, however, I’m leaving the player pool for paid subs only. So if you want that, subscribe now. It’s $7/month and it’s honestly a joke how much good stuff you get here. I’m past trying to be humble about this Substack, the thing absolutely smacks.
Pitchers
I have to say this first. Blake Snell is the tournament play of the night. It’s just so easy at this point. DFS tournaments are basically just an exercise in human emotion. The DFS tournament flow chart goes like this (I’m not going to actually illustrate it though I don’t have the time for that!)
Does the pitcher have a bunch of 30+ point games in the past?
Has the pitcher sucked complete ass recently?
Is the pitching facing a really good offense?
If all three answers are yes you play them in GPP. A 30 point game is just as likely as a disaster for Snell tonight, that’s who the guy is - lean into it! Let the other people play the recency bias game.
As for cash:
Strider $10,400 vs. SD
Gilbert $8,500 vs. MIL
Eovaldi $7,800 vs. KC
Stroman $8,800 vs. OAK
Tournaments:
Strider $10,400 vs. SD
Snell $8,400 vs. ATL
Kershaw $10,100 vs. NYM
S Gray $8,600 vs. BOS
J Gray $6,500 vs. BAL
Hitters - General
We have Vince Velasquez vs. Jose Urena in Coors Field. I mean if you had to pick two SPs currently in the league along with a home park to try to generate the highest expected run total, this just might be what you’d pick. We said similar things about Rich Hill last night and all he did was throw up a quality start - but don’t let that get you down - double-V can get bombed with the best of them (although his fastball stuff+ actually is way up from last year so maybe the Pirates have #unlocked him - lol yeah right).
Full lineup projections:
Top 5 in lineup projections:
So yeah, Coors is the spot.
The other cash spot is probably the Yankees or Angels. I don’t hate either of those pitchers (Suarez or Schmidt), but the projections pretty much do and the game is in Yankees Stadium, so it’s a very nice spot for offense.
The top raw projections on the slate:
The “Top Plays” as per the Hitters Projections Google Sheets (this is one of my favorite things to look at every day besides like my wife and kids and stuff ya right heyooooo badummthchhh!)
Jack Suwinski
Donovan Solano
Canaan Smith-Njigba (stinks)
Ezequiel Tovar (stinks)
Aaron Judge
Travis Jankowski
Brandon Belt (stinks)
Jurickson Profar (stinks)
Anthony Volpe
Ke’Bryan Hayes
Lots of times these (stinks) these guys make it in because they are like stone-minimum price (because they stink) and they haven’t always stunk (the projections reach back 3 years into the past so it will give you some credit if you didn’t stink that far back - hello Brandon Belt!). But yeah I think Jack Suwinski is a phenomenal play given how much he’s barreled the ball and given that Jose Urena does not strike hitters out, which is Suwinski’s real problem.
Anyways, there’s tons of sweet stuff in those projections Google Sheets so subscribe now to get access - stop being a freeloader!
And I guess that’s it for the free section! Let’s get rid of the hoi palloi and give you the full player pool for this slate tonight.