DraftKings and FanDuel MLB Picks - 3/28 Opening Day Oh man, I can't believe baseball is back already. It feels like only yesterday we were watching the Red Sox win the World Series, but here we are at the start of another season. Opening Day on FanDuel and DraftKings features a bevy of aces, some offenses in great spots and a whole lot more in between. Let's take a look at some of the cash game pitchers and team stacks to get you started on what should be a great season of baseball. Now’s your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our MLB and NBA optimizers and our new player lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! Early Masahiro Tanaka FD 9400 DK 9300 Opponent - BAL (Alex Cobb) Park - BALFD - 39.4 DK - 21.49 On an Opening Day full of aces, Tanaka comes in with easily the best win odds of the day, -317 at home against the Orioles. It’s easy to see why. The Orioles finished 2018 with a 47-115 (.290) record good for many an LOL, and did really nothing in the off season to improve. Hell, they might be worse with a whole season without Manny Machado and Adam Jones which would really be something. Which leaves us with Tanaka who comes off another season of excellent peripherals. He had a 4.6:1 K:BB ration and a 3.42 xFIP in 27 starts. Yankee Stadium isn’t a great place to pitch, but take one look at that Orioles’ projected batting order and wonder who gives him even a remotely hard time. Max Scherzer FD 11700 DK 11100 Opponent - NYM (Jacob deGrom) Park - NYMFD - 44.14 DK - 25.06 Scherzer has the unenviable task of having Jacob deGrom coming out of the opposing dugout, but still will stare down a Mets’ order that doesn’t inspire much fear. This game has a 7 over/under with the Nationals -140 home favorites. The Mets added Robinson Cano in the offseason and should be marginally better on offense if they can get full and quality seasons out of Nimmo/ McNeil/ Conforto. But this is still an exploitable lineup and Scherzer, in his age 34 year, is coming off arguably his best season yet. He struck out 12.24 batters per nine with the 2.08 BB/9 rate being the second-best of his career. His 3.06 xFIP trailed his 2.53 ERA but that’s splitting hairs. On a day with softer pricing on the offensive side of the diamond, rolling Scherzer in cash games doesn’t take much of a stretch. Listen to "DFS MLB Podcast for FanDuel and DratKings...

MLB Betting Preview - Can Machado save the pathetic Padres? This is DFSR's MLB preseason series in which we'll highlight some season-long win/loss prop bets on a number of different teams. Look for these coming out over the course of the next few weeks, with 6-8 teams highlighted as potentially strong bets on projected win totals going into the season. We've already covered the Reds and how their new additions could lead to a strong season. Then there's the Diamondbacks who could be in line for a really rough season. And of course, the Phillies with the addition of Bryce Harper. Now let's take a look at the San Diego Padres and how Manny Machado changes the team's outlook. Head on over a for your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our MLB FanDuel and DraftKings optimizer for Opening Day, our MLB Optimizer, and our Player Lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA or NFL? Be sure to read our free NBA and NFL Ebooks on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. San Diego Padres 2018 Record: 66-96 2018 Pythagorean Record: 65-97 2019 Over/Under Wins: 78.5 Key Additions Manny Machado Ian Kinsler Key Losses Nobody good. Projected Lineup Ian Kinsler Wil Myers Manny Machado Hunter Renfroe Eric Hosmer Manuel Margot Luis Urias Austin Hedges Projected Starting Rotation Joey Lucchesi Robbie Erlin Eric Lauer Matt Strahm Jacob Nix (but there are a lot of options here). Welcome back to our preseason MLB betting series. Hopefully, you’ve been following along, and you caught my piece on how we should bet the Phillies given their bevy of off-season additions. Well, I decided I’d go from one coast to the other and cover the other team that landed a $300 million dollar free agent: the San Diego Padres. The 2018 Padres were about as unexciting as you could possibly imagine, netting the second worst run differential in the NL on the back of scoring the third fewest runs in the majors. Their 65-97 Pythagorean record was just a win lower than their putrid 66-96 record, so we’re looking at a team that was just as bad as their record appeared to be. It’s interesting, though, with these truly terrible teams. When you have this many bad players, often times adding just league average production can mean a big improvement in the wins department. They added Machado, which is all well and good, but as we know by now no single player is worth a 14 win upgrade over his predecessors. So how many wins should we project the Dads for going into...

MLB Betting Preview - Can we bet on the big ticket Phillies? This is DFSR's MLB preseason series in which we'll highlight some season-long win/loss prop bets on a number of different teams. Look for these coming out over the course of the next few weeks, with 6-8 teams highlighted as potentially strong bets on projected win totals going into the season. We've already covered the Reds and how their new additions could lead to a strong season. And then there's the Diamondbacks who could be in line for a really rough season. Head on over a for your chance to get DFSR PRO, which will give you access to our NBA FanDuel and DraftKings optimizer, our MLB Optimizer, and our Player Lab! Get started for free by clicking the button below. START YOUR FREE TRIAL NOW! First time with NBA or NFL? Be sure to read our free NBA and NFL Ebooks on building lineups, general strategy and more. We've got you completely covered. Philadelphia Phillies 2018 Record: 80-82 2018 Pythagorean Record: 76-86 2019 Over/Under Wins: 89.5 Key Additions Bryce Harper Jean Segura JT Realmuto Andrew McCutchen Key Losses Nobody good. Projected Lineup Jean Segura Andrew McCutchen Bryce Harper Rhys Hoskins JT Realmuto Maikel Franco Cesar Hernandez Odubel Herrera Projected Starting Rotation Aaron Nola Jake Arrieta Nick Pivetta Zach Eflin Vincent Velasquez The Phillies are an interesting team to project for the 2019 season for one obvious reason: the acquisition of Bryce Harper. Adding one of the league’s iconic young talents for the foreseeable future to an historic contract is always going to be worth talking about, but figuring out how we should bet the Phillies in terms of wins and losses isn’t as simple as it might appear. Let’s start with our baseline – the 2018 Phillies. The Phightins finished with a respectable 80-82 record, but their Pythagorean suggests that they were lucky to land just two games under .500. If you’re not familiar with how Pythagorean records work, the general idea is that Pythagorean records are calculated by using a team’s run differential to determine what their record “should” have been had they had roughly average luck. Given that the Phillies allowed 53 more runs than they allowed last year, they were actually pretty lucky to finish just two games under .500. Pythagorean records aren’t perfect, of course. They assume that teams have no control over when they allow runs, which isn’t exactly the case. On a basic level teams that are down by a lot of runs might bring in a rather crappy mop-up man (who in turn will give up more runs) while the same team will bring in their excellent relievers in closer games. Teams...

MLB Betting Preview - Bullish on the New-Look Cincinnati Reds Welcome to our MLB preseason series in which we'll highlight some season-long win/loss prop bets on a number of different teams. With Opening Day breathing down our neck (less than a month away. Look for these coming out over the course of the next few weeks, with 6-8 teams highlighted as potentially strong bets on projected win totals going into the season. We'll start with the Reds who put together plenty of offseason moves. Cincinnati Reds 2018 Record: 67-95 2018 Pythagorean Record: 69-93 2019 Over/Under Wins: 77.5 Key Additions Alex Wood Sonny Gray Yasiel Puig Matt Kemp Key Losses No one really, but I guess: Homer Bailey Matt Harvey Projected Lineup Jesse Winker - OF Jose Peraza - SS Joey Votto - 1B Eugenio Suarez - 3B Scooter Gennett - 2B Matt Kemp / Scott Schebler - OF Yasiel Puig - OF Tucker Barnhart - C Projected Starting Rotation Alex Wood Luis Castillo Sonny Gray Tanner Roark Anthony DeSclafani Perhaps no other team has addressed their core weakness quite like the Reds. Last season, the pitching staff was an unmitigated disaster with one of the worst team ERAs in the game. That is to be expected with a pitching staff whose games-started leaders were Luis Castillo, Sal Romano, Matt Harvey, Tyler Mahle, Anthony DeSclafani and Homer Bailey. Only Castillo (easily the best of the bunch) and DeSclafani remain in the projected rotation. They are now joined by Alex Wood, Sonny Gray and Tanner Roark. No other team sees this kind of overhaul/ upgrade. In fact, the Reds jettisoned 518 IP (Harvey, Romano, Mahle and Bailey) of 2.0 WAR and get back 461 IP (Wood, Gray, Roark) of 6.2 WAR. That is just such a massive upgrade (and likely even better considering some of Harvey’s innings were on the Mets. Wood hasn’t had an xFIP over 3.90 for the last five seasons and brings a 49% groundball rate to a park that can get out of hand with the power numbers. He should have a longer leash as well, moving away from a Dodgers’ organization that was extremely cautious with its starters. Similarly, Sonny Gray brings a 50% groundball rate and was better than his 2018 4.90 ERA would suggest considering he had a 4.10 xFIP. He’ll need to get the walks back in check after struggling with control last season, but I do like him for a bounce-back campaign. And finally, Roark isn’t a world-beater, but he’s still a clear upgrade to the back end of the rotation. A 3:1 K:BB ratio is nothing to scoff at from a fourth starter and he averaged exactly six innings per start...