The MLB Trade Deadline sits just over 24 hours away but the action on the diamonds continues on Wednesday night regardless. Tonight’s featured MLB slate on DraftKings includes just six games, so options are a little bit slimmer than on a typical evening.
Still, we head into tonight’s action with a handful of must-start players for Wednesday’s MLB DFS lineups — just hope that nobody on your roster ends up on #HugWatch.
Set your DraftKings fantasy baseball lineups here: MLB $150K Bat Flip [$50K to 1st]
SP Nathan Eovaldi, Rangers @ Angels; $10,500
With tonight’s small slate, the pitching options are pretty thin at the top. If you want a star, it’s either Nathan Eovaldi or Bryan Woo since they’re the only two hurlers averaging more than 14.2 fantasy points in the player pool. The former sees a better matchup against the Angels than the latter gets against the Athletics, so I’m begrudgingly paying up tonight.
Now, Eovaldi could have a legitimate Cy Young case with his standout season. His ERA and WHIP sit incredibly low with marks of 1.50 and 0.88, and he’s struck out 101 batters in 96 innings. Eovaldi averages 21.7 FPPG and went for 25.9 in his lone start against the Angels this season with six scoreless innings, five hits allowed and six punchouts. He’s also coming off three straight contests with at least 25 fantasy points, so he brings good form into this one. Just try to find lineup differentiation elsewhere since he’ll likely be rostered by plenty of players.
1B Josh Naylor, Mariners @ Athletics; $4,800
The Mariners made one of the bigger moves of the Trade Deadline buildup thus far by acquiring Josh Naylor from the Diamondbacks. Through his first few games with his new team, the veteran put up some quality fantasy performances with showings of 24, 13 and 12 points, though they were surrounded by a three-point outing and a blank last night. Still, Naylor slashes .291/.357/.443 this season and averages 8.4 FPPG, so he can certainly contribute to lineups at a respectable price point. One thing to watch? He’s a man possessed on the basepaths with four stolen bags through his first five games in Seattle, so he’s delivering plenty of value via his legs right now.
C Shea Langeliers, Athletics vs. Mariners; $4,200
It seems everyone is talking about Nick Kurtz right now, and rightfully so. However, Shea Langeliers has also put forth some of his best performances of the season with four homers in his last five games for the Athletics. He’s tallied point totals of 21, two, 19, 14 and 26 across those five contests with a .351/.405/.730 slash line and 10.7 FPPG over his last 10 games. The matchup against Woo does cause a hint of hesitation, but riding the hot hand is a strategy I can encourage. Since we doled out the cash for Eovaldi earlier, we’re saving some salary cap space here with Langeliers and hoping he can keep this hot streak going.
