FanDuel MLB lineup and picks for Thursday, April 12
Welcome into the FanDuel daily fantasy baseball column for Thursday, April 12! We have a small five-game slate this evening so let’s get right to it.
Before we dive into the Thursday slate, the Wednesday results need to be talked about for a quick minute. The early slate saw our Braves stack not do too well but we faded Lance McCullers, who got blown up. You likely just missed the tournaments but should have easily cashed in 50/50s with a score of 125.3.
The evening slate was profitable but incredibly frustrating. We nailed the Javier Baez call as he went for over 50 FanDuel points. It’s just too bad I swapped out Gary Sanchez AND J.D. Martinez on Twitter, leaving almost 90 points out of the lineup. That would have been pretty darn useful considering we put up 150.2 even without those two players. That’s three straight slates we’ve at least hit money so let’s keep on rolling tonight!
Starting Pitcher, High End Spend
Jose Berrios, $9,000
.136 (6 for 44), 39.2 strikeout rate
It’s seemingly been a theme of the last few slates but the pitching options aren’t all that great tonight. Most players and I think I might as well will head towards Berrios. The perception is likely that the White Sox aren’t a good offense. However, they do rank inside the top-12 in batting average, OPS, ISO, and wOBA against righty pitchers to this point. Berrios does have plenty of talent but may not be matchup proof. He is at home and the White Sox should regress at some point. After all, they were 22nd or worse in all of those categories in 2017. The youngster hasn’t pitched against the White Sox a whole lot but he does have a great track record when he has.
Also Consider – Gio Gonzalez, $8,600 (depending on the Colorado lineup)
Mid-Range
The middle of the road is not pretty tonight. I really don’t want any part of Rick Porcello or Sonny Gray. Ian Kennedy might look appealing from the game logs, but the Angels have been smashing righties so far. It’s going to be a tough night for pitching, to be sure.
Value
Bryan Mitchell, $5,800
.333 (1 for 3), 33.3 strikeout rate
This might seem crazy (because it is a little bit) but Mitchell is in the same mold of Marlins starter Jarlin Castro last night. As a fun aside, the last two pitchers featured on the main slate in the value slot have taken a no-hitter into at least the sixth inning. Mitchell doesn’t have a ton of upside but he’s also drawn the Rockies and the Astros in his first two starts. he now gets the Giants, who haven’t hit right handed pithing for anything yet this season. They have a .258 average, .665 OPS, .289 wOBA, and are striking out 26.1 percent of the time .hat’s enough to take a shot at this salary.