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
Since today is the 4th of July and the slates aren’t what we normally see on a Monday, I’m going whole hog and considering players in the all-day slates for DraftKings and FanDuel. ‘Cause ‘Merica. On DraftKings, that’s 14 games. FanDuel, 15.
Park Factor: 65, Right-Handed Batters, U.S. Cellular Field
D*mn right the slate’s most hitter-friendly park is named after this country! As of now, the Yankees and White Sox both have respectable implied Vegas totals above 4.5 runs and the game has an above-average Weather Rating of 58. Historically, comparable combinations of Park Factor and Weather Ratings have resulted in excess value of +0.55 Plus/Minus and 41.9 percent Consistency. Additionally, the Yankees get to tee off against James Shields, who has underperformed his salary-based expectations in five of the last six games and whose 2016 Plus/Minus is incredibly negative on both platforms. The Sox get to face C.C. Sabathia, who (though not as bad as Shields) has been schellacked in his last two games and is seeing his Batted-Ball Distance, Exit Velocity, and Hard-Hit Differentials trend in the wrong direction. You could do a lot worse than stacking a lot of righties from both teams in a couple of tournament lineups.
Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA): .465, David Ortiz
Oh my. Out of all batters to play at least 50 games in the last year, Ortiz has the slate’s highest wOBA and the highest Isolated Power (ISO) at .380. Batting cleanup on a team currently implied to score 6.2 runs against a Rangers team whose starter (Nick Martinez) has been destroyed in his three 2016 starts — his career numbers also suck — Ortiz looks like a great play on FanDuel, where he has a 70 percent Bargain Rating and a $4,800 price point that places him in a salary sweet spot. Ortiz’s negative advanced differentials aren’t ideal, but batters with comparable differentials have actually had positive Plus/Minus values in the past. On both sites, Ortiz is the most expensive player at his position in the slate. He’s not an absolute must-start option, but if you have the extra salary to spend then he’s probably worth rostering.
Plus/Minus, Consistency, Bargain Rating, and other premium metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
Isolated Power (ISO): .337, Adam Duvall
Just behind Ortiz in ISO is Duvall, who crushes right-handed pitchers with his reverse split — but today he’ll be facing one of the slate’s best pitchers in Kyle Hendricks, who is likely to shut down the Reds, given that the Cubs have a slate-best -250 moneyline and are currently receiving a slate-high 79 percent of the moneyline bets. With $4,100 and $3,500 salaries on DraftKings and FanDuel, Duvall isn’t expensive, but his advanced differentials are all negative and he has a ‘positive’ Salary Change over the last year. When a guy’s team is an underdog, that combination isn’t good. I’m going to say basically what I said last week: He might be a clever contrarian play, but Duvall should probably be avoided.
Recent Batted-Ball Distance (Ft): 287, Jarrod Saltalamacchia
Salty leads the slate in batted-ball distance — and (of all players with at least five appearances in the last 15 days) his teammate Steven Moya is second in the slate with a 270-foot batted-ball distance. Of course, both of them are batting near the bottom of the order for Detroit and must face Danny Salazar, whose brand of Slytherin magic makes him one of the slate’s most dangerous pitchers. Both batters have an advantageous 64 Park Factor and Moya’s 96 percent and Salty’s 76 percent Bargain Ratings on DraftKings and FanDuel respectively aren’t insignificant — in a stack they have underappreciated Upside — but they also have a high probability of doing what lots of bottom-of-the-order batters do: Nothing.
Month Salary Change ($): -1,500 (DK) & -1,000 (FD), Kyle Seager
Over the last month, no batter has lost more salary on both platforms than Seager, and yet over the last month he has exceeded salary-based expectations on both DraftKings and FanDuel and his advanced differentials are all positive. Currently 51 percent of his batted balls are fly balls and 44 percent qualify as hard hits. Right now, the left-handed Seager is set to benefit from a 72 Weather Rating and winds that are blowing out to right field at 15 miles per hour. With an 82 percent Bargain Rating and $3,000 salary at FanDuel, Seager is in an underappreciated (and rare) spot. Even if Seager didn’t have as much going for him, he would still be in a good spot. Of course, I’m talking about a guy on a team curently implied to score only 3.8 runs, so take everything I just said with a grain of salt.
Bargain Rating (%): 99 (FD), F*cking Everybody
Only one guy on DraftKings has a 99 percent Bargain Rating — Adam Frazier, who might not even play today. On FanDuel, f*cking everybody has a 99 percent Bargain Rating. I’m not even joking: If all you did were build a cash lineup with batters in this group, you’d probably have a very solid lineup, as those batters at this time of year tend to crush. In this group we have Miguel Sano, who has a 266-foot recent batted-ball distance. Carlos Gonzalez, who could be under-owned because he’s not playing at Coors Field. Kendrys Morales, whose recent form (as pointed out by Kelly McCann in today’s MLB Recent Form Report) is magnificent. Jose Altuve, because you always need a second baseman who doesn’t suck. And Jake Lamb, Chris Herrmann, Michael Bourn, and Yasmany Tomas, whose Diamondbacks are implied to score 5.3 runs and who are all practically begging to be stacked against uninspiring San Diego pitcher Luis Perdomo. Holiday, indeed.
Pitchers
It’s not a horrible slate for the position, but the best pitcher going today starts at 11:05 AM ET on FanDuel and isn’t even an option on DraftKings, so if you want him then you’ll need to be awake early enough and/or not too hung over to create the necessary lineup.
K Prediction (SO): 9.9, Max Scherzer
The slate’s best pitcher of course is Scherzer. He has a slate-high 9.9 K Prediction and the Nationals have a highly desirable -237 moneyline and are currently receiving 72 percent of the action. Moneyline is extremely important to pitchers on FanDuel, and strikeouts are important too. And the Brewers have the slate’s lowest implied total at 2.7 runs. Scherzer is in an extremely rare and valuable spot today — I almost don’t even want to say how rare and valuable. He is the reason you should play in the all-day slate at FanDuel.
Moneyline (ML): -250, Kyle Hendricks
The aforementioned Hendrick’s has the slate’s best moneyline and also has an 89 percent Bargain Rating at FanDuel. He’s not cheap at $9,200, but if you want to pivot away from #ScherzerSuperstar then Hendricks is a fine option. Pitchers in his situation massively tend to outperform expectations . . . even while still falling incredibly short of the proto-Scherzers.
Pitch Velocity Differential (MPH): +1.6, Kendall Graveman
Now that I’ve seen what I’ve seen — seriously, +18.89 and +9.02 Plus/Minus values on FanDuel — it’s hard for me to be excited about anyone whose surname isn’t ‘Scherzer’ or ‘Hendricks.’ This guy’s surname literally contains the word ‘grave.’ Yes, I’ve made that joke before. What’s your point? Graveman’s Pitch Velocity Differential is higher than anyone else’s in the slate and his recent ground-ball rate of 60 percent is actually really good, but basically over any period of time this season he has underperformed salary-based expectations. It’s great for him that he’s throwing the ball harder and better — but he is A) still not good and B) facing a Twins team implied to score 5.1 runs. He’s cheap, but you should probably look elsewhere for salary relief.
Bargain Rating (%): 99 (DK), James Shields and Luis Perdomo
Let these two pitchers be a reminder that sometimes you get what you pay for. At the same time, you might want to use them in a couple of DraftKings tournament lineups. If they somehow manage not to suck then you would likely have unique lineups positioned to crush with all of the power batters to whom you would’ve devoted your salary savings.
Bonus
It’s the Fourth of July. That’s reason enough for a bonus.
Pro Trends: 12 (DK/FD), Jake Lamb
Lamb leads batters at both sites with 12 Pro Trends. He has positive wOBA and ISO Differentials and is the No. 4 hitter on a team implied to score 5.3 runs . . . and don’t forget about his 99 percent Bargain Rating on FanDuel. As either the centerpiece of a stack or a single player in a cash lineup, Lamb is a great option tonight.
Good luck and Happy Fourth!
