Thursday, April 28, brings a rare 12:35 p.m. ET nine-game main slate on Yahoo, DraftKings and FanDuel. Do not procrastinate when it comes to joining contests, as they are filling quickly. Let’s get into the top MLB DFS picks for pitchers and stacks for Yahoo, DraftKings and FanDuel daily fantasy baseball lineups. As always, you can head over to the Awesemo MLB DFS & Fantasy Baseball home page for all the fantasy baseball content you need for any given slate.
MLB DFS Picks Today: Spotlight Pitchers and Top Stacks | Thursday, April 28
Yahoo Stack of the Day: Miami Marlins at LHP Patrick Corbin — 4.5 implied runs
Game-time temperatures are only in the upper-40s, and yet this anemic Miami offense has a 4.5 implied run total. That is an indictment of just how terrible veteran Patrick Corbin has been this season. The wheels started falling off the wagon for the journeyman last year, but we are now seeing a full-blown decline into irrelevance. It would not be a surprise to see the 32-year-old southpaw land on the injured list after another bad start with a “tired arm,” but other than the Nationals having nobody else to eat innings, it would not be a surprise to see him released before Memorial Day. Through four starts this season, Corbin has lasted just 13.2 innings with an 11.2 ERA and 11.20 WHIP. He is allowing nearly one free pass per inning, which is no bueno.
Though the Marlins lineup does strike out at a nearly 30% rate against southpaws, they will have almost a full complement of righties going against Corbin. In his last 598 opposite-handed matchups, Corbin has a woeful 17.4% strikeout rate with an absurdly high .392 wOBA and .257 ISO. Jorge Soler ($17), Avisail Garcia ($14), Garrett Cooper ($20) and Jesus Aguilar ($12) are the core pieces to target from Miami.
Late Slate: Atlanta Braves vs. LHP Drew Smyly — 5.1 implied runs
This season we have seen 32-year-old Drew Smyly with a pair of fortuitous starts before the Regression Monster grabbed him in his last appearance, resulting in two round-trippers and four earned runs. Almost immediately after making his debut back in 2012, Smyly was in the “crafty lefty” phase of his career. When he is not locating his pitchers, he is susceptible to right-handed power bats. Atlanta has a long line of lefty mashers in its lineup with Ozzie Albies, Austin Riley, Marcell Ozuna, Adam Duvall and catcher Travis d’Arnaud. It also sounds like Ronald Acuna Jr. is ready to return after missing the last nine months with an ACL injury. On the brief two-game featured slate tonight, Atlanta is going to be quite popular.
Spotlight Pitchers
Top MLB DFS Picks Target: RHP Bailey Ober vs. Detroit Tigers — 3.3 implied runs
- DFS Salary: Yahoo $40 | FanDuel $8,600 | DraftKings $7,900
After making his debut in The Show last season to mixed results, 26-year-old Bailey Ober has been off to a strong start this year. Ober has been one of the promising arms for Minnesota over the last few seasons. The pandemic somewhat curtailed his development, as he had only 16 innings above Double-A before joining the big club. It will be interesting to see how his strikeout stuff and ability to limit power play out against top-tier hitting, but the early results have been solid. So far in three starts this year, Ober has a 2.81 ERA and 1.00 WHIP with two home runs allowed in 16 innings. While he did luck out with two unearned runs against Boston, in total he allowed three runs in 11 innings against the Red Sox and the White Sox. Today’s salary is a forgiving one, as is the matchup with Detroit.
Late Slate – MLB DFS Picks Target: RHP Dakota Hudson vs. Arizona Diamondbacks — 3.3 implied runs
- DFS Salary: Yahoo $34 | FanDuel $8,900 | DraftKings $7,300
There are only four starting pitchers on the featured night slate, plus Yahoo and DraftKings requires two per lineup. None of the options are particularly enthralling, and picking on the Diamondbacks will be the popular strategy. For short slates like this, do not be afraid to take a couple hitters against your pitcher — particularly when mediocrity is their aspirational outcome. Dakota Hudson has a heavy ground ball lean, so he is the least likely of the four starters to implode tonight. Most of the St. Louis relievers have seen action in the last two days, though none of them have pitched more than twice in the last 72 hours. It is likely that the Cardinals strategy will be to put in one of their lefties when the projected top of the order comes up to take advantage of David Peralta, Pavin Smith and Daulton Varsho in a same-handed matchup, but with a little luck that will be after Hudson has turned over the lineup twice and completed four or five innings.
Final MLB DFS Thoughts & Weather Notes for the Thursday, April 28 Fantasy Baseball Slate
Cold is the operative word of the day, with the early frontloaded main slate not giving Mother Nature much of a chance to warm things up. Chicago and St. Louis are the only venues with potential precipitation issues.
