It's here — Opening Day of the 2023 MLB season has finally arrived! At around 1:05 p.m. ET today, the first pitch clocks of what should be a wild year of baseball will start ticking down. That's also when countless DraftKings Classic MLB contests lock, including the $500K Opening Day Special, a $15 buy-in that guarantees $100,000 to the winner. Um, yes please — we'll be entering that — and we're here to share our draft picks and strategy so you can shake off your DFS baseball rust and start the season with some cold, hard cash.
MORE MLB: Betting guide for 2023 season, including awards, pennants, World Series champs
You won't often see MLB player pools as overflowing with top-tier talent as you'll see today. The starting pitcher lists are like a crème de la crème of aces, from Gerrit Cole to Corbin Burnes and Max Fried to Shane McClanahan — and that's all before mid-afternoon. We get an Aaron Nola-Jacob deGrom battle in deGrom's regular-season Rangers debut, a Cy Young square-off between Max Scherzer and Sandy Alcantara in Miami, and a Dylan Cease-Framber Valdez duel in Houston. And to close out the night, we get Shohei Ohtani, Zac Gallen, Julio Urias, and Shane Bieber. All said, we'll see eight Cy Young pitchers on the mound by the end of the day. Hoo-rah!
2023 FANTASY RANKINGS & DOLLAR VALUES:
Cs | 1Bs | 2Bs | 3Bs | SSs | OFs | SPs | RPs | Top 300
And don't even get us started on offense — we're expecting a huge year for hitting, base-running, and power thanks in large part to all the new rules. Pitch clocks, pickoff limits, defensive shift rules, larger bases — this will all not only help the games much more fun, exciting, and short. It will also make offense great again, but not in the juiced baseballs (or juiced batters) sense.
2023 FANTASY SLEEPERS & VALUES:
Cs | 1Bs | 2Bs | 3Bs | SSs | OFs | SPs | RPs
Stud pitching and stacked rules favoring offense — sounds like the makings of a fantastic Opening Day. Let's get to our lineup, and then discuss our reasoning behind each pick. Our strategy today: find underrated value at pitcher, spend up on offensive studs, and pinpoint a few under-the-radar batters who have historically enjoyed success against their opponents' starting pitcher. You know the deal by now — we're not telling you exactly which players you should be investing in, or the precise way you should be constructing lineups. Our goal is to highlight some of our favorite plays of the day and make you think about DFS in a new way.
MORE MLB: 23 reasons why baseball will be great in 2023
Before we break down all of our picks, here are the most notable scoring rules for DraftKings contests: $50,000 budget to fill 2 pitchers, 1 catcher, 1 first baseman, 1 second baseman, 1 third baseman, 1 shortstop, 3 outfielders. Single = 3 points, double = 5 points, triple = 8 points, home run = 10 points. 2 points for each RBI, run, base on balls, and hit by pitch. Each steal = 5 points. On the pitching side, it's 2.25 points per inning or 0.75 points per out. Strikeouts = 2 points, earned runs = -2 points. A win = 4 points. A hit against, base on balls against, or hit batsmen each equal -0.6 points. A complete game = 2.5 points, and a complete game shutout is an additional 2.5 points. A no-hitter = 5 points. There will be a quiz.
MORE FANTASY: Full Cheat Sheet | All-Bust Team | Deep Sleeper Team
DraftKings MLB Opening Day Picks 3/30: DFS lineup for Thursday's GPP tournaments
Thursday full day slate — $50,000 budget
P Shane McClanahan, Rays vs. Tigers ($7,700)
Three stellar seasons into Shane McClanahan's career, and still nobody seems to be putting any respect on the guy's name. Sugar Shane finished seventh in Rookie of the Year voting in 2021 and sixth in AL Cy Young voting last year. He won 12 games last season while maintaining a 2.54 ERA, 0.926 WHIP, and striking out 194 batters in 166 innings. Now we get Mr. 30 Percent Strike Rate at home against the lowly, free-swinging Tigers!? Nine of his 12 wins in 2022 came at Tropicana Field, and he averaged over 22 DraftKings points per game throughout the campaign. Yeah, sign us up. Big Mac for the W!
Pablo López, Twins at Royals ($7,500)
Anyone who has followed my plethora of preseason fantasy baseball content this spring knows how big a fan of López I have become. The man might have the filthiest changeup in the game, and his batting average against hasn't reached .235 since his 2019 sophomore season. He limits hard contact, and more often than not induces batters to ground out. We love his chances at starting his sixth campaign strong against a Royals team coming off a weak offensive year (Kansas City's offense ranked seventh-worst with 3.95 runs scored in 2022). Sixteen points is the baseline here, but 25 points is the ceiling.
C William Contreras, Brewers at Cubs ($3,600)
Contreras goes into his brother's former home stadium — the hitter-friendly confines of Wrigley Field — and hopes to pick right up where he left off in the 2022 season. Hell, he'll be looking to pick up where he left off on Monday when he mashed two home runs in his final spring exhibition for Milwaukee. Contreras had 20 homers and a .278 average in his breakout 2022 campaign with Atlanta, and should be a focal point of the Brewers' offense this season.
1B Matt Olson, Braves at Nationals ($4,200)
Olson led the majors in home runs (8) and RBIs (18) this spring, looking poised to build upon his casual 34-homer debut campaign with the Braves last year. He has also enjoyed massive success against Washington starter Patrick Corbin throughout his career, batting .556 across 12 plate appearances. A $4,200 price tag for Olson is DFS charity right now.
2B Nick Gordon, Twins at Royals ($2,900)
Gordon seems like he'll be the guy filling in for injured Twins second baseman Jorge Polanco to start the 2023 season. And what a fabulous Opening Day matchup the young speedster draws! The 27-year-old has hit 7-for-11 against Zack Greinke across his two-year career, good for a .636 average to go along with a 1.091 slugging percentage. You have to save money somewhere in your lineup — why not do it with a $2,900 injury fill-in who sees the opposing pitcher incredibly well?
3B Gunnar Henderson, Orioles at Red Sox ($4,000)
I'm big on Gunnar. In fact, I'm gunning for Gunnar to win Rookie of the Year, as I picked in my 2023 MLB betting guide as well as the Sporting News' expert MLB predictions. He hits the ball extremely hard for a 21-year-old, and the lineup around him can be sneaky good as well. We like Henderson's chances at kicking off the season with a bang, especially in hitter-friendly Fenway Park.
SS Nico Hoerner, Cubs vs. Brewers ($4,200)
Hoerner rounded quite the corner last year in his first full season, slashing .281/.327/.410 with 10 homers, 55 RBI, 20 stolen bases, and 60 runs scored in just 135 games. One of those 10 homers came against former NL Cy Young winner Corbin Burnes, Milwaukee's obvious Opening Day starter this afternoon. So many people will be so afraid of Burnesy that they don't even consider drafting the 25-year-old infielder. But with steals counting for five points, you'd better believe Nico has value.
Aaron Judge, Yankees vs. Giants ($6,300)
In case you hadn't heard, Judge is coming off one of the best offensive seasons in American League history. And now he gets to start the 2023 season healthy, at home, and against a pitcher in Logan Webb who served up three homers this spring. Add in a pitching clock and subtract humidors and you have the potential for even more noise from Judge out of the gate. All rise!
Randy Arozarena, Rays vs. Tigers ($5,100)
Arozarena has been locked in all spring, slashing .294/.350/.647 with two homers and six RBIs in just 17 at-bats. He also owns Tigers' Opening-Day starter Eduardo Rodriguez, to the tune of a .385 average and .467 OBP. Randy may never duplicate the peaks we saw from him in his torrid postseason run a few years back, but he's certainly still worth $5,100 with matchups this juicy.
Masataka Yoshida, Red Sox vs. Orioles ($4,400)
Yoshida has flown under the rookie radar a bit with all the Gunnar/Corbin/Jordan/Kodai talk, but it should be noted that the Japanese sensation is 29 and has a full track record of dominance playing in the country that just won the WBC. In fact, he was incredibly clutch in Japan's meteoric rise to the championship victory. He'll be huge for the Sox just in the sense that he can get on base with regularity. He slashed .327/.421/.539 in seven seasons of Nippon Professional Baseball, averaging nearly 20 homers per year and maintaining a 13.1 percent walk rate and 9.4 percent strikeout rate lifetime. This guy's a baller, and he's well worth his $4,400 cost.
*OPENING DAY DISCOUNT BONUS*
Yonathan Daza, Rockies at Padres ($3,700)
We're flying about as under-the-radar as we can here with our discount bonus, as 80 percent of baseball fans probably don't even know Yonathan is a name, never mind that Yonathan Daza is the Rockies' starting centerfielder. In fact, I don't even have a photo of him, so you'll have to take my word for it that dude exists. Daza dazzled all spring, and he hits Padres' Opening-Day starter Blake Snell quite well (look, I'm playing with words!). Seriously, though — in 17 career plate appearances against Snell, Daza has logged eight hits and three walks. Sounds like a sweet Yon-cherry on top of our Opening Day sundae. And if he goes yard, you can yell 'YON-GONE!'
