Happy Monday! We are officially into April and the first full week of the baseball season. It was a fun first weekend of baseball. If you are in last place in your fantasy leagues or your favorite team didn’t perform well, don’t worry; there is a lot of season left, and the last thing you want to do is overreact after four games. 

 

 

 

The Yankees, Tigers, Brewers, and Pirates aren’t going undefeated, and the Marlins, Mets, Astros, and White Sox will eventually win a game (don’t hold your breath waiting for the White Sox to win one, though). There have been some great pitching performances already, with 8 different guys already hitting double-digit strikeouts and plenty of great hitting performances, with 19 guys already having multiple home runs. 

We get another great slate today with a 7-game main slate on both DraftKings and FanDuel set to start at 7:10 PM ET. There is a lot more baseball excitement to come so let’s start the first full week off strong with some winning MLB DFS lineups. Let’s jump into today’s playbook and some of my favorite MLB DFS picks for today! 

Make sure you subscribe to the Fantasy Alarm YouTube channel so you never miss a show! Also, join the Fantasy Alarm Discord to get your DFS lineup questions answered by our MLB DFS team! Plus, as always, be sure to check in with our MLB DFS Tools, with the Daily MLB Projections, MLB DFS Rostership Projections, and our MLB DFS Lineup Generator when building those lineups today to help you decide which players you should be targeting!

Check Out Today's MLB DFS Playbook Preview Show

MLB DFS Picks & Daily Fantasy Playbook Today, April 1

MLB Weather Today, 4/1

The weather looks good everywhere right now. Hopefully, the forecast isn’t playing an April fool’s joke on us. 

MLB DFS Lineup Construction Thoughts

We are on game 4 or 5 for most teams right now, which means we are at either the number 4 or 5 starter, so the pitching talent is a little more limited than we have seen on most of our other slates this season. 

With that said, there are still some great places to go, and with the price difference not being very large from the top to the bottom, you can really go wherever you want with the pitchers today. 

On the offensive side, we have some solid offenses in good matchups to target today, with some of my favorites including the New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Toronto Blue Jays, Los Angeles Dodgers, Boston Red Sox, and the St. Louis Cardinals. 

 

 

 

Recommended MLB DFS Starting Pitchers

Top Options For Strikeouts

Triston McKenzie vs. Seattle Mariners

Tanner Houck vs Oakland Athletics

Joe Boyle vs. Boston Red Sox

Luis Gil vs. Arizona Diamondbacks

Best Odds For A Win

Kyle Gibson vs. San Diego Padres

James Paxton vs. San Francisco Giants

Luis Gil vs. Arizona Diamondbacks

Triston McKenzie vs. Seattle Mariners

 

 

 

Core MLB DFS Pitchers

Triston McKenzie, Cleveland Guardians

Triston McKenzie is rightfully the most expensive pitcher on the slate today. He is the most talented and definitely has the most upside of anyone you can take today. McKenzie brings huge strikeout potential, and we just saw that this Mariners team can strike out plenty, as they did against all the Red Sox starters in the opening series. 

McKenzie comes much cheaper than the top pitcher of a slate usually does so I am willing to pay that little extra for the upside that he comes with today. 

Tanner Houck, Boston Red Sox

So far, all four of the Boston Red Sox starters have looked fantastic so far compiling 27 strikeouts with 1 walk and a 1.64 ERA. Tanner Houck will look to continue that tonight and show that this Boston rotation might actually be five deep and better than people thought. 

Houck has looked solid this spring with a 22.8 K-BB% (one of the only spring stats I give any weight to), and he gets to face the Oakland Athletics for his first outing. 

Luis Gil, New York Yankees

If you have been following along with the playbook and/or our DFS Livestream so far this season, you already know my love of the Diamondbacks offense, so I will warrant that this one comes with some risk, but on the cheap end of pitchers today nobody gives you the upside that Luis Gil does. 

He had a 37.7% strikeout rate through 15.2 innings this spring, only 5 starter pitchers had higher strikeout rate than that in spring (Shota Imanaga, Jordan Hicks, A.J. Puk, Spencer Strider, and Tyler Glasnow). While I like some of the other young pitchers on this slate, like Emerson Hancock and Reese Olson, I would rather save the little extra money and go for Luis Gil and see if the strikeouts can carry over into the regular season. 

 

 

 

Recommended MLB DFS Hitters

Highest Expected Run Totals 

New York Yankees vs. Ryne Nelson

Houston Astros vs. Bowden Francis

Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Luis Gil

Boston Red Sox vs. Joe Boyle

Core MLB DFS Hitters

Note: Will Be Updated as Official Starting Lineups Are Released

Mookie Betts, 2B/SS, Los Angeles Dodgers

Have you all seen this new starting shortstop the Dodgers have? He looks like he is really good at baseball. Mookie Betts proved he is human last night going 0 for 4, but it is pretty amazing that this early in the season he can go hitless and still keep his batting average at .500. I am having a hard time finding a reason to not put Betts in my lineups every day right now even with his price as high as it is.  

Max Muncy, 3B Los Angeles Dodgers

Max Muncy absolutely demolished a baseball last night to give the Dodgers the lead in the 8th. When Muncy is hot, he is one of the best home run hitters in all of baseball, and he gets to do it in that great Dodgers lineup. His price feels too low, given that he also has a favorable matchup against Keaton Winn in Dodgers Stadium. 

Jake Cronenworth, 1B San Diego Padres

I’ll be the first to admit Jake Cronenworth is a pretty boring pick. He doesn’t provide much power or speed, keeping his fantasy value down. However, he is batting third in a really good Padres lineup and has a good matchup against Kyle Gibson today, who I don’t trust to be able to hold down this offense. 

Even if he doesn’t provide you with any homers or steals, he can easily return his value by stacking up a few hits, runs, and RBIs in the heart of this offense.

Teoscar Hernandez, OF Los Angeles Dodgers

I know what you are thinking… really Henry? Three Dodgers players? Be original, everyone loves the Dodgers, everyone knows they are good, you’re losing your touch. I don’t care. We all know that the Dodgers offense is incredible, so why are some of these great hitters so cheap? 

Obviously, all of Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman, and Shohei Ohtani are all adequately priced at above $6,000 so you can’t really go stacking all three of them, but with the price of some of these other Dodgers you can stack one of those top dogs with these other cheaper Dodgers very easily. Teoscar had a homer and a double last night and has 3 homers in the last 3 games, I think some of these other Dodgers are getting undervalued just because they aren’t the big 3.   

 

 

 

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