MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Thursday, April 18
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.
All stats cited are since the start of the 2023 season unless otherwise noted.
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 Thursday, April 18
- Yandy Diaz MORE Than 6.5 Fantasy Points
- Logan Webb MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
- Ryan Pepiot LESS Than 7.0 Strikeouts
- Christopher Morel MORE Than 6.5 Fantasy Points
- Andres Gimenez MORE Than 6.5 Fantasy Points
Yandy Diaz MORE Than 6.5 Fantasy Points
The 6.5 range of fantasy points is soft today. We’ll start with Yandy Diaz against Griffin Canning. We have Diaz projected for 8.9 fantasy points because he’s leading off with a 55.7% hard-hit rate for a team with a 4.59 implied run total against a pitcher who gets hit really hard (49.9%) with a high barrel rate allowed (10.6%) — 12.2% to righties. Diaz’ RotoGrinders-to-PrizePicks projection disparity is among the highest on the board.
Griffin Canning MORE Than 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed is a great correlation play to which I’d like exposure.
Logan Webb MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
Logan Webb isn’t a huge strikeout guy, and the Diamondbacks don’t strike out, but his usual ~100 pitches can get him 7+ innings against anyone; he’s so efficient. I don’t like the number, if we’re gonna keep it real, but we have him at exactly 5.5 strikeouts, so the DEMON boost is nice value.
Ryan Pepiot LESS Than 7.0 Strikeouts
Why? There are strikeouts in the Angels lineup, but they’re not the A’s, Rockies, or Twins where decent pitching looks like Jacob DeGrom. And that’s what Ryan Pepiot is: a decent pitcher who isn’t great. He’s capable of double-digit strikeouts, but he only has an 8.9 K/9. He’s also surrendered a 9.2% barrel rate, while the Angels have enough thump to knock Pepiot out of the game too early to get to 7 strikeouts.
Christopher Morel MORE Than 6.5 Fantasy Points
It’s Christopher Morel against a lefty who can’t throw a strike. One forced strike from A.J. Puk, and we have a dong that smashes Morel’s PrizePicks projection. We have him projected for 8.5 fantasy points at RotoGrinders. His power is just too much against LHP — 22.7% barrel rate.
Andres Gimenez MORE Than 6.5 Fantasy Points
This is a play against whomever Brennan Bernardino is. Our projections love the Guardians. Especially Andres Gimenez for 9.6 fantasy points. A 47.7% bump over his PrizePicks projection — the largest disparity for fantasy points on the board.
All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.
This is kind of a junky tiny slate. I’m probably only running out two or three large contests. And that’s mostly for the sweat. A day off is perfectly fine too.
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