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
Park Factor: 65, Right-Handed Batters, U.S. Cellular Field
This was the top park situation yesterday and it didn’t go too bad: Both of the White Sox’s home runs came from righties en route to an 8-2 win. The implied run totals for tonight’s game aren’t very high — the Yankees are implied at 4.1 and White Sox at 3.9 currently — which could make both teams very sneaky tournament stacks.
Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA): .484, Marcell Ozuna
Ozuna has massive splits against righties and lefties, as highlighted by his .139 and .147 wOBA and ISO Differentials. He is projected to bat fourth tonight for the Marlins in a tough matchup against Mets pitcher Steven Matz. Ozuna has struggled lately, which has led to a large $700 price drop at FanDuel in the last month. He is particularly interesting because he has one of the bigger price differences between DraftKings ($4,900) and FanDuel ($2,600) you’ll see. This huge difference is shown by his Bargain Rating, which is 99 percent at FanDuel.
Plus/Minus, Consistency, Bargain Rating, and other premium metrics are accessible via our free Ratings tool.
Isolated Power (ISO): .367, Chris Davis
David Ortiz actually leads this category tonight with his .383 ISO mark against right-handed pitchers. However, he was mentioned in yesterday’s Data Dive, he’s pretty much always the top guy in this category, and he’s going to be fairly chalky tonight, so let’s talk Chris Davis instead.
Crush has a very tough matchup tonight against Dodgers pitcher Kenta Maeda, and the Orioles are only implied at 3.4 runs currently. However, batting talents like Davis are sometimes less punished by bad Vegas projections: When facing a righty, he has historically still exceeded salary-based expectations even when projected for less than four runs. While his value is brought down a bit due to teammate correlations, Davis still has stand-alone Upside and will come with low ownership tonight.
Recent Batted-Ball Distance (Ft): 268, Matt Carpenter
Carpenter might be the most interesting batter in tonight’s 14-game Main slate. He is very expensive and has negative splits against lefties (he’s a lefty himself), but he still has great marks despite the splits (he has a .240 ISO versus LHP), the Cardinals are implied to score 4.8 runs currently, and he has elite recent advanced stats. He has a hard-hit rate of 50 percent in his last 12 games, along with a 268-foot batted-ball distance and 57 percent fly-ball rate. Batters with similar marks have historically led to value, and if you add in a Vegas filter, watch out.
Exit Velocity (MPH): 98, Kendrys Morales
Speaking of elite recent advanced stats, Morales has been absolutely destroying the ball lately. His 270-foot batted-ball distance, exit velocity of 98 MPH, and 61 percent hard-hit rate are laughably-high marks. This is not a situation, however, where you’re finding a hidden gem: Morales has five home runs in his last five games. While he could be due for regression soon, it may not come tonight against knuckleballer R.A. Dickey in a hitter’s park in Toronto.
Bargain Rating (%): 98 (DK), Brett Gardner
Brett Gardner is projected to hit second for the Yankees tonight, although he doesn’t get the Park Factor boost mentioned above as a lefty. However, he is cheap: His salary has dropped $600 in the past month and he’s only $3,10o at DraftKings. He has performed poorly lately and he has awful splits against lefties — his ISO against LHP is .035 — but perhaps adding him to a low-owned Yankees stack with their righties can raise his value and also allow you to pay up for pitching.
Pitchers
K Prediction (SO): 8.6, Kenta Maeda
What if I told you that you could have the strikeout upside of Bumgarner for almost $3,000 less at DraftKings? That’s exactly what you can get in Maeda tonight, who has the same K Prediction of 8.6 as Bumgarner. However, people could miss Maeda’s K upside here, as he has a much lower K/9 than Bumgarner — 8.822 vs. 10.264. That’s where our K Prediction metric is so valuable, as it incorporates the projected SO/AB rate of the opposition. Maeda gets a beautiful matchup in the Orioles, who have the second-highest projected K rate at .298 per at-bat.
Moneyline (ML): -217, Madison Bumgarner
Bumgarner is pitching at home, which generally makes him an automatic cash-game option. He is expensive — $11,700 at DraftKings and $11,400 at FanDuel — but typically worth it. He has the highest K Prediction (tied with Maeda), most Pro Trends at FanDuel (8), has a perfect Park Factor Rating of 100, and is projected to only allow 2.8 runs. He has struggled a bit recently, allowing seven earned runs in the last two games, but he gets Colorado tonight. No surprise, they are not good on the road:
Pitch Velocity Differential (MPH): +1.4, Zack Godley
Zack Godley is as cheap as they come: He is $5,500 at DraftKings and $5,300 at FanDuel tonight. I know, the sample size on him is small:
However, he’s been decent in his outings and has signs that lead to a potential tournament play tonight. He has a 6.6 K Prediction, higher than David Price and Steven Matz. He has only allowed a 183-foot batted-ball distance in the last 15 days, and his pitch velocity is up in that span as well. He brings a ton of risk given the small data sets we have to analyze here, but given his price, there’s also quite a bit of potential reward here as well.
Bargain Rating (%): 90 (FD), Carlos Carrasco
We’ve already mentioned Bumgarner and Maeda, so let’s hit on the third chalk option for tonight’s slate. Carrasco has the third-highest K Prediction at 8.1, just behind those two. He’s the third-highest favorite, behind Bumgarner and David Price. What makes him stand out among the rest, however, is his advanced stats: He’s allowed a 178-foot batted distance in the last 15 days, along with a crazy-low 16 percent hard-hit rate. Pitchers with comparable marks have historically done very well.
Bonus
Why not?
Pro Trends: 12 (DK/FD), Jake Lamb
Jake Lamb led this category yesterday as well, so let’s just double down on some Lamb. He has a lot of things going for him tonight: He’s projected to bat fourth for the Diamondbacks (implied for 5.2 runs currently), has excellent advanced stats, and is hitting in hot weather. He’s on the wrong side of his batter splits, but that may not matter against Christian Friedrich tonight.
Good luck!
