RIVAL Best Ball Drafts - Strategy and Lineup Picks for this Week (April 22-28)

April 22, 2024

Ryan Kirksey brings you RIVAL fantasy baseball best ball strategy and picks for Week 4 of the 2024 season. He recommends targeting these MLB players for best ball fantasy baseball drafts.

The 2024 fantasy baseball season is now in full gear and weekly best ball drafts are a great way to get to experience drafts all season long. Fantasy baseball best ball formats are an excellent way to get the real-time experience of drafting without the hassle of in-season management, even from a week-to-week perspective. RIVAL Fantasy is one of the best formats out there for baseball's best ball drafts, and they have weekly best ball drafts every week from Opening Day until the end of the season.

It is very important to know your league settings and scoring depending on where you play best ball. Be sure and pay attention to your league settings as RIVAL scores differently for best ball than many other sites offering a similar product. They also offer a unique perspective on positional alignment with two outfielders, two infielders, two utility hitters, and three pitchers.

Here is the scoring breakdown at RIVAL plus general strategy and picks for Week 4. Join a RIVAL Fantasy draft now by visiting their draft lobby.

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RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Scoring

For this article, we are going to focus on RIVAL Fantasy's best ball scoring, as it is one of the best new popular platforms to play on. The table below shows you how each category is scored for their week-long best ball games.

Week 4 RIVAL Best Ball Drafts Strategy

RIVAL weekly best ball drafts during the baseball season consist of four or six teams, each picking nine players: two IF, two OF, two UTIL, and three PIT. With only 36 or 54 total player picks made in the draft, it's not like you have to go deep into the player pool or be ready to draft the same sleepers you drafted after Round 20 in seasonal leagues. With so few players taken and the talent level of those players so high, we are looking for micro-edges in this game.

For hitters, we want to maximize plate appearances. That means two things. First, players who hit higher in the order are much more valuable. Over a week, even those one or two extra plate appearances can add up. In addition, we want to prioritize hitters whose teams play seven games. Whenever I possibly can, all of my hitter rosters will be filled with players from the 11 teams who play seven games this week (NYY, TOR, CHW, MIN, KCR, OAK, PHI, CIN, MIL, PIT, SDP).

We are 1️⃣ week away from the #MexicoCitySeries! 🇲🇽 pic.twitter.com/5QdgKpFiAi

— MLB (@MLB) April 20, 2024

A special note on the Houston Astros this week. They play only five games, but two of them are in Mexico City against Colorado. The Mexico City Series produced 37 runs in two games in 2023, so there is a case to be made for some Astros' sluggers. However, those games would have to really pay off since the Houston hitters will be significantly behind the eight-ball in terms of plate appearances. It's an interesting decision for Week 4. I don't mind the Rockies' players either since they get four home games and two in Mexico City.

For pitchers, we want to find the best possible options who have two start weeks. Even the best pitchers with pristine matchups with one start may not be able to match pitchers in a tier below with two starts. Those 11 teams who play seven games will have multiple starters pitching twice in Week 4. Of the teams who play seven times, the Twins (CHW, @LAA),  Yankees (OAK, @MIL), and Pirates (MIL, @SFG) have the best matchups for the week.

Pitcher Picks for Week 4 RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Drafts

Pablo Lopez, Minnesota Twins

If all goes according to plan, Pablo Lopez will line up against the lowly Chicago White Sox on Tuesday and then again on Sunday at the Los Angeles Angels. Both teams are in the bottom 10 in overall team wOBA this season and both teams strike out around 24% of the time. While Lopez's strikeouts are slightly down this year (9.13 per nine innings), he has cut his walks significantly and is inducing 42% ground balls on the year. After a couple of shaky starts, Lopez was back on track last time out against the mighty Orioles, as he pitched six innings of one-run ball with seven strikeouts.

Tarik Skubal, Detroit Tigers

Tarik Skubal doesn't have quite as easy a schedule as someone like Pablo Lopez, but the results have been phenomenal no matter who he faces this year. Skubal pressed repeat on his career year last year and how has a 2.28 ERA to go along with 10 strikeouts per nine innings and less than two walks per nine. Strangely, the only game he has allowed more than two earned runs was to the Oakland Athletics, and now he gets the Tampa Bay Rays and the Kansas City Royals, two teams who both have a strikeout rate over 20% and play in two of the best parks to suppress home runs.

Infielder Picks for Week 4 RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Drafts

Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals

The Kansas City Royals have an underrated seven-game slate this week where they have four games against Toronto at home and then three games at Detroit where they will miss Kenta Maeda and Jack Flaherty. Kansas City has the fourth-best slugging percentage and wOBA at home this season and only the Dodgers and Diamondbacks have scored more runs in their home parks this year. For all their offensive assets, the Blue Jays have been a rather bad pitching staff this year, piling up the seventh-worst team ERA on the season (4.40). Witt is slashing .302/.355/.581 this year with four homers, four steals, and 20 runs already scored.

Manny Machado, San Diego Padres

Besides having seven games lined up for this week, Manny Machado and the San Diego Padres get four of them in Coors Field and three back home against the Phillies where they will avoid a matchup against Zach Wheeler. I don't need to sell you on the benefits of having a week with four games at Coors Field, but the games the Padres have at home shouldn't be disregarded either. This season, they are 10th in both slugging percentage (.428) and wRC+ (117) at home and they are tied for fifth in the majors with 17 home runs at their home park.

Manny Machado goes YARD to give the @Padres the lead! #SundayNightBaseball pic.twitter.com/4g3SexxcSq

— MLB (@MLB) April 15, 2024

Ryan McMahon, Colorado Rockies

The Rockies will face the San Diego Padres for those four home games and then head down to Mexico City for two games on Saturday and Sunday. To give you a sense of the park the Rockies and Astros are playing in this coming weekend, the left field fence (326 feet) and the right field fence (333 feet) are some of the shortest in baseball...and that's not even accounting for the fact that Mexico City is more than 7,000 feet above sea level and balls fly through the air like no other park. This series will be played more than 2,000 feet above where the Rockies home stadium sits in Denver.

Outfielder Picks for Week 4 RIVAL Fantasy Baseball Best Ball Drafts

Fernando Tatis Jr., San Diego Padres

There is danger in relying on small sample sizes for hitters, but it's worth noting what Fernando Tatis Jr. has done against the Colorado Rockies in his career. In 41 games against them, he is slashing .303./.372/.612 with eight home runs and 29 RBI. He loves hitting against this team and will get four chances in Coors Field to start the week. Tatis is also one of the hottest hitters around right now, hitting .290/.405/.516 from April 12 through April 20. He bumped his average from .263 to 289 in that span and now gets a Rockies' pitching staff that allowed the Mariners to drop 11 runs in their double-header in Coors on Sunday.

Juan Soto, New York Yankees

Here is a list of the pitchers the Yankees are likely to face in their seven games this week: JP Sears, Paul Blackburn, Joe Boyle, Alex Wood, Colin Rea, Joe Ross, and Wade Miley. Which of those pitchers do you look at and think Juan Soto can't handle them? Likely none of them. The Athletics at home means the Yankees are likely putting up 25 runs over the next four games and then the Yankees travel to Milwaukee where Soto will see two weak right-handers. Soto is an excellent choice as your first outfielder in any RIVAL draft this week.

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