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
Note: Chris Davis is out tonight for the Orioles.
We have 11 games today, but among the 22 teams playing are not the Boston Red Sox, who lead the league in most runs scored per game. Still, fear not. No Papi, no problems. The Rockies are hosting the Rays at Coors Field, so this slate should offer plenty of potential-laden batters. Just assume that you should play all batters who appear in this game, even if the analysis that follows touches on the Rays-Rockies game not one iota.
Park Factor: 8, Left-Handed Batters, Oakland Coliseum
Whaaaat?! It’s a Coors slate! Why am I not highlighting the slate-high 100 Park Factor that belongs to every batter in the state of Colorado?! Because you already know that the Rays and Rockies (with current implied Vegas totals of 5.3 and 6.2 runs) are likely to smash the ball. What you might not know, though, is that the Astros — despite being projected presently to score 4.6 runs tonight — are in an inherently disadvantaged position. Even though the wind is projected to blow out to right field at 13 miles per hour, the lefties in this matchup, such as Colby Rasmus, have the worst Park Factor in the slate. With his 99 percent Bargain Rating on FanDuel, you might be tempted to use Rasmus. He could easily provide value — per our Trends tool, batters with comparable Bargain Ratings historically produce a +1.11 Plus/Minus — but he could also be a value trap, given his massively subpar Park Factor . . . Subpark Factor.
Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA): .451, Javier Baez
Of all the players currently projected to start on our Lineups page, Baez has the slate’s highest wOBA against the handedness of the starting pitcher he’s scheduled to face. (By the way, our Lineups page updates regularly throughout the day so that you have most up-to-date information possible. Be sure to check it out.) The Cubs can put up a lot of runs — per Baseball Reference, they lead the slate in most runs per game on the season — and Baez could be an intriguing (and likely overlooked) part of a Cubs stack, given his combination of potential and value (he’s $2,600 on FanDuel with a 99 percent Bargain Rating). Historically, players with comparable wOBA splits and value propositions significantly outperform.
Isolated Power (ISO): .367, Chris Davis
Ever heard of him? Baltimore’s lefty cleanup hitter smashes righty pitchers, and tonight he gets to face the underwhelming Yankees right-handed starter Ivan ‘Don’t Call him Casa’ Nova, whose advanced stats are trending in the wrong direction (as seen by his pitch velocity, batted-ball distance, and exit velocity differentials). The Orioles are on the road, and lefties at Yankee Stadium have the slate’s second-best Park Factor (81). With a 76 Bargain Rating on FanDuel and 10 Pro Trends on DraftKings (as of writing), Davis is the centerpiece of a lineup implied to score 4.7 runs tonight. Per our new Stacking tool, the Orioles offer one of the top stacks of the slate regardless of platform.
Recent Batted-Ball Distance (Ft): 282, Mark Trumbo
Sensing a trend? Of all the players projected to play today who have appeared in at least five games in the last 15 days, Davis’ teammate and Orioles No. 5 hitter Trumbo has the slate’s highest recent batted-ball distance. Unsurprisingly, all of his advanced stats look good. He’s recently hitting the ball 66 feet farther and seven miles per hour harder than he has over the last year, and 12 percentage points more of his batted balls are qualifying as hard hits. Crushing fly balls at a 61 percent rate, Trumbo has an elite batted-ball airtime of 4.24 seconds. With a slate-high 11 Pro Trends on DraftKings and an 82 percent Bargain Rating on FanDuel, Trumbo has a combination of recent distance and airtime that makes him an intriguing part of Orioles stacks on both sites. Of course, the Orioles-Yankees game right now looks like it has a 52 percent chance of precipitation, so be sure to monitor the weather as we get closer to game time.
Month Salary Change ($): -2,000 (DK), Marcell Ozuna
In another game (Marlins-Phillies) with a relatively high probability of rain (49 percent), we find the slate’s most discounted batter in Ozuna, who actually doesn’t seem to be in a horrible spot. Even with the negative righty-righty split, Ozuna has a respectable .344 wOBA and he’s the projected No. 5 hitter on a Marlins team currently implied to score 4.2 runs. He’s only $3,500 and has a Bargain Rating of 81 percent, so he’s entirely inexpensive. Over the last 15 days he also has a hard-hit rate of 57 percent, 20 points higher than his yearly average, and over the last month he has still averaged a decent 8.8 DraftKings points per game. This might seem obvious, but discounted, cheap, bargain players tend to do well — regardless of any other factors. If you are in need of a cheap outfielder on DraftKings, Ozuna could be an option.
Bargain Rating (%): 99 (FD), F*cking Everybody
It’s a FanDuel kind of day. On DraftKings, there’s not one batter — not even one — with a 99 percent Bargain Rating. On FanDuel, there are too many batters to name. At the top of the list is Cincinnati outfielder Adam Duvall, in possession of 10 Pro Trends and batting fifth for a lineup implied currently to score 4.8 runs. He’s only $3,100. There’s also St. Louis outfielder Stephen Piscotty, who has positive wOBA and ISO splits, nine Pro Trends, and the cleanup spot in a lineup with 4.9 implied runs. He’s $3,600. There’s Jeff Francoeur, who is about as unsexy as a player can get — but he’s only $2,600, has a 67 Park Factor, and bats fifth for a team that is at least implied to score 4.3 runs. And of course there’s Giancarlo Stanton, who has 10 Pro Trends and a $3,100 salary. Read Kelly McCann’s Recent Form Report for more.
Pitchers
Jose Fernandez, Jon Lester, Chris Sale, and Corey Kluber: Those aren’t the studliest top pitchers we could ask for, but this slate isn’t hurting at the position.
K Prediction (SO): 10.8, Jose Fernandez
When it comes to this metric at least, Fernandez is in a tier all by himself. In a ‘normal’ slate, his 10.8 K Prediction on its own would be disgustingly elite (see Bryan Mears’ Breakdown). In this slate — in which the second-highest K Prediction is Drew Smyly’s 7.9 — Fernandez is a DFS gawd among boiz. Not only does he lead the slate with 12.59 strikeouts per nine innings, he’s also facing a projected Phillies lineup with the slate’s fourth-highest strikeout rate (.269 SO/AB) and lowest implied run total (2.9). Fernandez is also primed to benefit from the Marlins’ slate-best -197 moneyline. And he has the highest Bargain Rating (95 percent) on FanDuel, where moneyline and production are highly correlated. You don’t need to start Fernandez if you don’t want to . . . but he’s pretty much a must-start option . . . except for that 48 percent chance of precipitation.
Moneyline (ML): -174, Mike Leake
Leake currently has the slate’s second-highest moneyline at -174, which is actually pretty decent . . . especially considering that he’s only $6,900 on FanDuel, where he has a 90 percent Bargain Rating. Pitchers with comparable moneylines tend to exceed salary-based expectations, he’s facing a Padres team implied to score only 3.7 runs, and his batted-ball distance, exit velocity, and hard-hit rate differentials are all trending in the right direction for him. His K Prediction (4.8) is embarrassingly low, but he has an 81 Park Factor and the second-most Pro Trends on FanDuel with six — more than Fernandez and Lester have. Think of Leake as the low-upside discount version of Fernandez. Leake isn’t Fernandez’s strikeout equal, but he has similar odds to get the 12-point FanDuel victory bonus, which can compensate for Leake’s strikeout shortcomings. Of course, it doesn’t help Leake’s case that the Cardinals-Padres game has a 52 percent chance of precipitation. That weather . . .
Pitch Velocity Differential (MPH): +1.7, Kendall Graveman
At least there’s a zero percent chance of precipitation in this game, amirite? It’s easy to look at Graveman and think that he’s an auto-fade, facing an Astros team implied to score 4.6 runs — but he has the slate’s second-best Park Factor (84) and has met his salary-based expectations on both DraftKings and FanDuel over his last two games, which coincide with the period of time in which he has been throwing the ball significantly harder. At $6,700 on DraftKings and $6,400 on FanDuel, he’s (deservedly) cheap, but his potential is probably higher than his ownership percentage will be in tournaments tonight. #OwnershipArbitrage
Bargain Rating (%): 99 (DK), Mike Fiers and Drew Smyly
Fiers has a -132 moneyline, an 83 Park Factor, and an opponent currently implied to score ‘only’ four runs, which in this slate is an uninspiring total. He’s also $5,500. His 4.8 K Prediction makes my fingers hurt as I type this, but cheap pitchers with high Bargain Ratings tend to provide value. As for Drew Smyly . . . if you’re going to go full contrarian and start a guy who’s pitching against the Rockies at Coors Field, shouldn’t you at least do it when he’s cheap ($5,600) and has the slate’s highest Bargain Rating and second-highest K Prediction? Just saying . . .
Good luck!
