This article is part of our DraftKings MLB series.
MLB gives us a light docket Thursday, and you'll need to be ready to set your lineups early on DraftKings. The five-game slate kicks off at 12:10 p.m. ET. Early to bed and early to rise can make you healthy, wealthy and wise. From a DFS perspective. Hopefully, these lineup recommendations should help.
Pitching
Nathan Eovaldi, TEX vs. WAS ($9,100): If you want an above-average pitcher facing a below-average offense, Eovaldi is your guy. He falls below the threshold of 1.00 home runs allowed per nine innings (0.99, but that technically counts) in his career. Through six starts this season he has a 3.00 ERA. The Nationals are fighting to stay out of the bottom 10 in runs scored, a far cry from being in the top half of scoring.
Peter Lambert, COL at MIA ($5,800): If you are willing to bet on a below-average pitcher against a bad offense because you will save a lot of salary, here you go. This will only be Lambert's second start of the season, otherwise, he has pitched out of the bullpen, but this one is crucially on the road. Also, it's against the woeful Marlins. Miami is one of the teams with a sub-.300 on-base percentage (OBP) and it is 29th in team OPS.
Top Target
There's always the risk of injury with Tyler O'Neill ($5,900). He has already missed time with a concussion. On the other hand, he's slashed .304/.415/.658 and cranked nine home runs in 21 games. Kyle Harrison has given up 1.73 homers per nine innings in his MLB career, and he's a southpaw. Even in the last two seasons, which were not great for O'Neill, he posted a .790 OPS versus lefty pitchers.
Bargain Bat
He struggled to get on base as a rookie, but Brenton Doyle ($4,000) still managed 10 home runs, five triples and 22 stolen bases in 126 games. This year, Doyle has three home runs and four swiped bags, but he's also batting .311. Edward Cabrera doesn't allow many homers, but he has a career 4.44 FIP. Additionally, righties have hit .281 against him thus far.
Stacks to Consider
Cubs at Mets (Adrian Houser): Michael Busch ($4,300), Christopher Morel ($4,200), Mike Tauchman ($3,700)
Houser is a pitcher well worth targeting. The only issue is that I have a question to ask of the Cubs paraphrased from Dr. Ian Malcolm: You do plan to have batters in your batting lineup, right? Due to injuries and slow starts, the Cubs don't have many hitters worth betting on. Fortunately, I found three, but even then, one is a bet on improvement. As for Houser, in his first season as a Met, he has an 8.37 ERA and a 0.88 K/BB rate. Since 2022, lefties have hit .286 against Houser. As luck would have it, the two guys hitting for the Cubs are southpaws.
In his first season as a Cub, southpaw Busch has grabbed the first base role. That'll happen when you hit .255 and slug .480 with six homers. Morel is off to a slow start, but he does have four homers and two stolen bases. Last season he had a .798 OPS versus righties and an .859 OPS on the road, so I decided to go with him. Tauchman's power has come and gone in his career, but his ability to get on base has (usually) been there. He has a .427 OBP this season, but the lefty also has slugged .500.
Yankees at Orioles (Kyle Bradish): Aaron Judge ($6,000), Anthony Volpe ($4,800), Giancarlo Stanton ($4,700)
Bradish is expected to make his first start of the season. Will he be up to the task? With the potential for rust and with the power potential in this stack, I'm taking the shot. It's not a great day for stacks, all things considered. If it were, would I have led with that Cubs trio? You have to work with the lineups and pitching matchups on the docket, though, so take a shot on these three Yankees against a guy who hasn't taken an MLB mound in 2024.
Judge has put his slow start behind him to a degree, with three of his six homers coming in his last seven games. Additionally, in 2023 and 2022, he had an OPS over 1.000 on the road — also against right-handed pitchers. Volpe brings the counting stats. He had 21 home runs and 24 stolen bases last year even though he had a sub-.300 OBP as a rookie. Now, the shortstop has three home runs and seven swiped bags, but also a .348 OBP. It's been a while since Stanton's heyday, but he's so strong he can scuffle day in and day out and still hit 30 homers. Last year he managed 24 in only 101 games. He may finish with a sub-.300 OBP for the third season in a row, but he has six home runs already, so he's often worth the gamble.
