FantasyLabs is a data company. With our free Trends tool and Player Models, you can leverage our advanced statistics and premium exclusive metrics to identify players to use in your daily fantasy sports lineups.
Each weekday, our Data Dive articles use 10 of these metrics to highlight notable players in the day’s Main slate.
Batters
It’s an eight-game slate, so there aren’t a ton of options. At the same time, four teams currently have an implied Vegas total of at least five runs. We should still be able to find some batters who can rake.
Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA): .438, Chris Davis
I don’t get bonus points for not being obvious. Of the batters expected to start today, Davis (facing the right-handed Erik Johnson) has the slate’s highest wOBA. Davis crushes righties, and Johnson gets crushed by everybody, so this is a match made in DFS heaven. The Orioles have a slate-high implied total of 6.1 runs, and Davis is the heart of the lineup as the No. 4 hitter. With an 82 percent Bargain Rating on FanDuel (where he has the second-highest Rating in the Bales Model), Davis is almost a must-roster player, as comparable players historically dominate on FanDuel, producing a +2.99 Plus/Minus with 49.5 percent Consistency.
Park Factor: 78, Left-Handed Batters, Oriole Park at Camden Yards
As if you need another reason to like Davis and his lefty teammates, especially Hyun-Soo Kim. Batting second, Kim has strong wOBA and Isolated Power (ISO) Differentials. He’s a reasonable play on either DraftKings or FanDuel, as he has nine Pro Trends at the former and a 76 Bargain Rating at the latter. He’s recently hitting the ball 24 feet farther than his yearly distance average, and over the last year and the last month he has reached his salary-based expectations in more than 50 percent of his games. If you employ an Orioles stack, Davis and Kim should be rostered.
Slugging (SLG): .670, Ryan Zimmerman
Zimmerman crushes lefties and has a slate-high slugging percentage. Maybe he’s a decent play from an ownership arbitrage perspective, and it’s true that he has experienced a negative Salary Change on both DraftKings and FanDuel over the last 10 days — so in theory he’s ‘discounted’ — but over that timeframe he has met his salary-based expectations only once. He’s probably just a value trap. Per our advanced stats, his Batted-Ball Distance, Exit Velocity, and Hard-Hit Differentials are all negative. Additionally, the Nationals have a slate-low implied total of 3.5 runs, and Zimmerman has a sad Park Factor Rating of 28. He might randomly smash a home run, but the odds are that he and the rest of his team will fail to inspire against opposing pitcher Julio Urias.
Plus/Minus, Consistency, Bargain Rating, Pro Trends, Salary Change, and other premium exclusive metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
Exit Velocity Differential (MPH): +9, Pedro Alvarez
Another lefty Oriole? Sometimes the data just points us in a particular direction. Of all the batters in the slate to appear in more than five games in the last 15 days, Alvarez has the highest Exit Velocity Differential, recently hitting the ball nine miles per hour harder than he has over the last year. With 12 Pro Trends on DraftKings and a 63 percent Bargain Rating on FanDuel, Alvarez is a fine play on either platform. On both sites, he has reached his Upside in 46 percent of his games played in the last month. Did I mention that the wind is blowing out to right field at eight MPH?
Recent Fly-Ball Percentage (%): 76, Ryan Howard
He has played in only four games in the last 15 days . . . but Howard is raking. The Phillies are implied to score only 3.9 runs, and right now the game has a 69 percent chance of precipitation — so at best Howard is a tournament play — but he’s a guy with a lot of potential who could be rostered in very few lineups. Facing a righty, Howard is on the correct side of his wOBA and ISO splits, and over the last 15 days no one has had a higher fly-ball rate or a longer airtime (4.81 seconds). When those factors are placed alongside his 46 percent recent hard-hit rate, one could see how it’s possible that Howard could hit a home run tonight, especially since his advanced differentials are all positive.
Bargain Rating (%): 99 (FD), Xander Bogaerts
Bogaerts is the No. 3 hitter on a team with an implied total of five runs, and he’s second in Pro Trends among shortstops. He does have the third-highest salary at his position, but his salary has dropped $700 in the last month, during which time he has met his salary-adjusted expectations with 53 percent Consistency. Batters in comparable spots have historically overperformed at FanDuel, with a +2.28 Plus/Minus and 47.1 percent Consistency.
Pitchers
The Main slate is not the Early slate.
K Prediction (SO): 7.5, Chris Archer
Relatively, a slate-high projection of 7.5 strikeouts is pretty low. Still, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king . . . or at least he can see. Anyway, on DraftKings, where strikeouts are basically everything, Archer has an 89 percent Bargain Rating. He’s not a must-start option by any means, but his 94.5-MPH pitch velocity and 20.8 fantasy points per start over the last month rank second in the slate. Given that he’s cheaper than six other pitchers, he’s probably undervalued.
Moneyline (ML): -203, Cole Hamels
Hamels has the slate’s highest ML, he’s currently receiving a slate-high 86 percent of ML bets, and his opponent Reds are implied to score only 3.7 runs. He has a good chance of securing the 12-point victory bonus available on FanDuel, where he has a 73 percent Bargain Rating and the second-most Pro Trends among pitchers. He’s the most expensive pitcher at FanDuel, but he’s worth the expense. Pitchers with comparable salaries and moneylines historically produce a +5.43 Plus/Minus with 63.8 Consistency.
Umpire (Plus/Minus): +1.3 (Kerwin Danley), Michael Fulmer and Hisashi Iwakuma
When he’s the home-plate umpire, Danley historically endows pitchers with a slate-high +1.3 Plus/Minus. Given that Fulmer has a 94 percent Bargain Rating and a slate-high seven Pro Trends on FanDuel, he could be a pitcher to consider if you don’t want to pay up at the position. With a -111 ML, Fulmer’s only a slight favorite — and you’ll definitely want to monitor the status of the game, which currently has a 49 percent chance of precipitation — but the bump that Danley gives to pitchers just might make Fulmer rosterable. It doesn’t hurt that Fulmer has a slate-high pitch velocity of 95.6 MPH.
Bargain Rating (%): 99 (DK), Francisco Liriano
At $5,800, Liriano is more than just relatively cheap. He’s actually cheap. Rostering him (instead of a ‘better’/more expensive pitcher) will enable you to pay up for premium batters — and it’s possible that Liriano might not be a horrible option anyway. His 6.3 K Prediction is third-highest in the slate, and his opponent Giants are implied to score only four runs. In his two most recent starts, he has allowed a batted-ball distance of only 198 feet and an exit velocity of only 88 MPH. He’s keeping the ball in the park, with a groundball rate of 52 percent. Finally, his salary has dropped by $2,700 in the last month. He might be bad, but at least he’s inexpensive.
Bonus
Why not?
Pro Trends: 12 (FD), Mitch Moreland
It’s not every day that you see a No. 8 hitter on a team implied to score 5.4 runs with A) a 90 percent Bargain Rating and B) 12 Pro Trends. At only $3,100, Moreland could be a nice piece in an unconventional Rangers stack or perhaps even a cheap, high-Upside random outfielder in cash games. Historically, batters with a comparable Bargain Rating and number of Pro Trends have had a +3.80 Plus/Minus with 53.5 percent Consistency.
