DRAFT MLB Value Watch: Thursday, April 12th
Aaron Hendrix will be bringing Premium subscribers his tiers for head-to-head, three-man, four-man (tournaments), and six-man drafts on DRAFT. Included will be strategy discussion and options for the day’s slate.
Thursday, April 12th
Good afternoon Grinders! Welcome to our MLB content for DRAFT Premium. Each day, I will go over the MLB slate with tier rankings for head-to-head, three-man, four-man (tournaments) and six man drafts. I’ll also provide a brief slate analysis as to how to attack drafts for the slate.
A couple notes to remember about DRAFT contests. One, there is no salary cap so you’re not worried about fitting players in on a budget. Raw fantasy points is what matters most, not the popular point per dollar. Second, while there is no late swap, if a player is ruled out, you will be able to swap them out. For more information on how this works, read the DRAFT Swap Rules Page – for this reason you can take some marginal chances in the later rounds on players that are questionable to play. It’s also important to note the scoring for DRAFT baseball contests is different than any other site with an emphasis on hitters and power (10 points for a home run) as opposed to traditional strong value for starting pitching (only one point for a strikeout). View the DRAFT MLB Scoring System here – last, roster requirements are one pitcher, two infielders, and two outfielders. All analysis and rankings will be based on that.
Slate Overview
This data is copied from the MLB First Look from Notorious.
| Away | Pitcher | Home | Pitcher | Vegas Line | Run Total | Ballpark | Time (ET) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pittsburgh Pirates | Trevor Williams – R | at | Chicago Cubs | Kyle Hendricks – R | CHC-180 | 8.5 | Wrigley Field | 2:20 PM |
| Detroit Tigers | Michael Fulmer – R | at | Cleveland Indians | Trevor Bauer – R | CLE-190 | 8.5 | Progressive Field | 6:10 PM |
| St. Louis Cardinals | Michael Wacha – R | at | Cincinnati Reds | Sal Romano – R | STL-130 | 9.0 | Great American Park | 6:40 PM |
| Colorado Rockies | Chad Bettis – R | at | Washington Nationals | Gio Gonzalez – L | WAS-175 | 9.0 | Nationals Park | 7:05 PM |
| New York Yankees | Sonny Gray – R | at | Boston Red Sox | Rick Porcello – R | BOS-105 | 9.0 | Fenway Park | 7:10 PM |
| Chicago White Sox | Lucas Giolito – R | at | Minnesota Twins | Jose Berrios – R | MIN-172 | 8.5 | Target Field | 8:10 PM |
| LA Angels of Anaheim | Nick Tropeano – R | at | Kansas City Royals | Ian Kennedy – R | LAA-120 | 9.5 | Kauffman Stadium | 8:15 PM |
| San Francisco Giants | Chris Stratton – R | at | San Diego Padres | Bryan Mitchell – R | SF -124 | 8.0 | Petco Park | 10:10 PM |
It’s a smallish slate today with eight games on the schedule and a lack of SP options as Jose Berrios and Trevor Bauer are the top two options taking the mound today. As such, I think the optimal strategy today is to go hitter first and that starts with Mike Trout at the top followed by the usual suspects of Bryce Harper, Giancarlo Stanton, Kris Bryant, and Joey Votto. OF is relatively on par with IF today so few adjustments were made for positional scarcity in the rankings.
Our Premium content can help you make better picks every day
- To read this full article for today’s NBA games, you need to have a subscription to DRAFT Premium, our paid content package.
- A Premium subscription will allow you to access this article and more.