MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Monday, April 1
Traditional MLB DFS formats aren’t the only way to profit from daily fantasy baseball. MLB PrizePicks is a great Fantasy Pick’em site where we can take today’s projections versus theirs and combine two or more baseball predictions for sizeable payouts.
In this space, we’ll explore a few PrizePicks plays for the upcoming MLB slate. This article isn’t the be-all, end-all of great plays or a recommendation for a full ticket; it’s simply a starting place for you to explore thinking about the game within the game. Maybe you want to scatter these plays across entries. Maybe there are only two or three you think are worth playing. Daily fantasy pick’em gives us the flexibility to make only the plays in which we think there is value rather than being forced to create a full lineup while competing against the best DFS players in the industry.
PrizePicks is daily fantasy baseball made simple.
If you haven’t signed up for a PrizePicks account, make sure to use the PrizePicks promo code ROTOBONUS and get a $100 deposit match.
MLB PrizePicks Predictions for Monday, April 1
- Aaron Judge MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases
- Sean Manaea MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
- Vladimir Guerrero MORE Than 8.0 Fantasy Points
- Dane Dunning MORE Than 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed (DEMON)
- Ryne Nelson + Luis Gil LESS Than 9.0 Strikeouts (Combo)
Aaron Judge MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases
The roof will be closed in Arizona, but Aaron Judge is in a very high contact spot tonight against Ryne Nelson. In 144 IP in 2023, Nelson gave up an 82.2% contact rate — the highest on the slate. And no one crushes contact in the Statcast era like Judge, who is the only player in this era with a 20% barrel rate. It’s an excellent spot for an extra-base hit, and he can knock it out of any park under just about any conditions at any time against any pitcher. High frequency of high-quality contact for Judge? We want some.
Sean Manaea MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
Sean Manaea had a rather humble 9.79 K/9 in 2023 and — as bad as the Tigers are — don’t have a monstrous strikeout rate as a team, but he’s projected by us for 5.5 strikeouts through about 15 outs. With the DEMON boost, we should like this proposition, facing the 30+ K% of Riley Greene and Jake Rogers since 2023 twice through the order. We don’t have much of a sample on Parker Meadows, but THE BAT projects him for a 25.3% K rate on the season, as well. This isn’t the juiciest projection on the board, but the boost in payout makes this otherwise break-even projection pretty enticing to toss into our contests.
Vladimir Guerrero MORE Than 8.0 Fantasy Points
Ronel Blanco had a 25.4% K rate against 122 RHBs in 2023, but Vladimir Guerrero just doesn’t strike out. His 14.7% K rate against righties makes us wanna target him any time he’s up against someone who struggles with power prevention. And, boy, does Blanco struggle.
Blanco surrendered an 11.4% barrel rate to righties in 2023, while Vlad had a 12.1% rate against righties with a 56.5% hard-hit rate. We have him projected for double-digit fantasy points tonight. He and Judge are two of the best plays on the board for hitter fantasy points.
Dane Dunning MORE Than 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed (DEMON)
Dane Dunning is a decent real-life pitcher, but the Rays have a 4.5 implied total at home tonight, so there’s a good enough chance that Dunning gives up 3 earned runs. We have him projected to surrender 2.2. Add in the DEMON boost and I like this play in contests where we aren’t playing against the Manaea DEMON projection. Dunning doesn’t give up a lot of power, and the ballpark is great for depressing power, but he surrendered a near-80% contact rate in 2023 after only a 19.2% K rate, and the Rays hit the ball really hard. From 1-7 in their projected batting order, we see everyone carrying a 43+ hard-hit% with four guys over 53%.
Ryne Nelson + Luis Gil LESS Than 9.0 Strikeouts (Combo)
Luis Gil is probably gonna be a great strikeout pitcher at any level, but his 5.4 BB/9 through 312 MiLB IP is gonna make it really tough for him to stay in games long enough to compile strikeouts. The aforementioned Nelson really can’t strike anyone out, only having 6.0 K/9 in 2023. Despite Gil’s high projected K rate, we only have the combination of the two to total 7.1 strikeouts on the evening, as the Yankees’ 5.3 implied total tells us that Nelson’s gonna struggle to stay in the game, as well. They’d have to smash their RG projection by 32.2% for us to lose on this play.
All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.
Image Credit: Getty Images