MLB PrizePicks Predictions Today: Top Plays for Tuesday, April 9
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.
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MLB PrizePicks Predictions for Tuesday, April 9
- Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani MORE Than 2.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
- Tyler Glasnow MORE Than 16.5 Outs
- Aaron Civale MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts
- Sonny Gray LESS Than 4.0 Strikeouts
- Jake Burger MORE Than 2.5 Total Bases and 0.5 Home Runs (DEMON)
Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani MORE Than 2.5 Total Bases (DEMON)
Betts and Ohtani are strong for multiple total bases in any decent matchup. Against a pitcher like Louie Varland, who has allowed an 11.2% barrel rate on a 49.7% hard-hit rate, this is a spot for Betts and Ohtani to rock the PrizePicks DEMON projections. They are two of the best hitters in baseball. So much so that we have Ohtani projected for 3.3 total bases and Betts for 3.1 — more than any other players available to us on PrizePicks. DEMON projections for total bases are rarely eclipsed like this by our projections.
Tyler Glasnow MORE Than 16.5 Outs
After seeing Glasnow throw 100 pitches in his last start, we should feel good about him going 6 innings against a Twins projected lineup with a whopping 26% K rate against RHP. They are very much a three-true-outcome team with a 10.2% BB rate and a 10.8% barrel rate, so the risk is here given Glasnow’s history of command and power-prevention issues. But this version of Glasnow has only a 4.5% BB rate this season, so we should like his 100 pitches to stretch his volume out and pounce on him while he’s throwing strikes with a high pitch count against a K-heavy lineup.
Aaron Civale MORE Than 5.5 Strikeouts
Through 57.1 IP with the Rays, Civale has 11.3 K/9 while maintaining the 2.2 BB/9 he had in Cleveland. This is a more dominating version of the just-decent-real-life pitcher he was earlier in his career. Normally, we shouldn’t obey tiny samples, but the Rays just have a knack for maximizing the output of their pitchers, so we can trust that Civale is kind of a different person these days. Not to bury the lead, but this Angels projected lineup has an insanely high 29% K rate against RHP to boot. Throwing 85-90 pitches in 6 innings, Civale should be golden for 6 or more strikeouts tonight.
Sonny Gray LESS Than 4.0 Strikeouts
Gray is probably on a pitch count in the range of 60-65, so it’s tough to see him completing 4 innings. Coming in with almost exactly 1 strikeout per inning against a decently disciplined Phillies lineup (21.3% K rate against RHP), we should have exposure to LESS than 4 strikeouts.
Jake Burger MORE Than 2.5 Total Bases and 0.5 Home Runs (DEMON)
Carlos Rodon is probably broken until he proves otherwise. He has allowed 2.07 HR/9 on an 11.7% barrel rate, while his 8.64 K/9 is just kinda meh. His 4.01 BB/9 reflects that he’s struggling to get ahead in counts and putting himself in these spots for power hitters to exploit him. The biggest raw power in the Marlins projected lineup is Burger, with his robust 20.6% barrel rate on a 61.8% hard-hit rate and 33.3% fly-ball rate against LHP. His 0.5 home run projection on PrizePicks also has a DEMON boost. Either play is fine. A ‘why not both?’ approach applies perfectly fine too. It’s a power righty against Rodon in Yankee Stadium; we just play this.
All projections referenced are accurate at the time of writing but subject to change.
There are a ton of great projections to attack today on PrizePicks. I’m probably playing a really high volume, with these six plays as my cornerstones. We didn’t even touch on the Nationals and Padres in strong power spots (despite less than favorable ballparks) or attacking the high frequency of strikeouts in the Rockies, A’s, and White Sox lineups.
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