April 21st DFS Analysis
I guess I’m back to writing these every Tuesday and Friday! We’ll keep up what we did last time - with the quick slate overview free for all and then the position-by-position player pool that I like below the paywall.
I’m still not going to promise that I’ll get these out every Tuesday and Friday, but I do think you can count on them coming the majority of the time on those days, and then even some extra days when there’s a good night slate I like. So subscribe below if you like this stuff and want to support the blog!
Pitchers
Cash / Safety
The projection here on Ohtani is surprisingly low. I dropped him to 92 pitches since he did throw 30 pitches Monday. I don’t really think that’ll affect him but I thought that was a good projection.
Here’s a look at the projections:
I don’t really see a strong cash value option, so we might have to pay up.
If we want to save money I guess the play there would be Tyler Wells, or you could save a little bit with Mahle (although the Nats really do not strike out much which makes me want to avoid him for lack of ceiling). Wells has hardly ever gone over 20 points, which stings, but for $6,200 if you get 15 points you’re feeling fine about that - and the matchup is very good.
The cash instinct for me is to go to Ohtani + Peralta. The third option would probably be Nola even with the horrible start to the year he’s had. I’m just not going to worry about four starts with him, and the matchup is pristine there.
Tourneys / Upside
We want some low ownership and upside for tournaments, of course. Zac Gallen could be that guy as he faces the Padres who are a juggernaut lineup now with Tatis back. Here are the toughest matchups of the night:
You see Kirby & Gallen there. I’m hesitant on Kirby’s upside, so I think Gallen would probably be my main tourney play tonight.
As for ownership stuff, it doesn’t seem like it’s all going to flock to a certain place on the SP side of things tonight, so we can probably just do whatever we feel is best. But if I am making one single-entry lineup and going for first I would go to Gallen + Kikuchi or something like that.
Domingo German also is a very interesting case tonight with his 33% K% on the year. But the whole thing last weekend with him seemingly using some sticky stuff and then having to wash his hands and then losing spin after it… I don’t know what to think about it. We do know that the matchup is brutal against the Blue Jays. But if he hasn’t been benefiting from some foreign substance this year, we should play him in tournaments because he’s been insanely nasty so far.
Okay, more on pitchers after the paywall when I give the player pool.
Hitters
Team Spots
Implied run totals
Phillies 5.62
Angels 5.53
Dodgers 5.27
Orioles 5.09
Brewers 4.79
Top Team Projections (DK Points)
Yankees 67
Brewers 63
Braves 62
Angels 62
Padres 62
We can’t play Ohtani as a hitter tonight so that Angels projection is not as relevant for us. You can see the upside the Yankees give us with how bad Kikuchi has been at times over the last few years. We can definitely stack up the Yankees’ righties and hope we get some bad pitches from Kikuchi tonight.
An Astros stack is also pretty interesting against Bryce Elder. He has been quite good this year but these are the Astros, and Elder doesn’t jump off the page with the stuff+ data, here are the worst stuff+ marks for tonight’s SPs:
And the Marlins get the sweet matchup with Plesac. I’m definitely into some Chisholm/Soler/Cooper/Arraez stacks or mini-sticks
Top Projections:
Top Values:
All of that is before lineups come out. We usually see some new names pop into the values and top plays once lineups start rolling out, so keep an eye on the projections which refresh every 20 minutes.
Now we go behind the Paywall to give the top plays at each position