MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Thursday, April 4
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 Thursday, April 4
- Jazz Chisholm MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
- Seth Lugo MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
- Jack Suwinski MORE Than 0.5 Home Runs (DEMON)
- Lance Lynn (DEMON) MORE Than 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed (DEMON)
- Michael Soroka LESS Than 16.5 Pitching Outs
Jazz Chisholm MORE Than 1.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
Not many games on the slate today, so we really wanna pick on Lance Lynn and his piss-poor power prevention with the strongest bat possible. Jazz Chisholm leads the Marlins’ projected lineup with a 16.0% barrel rate against righties, along with his 32.6% FB rate. Lynn has the worst HR/9 (2.11) since 2023 on the slate among qualified pitchers, and the power prevention issues date back a few seasons for him. Add that he goes deep into games, even when struggling because of his durability, and that Chisholm’s speed can stretch any hit into the outfield for extra bases to conclude that we should wanna attack Lynn with Chisholm.
Jake Burger projects better for total bases (2.5 to Chisholm’s 2.1) and has a 14.1% barrel rate against righties since 2023, so he’s another great play from the Marlins. I’m not sure why he projects better, but I should note that he does, though I’m still more on the Jazz Train.
Seth Lugo MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts (DEMON)
It’s the White Sox in a pitcher-friendly park. Seth Lugo should be able to shut them down and compile innings and, therefore, strikeouts. The Sox projected lineup has a collective low K rate (20.5% since 2023), but Lugo’s 2.19 BB/9 with typical White Sox immolation should get Lugo deep into the game. Yoan Moncada and Luis Robert have K rates near 29% over that span and Lugo should face them three times. We have Lugo’s standard projection at 5.4 strikeouts on the day, so the DEMON boost is great for us.
Jack Suwinski MORE Than 0.5 Home Runs (DEMON)
Home run projections are always a ballsy projection to attack, but Josiah Gray might suck. He has allowed a 10.0% barrel rate to lefties since 2023 while not having much strikeout stuff and walking 12.9% of hitters. Jack Suwinski leads the Pirates projected lineup — by far — with his 18.0% barrel rate and 40.1% FB rate against righties since last season. Playing one ticket, I’m not including a home run play, but playing three or more, I wanna have exposure to Suwinski here with the DEMON boost.
Lance Lynn (DEMON) MORE Than 2.5 Earned Runs Allowed (DEMON)
The way to get to Lynn is via the home run and the Marlins are gonna bring three high barrel rates against righties to attack him — Chisholm, Burger, and Jesus Sanchez (12.0%) — to go with Bryan De La Cruz (8.6%), Christian Bethancourt (8.3%), and Josh Bell (8.1%). We have Lynn projected to only give up 2.1, but that has to be really conservative. Consider what the Marlins can bring with a slight ballpark bump (as just about anything outside of Miami is a bump for hitting). If Lynn were better at keeping hitters off of the basepaths, fine, we stay away, but his 3.26 BB/9 since 2023 boosts our shot at him getting behind in counts and allowing multiple multi-run homers.
Michael Soroka LESS Than 16.5 Pitching Outs
The Royals aren’t very good, and this ballpark sucks for hitting, but they have a 4.6 implied total at home. With the emergence of Bobby Witt, Nelson Velazquez, Vinnie Pasquantino, and MJ Melendez high barrel rates to go with the trusty Salvador Perez, there’s some pop here to attack Michael Soroka and the White Sox bullpen.
Soroka has allowed 13 barrels over 121 batted balls since 2023 with no visible splits. The Royals swing the bat a lot. Soroka allows a ton of contact. There will be a lot of opportunity for the Royals to knock him out of the game before the sixth inning.
All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.
This is a day to play small and take big risks. We shouldn’t be playing a high volume of tickets because we should be targeting higher variance DEMON boosts on this slate where the best plays lie.
Image Credit: Getty Images