Friday is the best day of the week for several reasons. Not only does the work week end, baseball starts new series. And because the regular season started on a Thursday and MLB pitchers take the mound roughly once a week, late-week games tend to have a higher proportion of star pitching battles.
Tonight, the two top contenders for the NL’s Cy Young Award at DraftKings Sportsbook will take the mound against each other’s teams, as the Pittsburgh Pirates’ Paul Skenes ($10,000), currently the +260 favorite to take home the silverware, will crest the hill against the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto ($10,500), who has +350 odds.
Obviously, it’s early, but if either pitcher clearly out-duels the other, it might give him an edge in the eyes of the voters come season’s end. Needless to say, one of Skenes or Yamamoto should be in your DFS lineup for tonight’s contest. Here’s my choice between them, as well as another pitcher, three infielders, and three outfielders you should be targeting in tonight’s 12-game slate, with all eight players coming from different games.
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB $200K Rally Cap [$50K to 1st]
PITCHER
Stud
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Pittsburgh Pirates, $10,500 – I’m a Dodgers fan who’s picked Yamamoto each of the last three times he’s taken the mound, so I tried to get myself to pick Skenes. But until the three-time Eiji Sawamura Award and future Cy Young Award winner fails to deliver, I’ll keep taking him. Combined between his last three outings, he’s given up one unearned run, walking four and striking out 24, averaging 30.1 FPTS per game across that span. And after he infrequently topped five innings during his rookie season, he’s gone six or more innings in each of those starts. Skenes is an incredible pitcher, and I wouldn’t be incredibly surprised if he out-dueled Yamamoto tonight, but Los Angeles’ offense is simply a lot better than Pittsburgh’s (the sixth-best OPS vs. the fifth-worst) and Yamamoto is more likely to pick up the victory.
Value
Justin Verlander, San Francisco Giants vs. Texas Rangers, $7,300 – There are many cheaper options than Verlander on tonight’s slate, but I wanted to pay tribute to one of the legends of the game, who became the second-oldest pitcher ever to win a Cy Young Award in 2022, when he returned from Tommy John surgery to lead the Houston Astros to an asterisk-free, trash-can-bang-free World Series title. He wasn’t good last season as a 41-year-old, finishing with a 5.48 ERA, and so far this season, he hasn’t been great either. But he can still spin a slider with the best of them, and Texas — despite tying for the AL West lead with a 14-7 record — has had the league’s eighth-worst OPS this season. The Rangers have drawn the second-fewest walks this season, and even at his old age, Verlander is still above-average at inducing chases.
INFIELDER
Stud
Jazz Chisholm Jr., New York Yankees vs. Toronto Blue Jays, $4,800 – The hot start that Chisholm got off to this season — when he hit three homers in the season-opening series against the Milwaukee Brewers — is far in the past, and his .165/.280/.418 slash line for the season is pretty ghastly. But even though he’s not getting hits frequently, he’s finding ways to make an impact, having recorded 10 or more FPTS in three of his past five games, through either a stolen base or a homer. For his career, the Bahamian has posted an OPS .155 better against right-handers like José Berríos ($6,900), who has allowed barrels at a 14th-percentile rate so far this season. Chisholm has always been one of the league’s best at hitting pulled fly balls and at finding the barrel, so the short porch in right field at Yankee Stadium should serve him well today.
Stud
Jose Trevino, Cincinnati Reds at Colorado Rockies, $4,400 – Trevino is mostly a contact hitter who would rank in roughly the MLB’s 15th percentile in bat speed if he’d recorded enough at-bats to qualify, but he excels at two things: he very rarely misses the ball and, by extension, he doesn’t strike out much. I targeted Cincinnati’s infield here because Coors Field is so offense-skewed and Colorado’s home pitching stats are, to put it kindly, awful, but with the exception of Trevino, none of them hit particularly well. The veteran backstop has recorded multiple hits in two of his past four games, and Rockies starter Kyle Freeland ($5,000) has conceded at least eight in three of his five starts this season.
Value
Jorge Polanco, Seattle Mariners vs. Miami Marlins, $4,000 – Polanco only received one pinch-hit at-bat yesterday as the Boston Red Sox started left-hander Garrett Crochet on the mound, but with Miami starting a right-hander in Cal Quantrill ($5,200), the switch-hitter should be back in the lineup tonight. He’s been excellent so far this season, slashing a very impressive .351/.367/.963 and hitting four homers (8.2 FPTS per game). Meanwhile, the Marlins’ pitching struggles don’t end with Quantrill, who has a nauseating 8.31 ERA and 2.08 WHIP so far this season; Miami as a team has allowed the fourth-highest WHIP, third-highest ERA, and most walks this season.
OUTFIELDER
Stud
Fernando Tatís Jr., San Diego Padres vs. Tampa Bay Rays, $6,100 – The native of San Pedro de Macoris, Dominican Republic has put it all together this season, leading all of the major leagues with 2.1 WAR and slashing .333/.406/.624. He’s also demonstrated an elite combination of power and speed — eight home runs and seven stolen bases — slotting himself in with the fourth-shortest odds to win NL MVP in the early going. Although he struggled in the Padres’ most recent series against the Detroit Tigers, he hit homers in back-to-back games just last weekend. Tampa Bay’s starter, Shane Baz ($8,800), has conceded a homer in each of his past three games.
Stud
Steven Kwan, Cleveland Guardians vs. Boston Red Sox, $4,800 – The 27-year-old southpaw has ascended to bona fide stardom in his fourth season, posting a .337/.394/.495 slash line and displaying some more pop with a 3.8% homer rate, the highest of his career. While he won’t ever be a contender for a Silver Slugger — he’s just five-foot-eight, 170 pounds and has a bat speed in the first percentile — he manages to consistently square it up and very rarely whiffs. Because of his incredible bat skills, he’s a consistent fantasy asset, having recorded just four hitless games so far this season. And while Tanner Houck ($6,000) has had a few relatively okay starts, its worth noting that he also had probably the single worst start so far this season: 2.1 innings, 10 hits, 11 earned runs (-22 FPTS) on April 14 against the Rays.
Value
Luis Robert Jr., Chicago White Sox at Athletics, $4,000 – While it might be time to finally conclude that Robert hasn’t lived up to the immense potential that made him one of the most highly-touted Cuban defectors in MLB history, he isn’t too far removed from an All-Star season in 2023 in which he slashed .264/.315/.542 and smacked 38 homers in just 145 games. He has struggled mightily this season and has just one hit from his last 15 at-bats, but a game at Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento should help turn things around. Athletics pitchers have given up 66 earned runs in 12 home games this season, the second-worst mark in the league. Their starter, Luis Severino ($8,000), has conceded two home runs in two of his three home starts this season.
