The FantasyLabs MLB Player Models house numerous data points to help you construct your MLB DFS rosters.
They house our floor, median, and ceiling projections for each player, but that’s just the beginning of what you’ll find inside. You’ll also find our Trends tool, stacking tool, and more.
Also, don’t forget that for large-field tournaments, you can utilize our Lineup Optimizer to effortlessly create up to 300 lineups, or use our Lineup Builder if you like to hand-build your teams for cash games or small-field tournaments.
Let’s dive into some MLB plays that stand out in our Player Models for today’s main slate.
Bargain Rating Picks
You might be asking: what is Bargain Rating, and why should I care?
Bargain Rating shows how much of a bargain a player is on one DFS site versus others. If a player is significantly cheaper on one site than the other, they will have a favorable Bargain Rating on the site where they’re more affordable and a poor Bargain Rating on the site where they’re more expensive. It’s a straightforward metric, but targeting players at reduced price tags is almost always a strong strategy in DFS.
Bargain Rating strongly correlates with player value, which you can quickly see with our predictive projected Plus/Minus metric.
Seeing how Plus/Minus helps you project how many points a player is expected to score compared to what their salary implies them to score, this is a good company for Bargain Rating.
MLB DFS DraftKings Bargain Value
Henry Davis ($2,500): Outfielder, Pittsburgh Pirates
The Pirates present good value across the board on Monday night’s six-game slate. They were originally scheduled to face Clayton Kershaw (shoulder), who is now expected to land on the injured list and be replaced by Michael Grove. Grove has given up exactly four earned runs in four of his past five games in the majors and has gone 0-2 in his nine games with the Dodgers, compiling a 7.54 ERA and 5.31 FIP with eight homers allowed.
Davis has been very solid since joining the Pirates 13 games ago. He was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 MLB Draft and has quickly climbed through the minors. He has hit .304 with a home run and two stolen bases for an average of 7.5 DraftKings points per contest.
After not starting Sunday, Davis is projected to hit fifth on Monday night against Grove, bringing the highest Bargain Rating of any hitter on the slate at 99%. He’s joined by teammate Carlos Santana, who also has a 99% Bargain Rating.
You can see the potential in Pittsburgh using our PlateIQ tool:
Before coming in as a pinch-hitter Sunday, Davis hit safely in eight of his nine previous games, going 13-for-35 (.371) with a .398 wOBA and 40% hard-hit rate. I’ll come back to this matchup again below, but Davis is a great bargain on DraftKings with his salary still near the minimum.
Mike Ford ($2,000): First Baseman, Seattle Mariners
At a minimum salary, Ford brings a 90% Bargain Rating to his matchup against Logan Webb and the Giants in San Francisco. Webb has been a little shaky lately, allowing 21 runs in 38 1/3 innings over his past six starts for a 4.70 ERA and 4.04 FIP.
Ford is the definition of a journeyman after playing for four teams last year, including the Giants, who he’ll face in this contest. He returned to Seattle this past offseason and has been productive since joining the team on June 2. He has gone 7-for-20 (.350) in his past seven games with a pair of home runs and a .448 wOBA.
The lefty doesn’t normally hit for much average but does bring power potential at this meager salary, and he doesn’t have to do much to return value.
MLB DFS Ceiling Projection Picks
Pitcher
Blake Snell ($8,600 DraftKings, $10,900 FanDuel) vs. Los Angeles Angels
Of the 12 scheduled starters, Snell has the highest ceiling projection on both FanDuel and DraftKings, where he’s surprisingly affordable and brings a 97% Bargain Rating. Snell is the only pitcher that matches more than four Pro Trends on DraftKings, matching an impressive total of seven. On FanDuel, he also leads the slate with six Pro Trends.
Snell has the highest strikeout prediction on the slate and has been piling up punchouts in his past few starts. He has at least 10 strikeouts in his four most recent outings and has totaled 45 strikeouts in 25 innings for a 16.2 K/9 rate. It’s been an impressive spike after he had a 10.02 K/9 rate in his first 12 starts of the season. In those four outstanding starts, Snell has gone 2-1 with a 1.08 ERA and 1.44 FIP, averaging 34.5 DraftKings points and 57.3 FanDuel points per start.
Even before he started stacking up so many strikeouts, Snell had been doing a great job pitching deep into games and not giving up many runs. In his past seven starts, he has given up a total of just four earned runs in 42 innings. He hasn’t received much run support, though, which is why he’s still only 4-7 on the season.
He should be in a good spot to keep rolling against the Angels, who lost Brandon Drury (shoulder) for this week and don’t have much firepower behind Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani. If Snell can navigate those two extremely tough hitters, he should be able to thrive against the rest of the lineup.
His strikeout binge gives him too high a ceiling to overlook on Monday, especially on DraftKings, where he’s only the fifth-highest-priced projected starter.
Hitter
Ronald Acuña Jr. ($6,600 DraftKings, $4,400 FanDuel) at Cleveland Guardians
Not counting the other-worldly brilliance of Shohei Ohtani as both pitcher and hitter, Acuña has been the best fantasy player this season. The Braves leadoff man has been consistently outstanding all year, averaging 13 DraftKings points and 17.0 FanDuel points per game. Averaging that for a brief stretch is rare, but averaging those numbers over 83 games is unheard of!
He already has an NL-leading 39 stolen bases to go with 21 homers this season. He could end up with over 40 steals and 40 home runs, putting his season among the best in history.
Acuña has been better on the road than at home this season, and he rolls into Cleveland on a 13-game hitting streak. Over that span, he has produced an astounding 17.0 DraftKings points and 22.0 FanDuel points by hitting .385 (20-for-52) with 10 walks, 15 runs scored, nine stolen bases, and six home runs.
Since he can put up big fantasy points on the basepaths and at the plate, Acuña is a relatively low-risk play with a sky-high ceiling in every matchup.
More MLB DFS Hitters and Pitchers
One of the great features of being a FantasyLabs Pro member is the option to purchase additional items in the FantasyLabs Marketplace.
A new addition to our MLB projections is THE BAT X from Derek Carty of RotoGrinders. With this purchase, you can use his projections alone or create aggregate projections within our Player Models.
For this example, we created a 50/50 blend with THE BAT X and the FantasyLabs projections to pinpoint some players that are standing out with this blend.
Pitcher
Joe Ryan ($10,000 DraftKings, $9,900 FanDuel) vs. Kansas City Royals
In the blended projections, Ryan stands out as a good option as he faces the Royals at home. The Royals are tied for the second-lowest implied team total on the slate, and Ryan ranks only behind Snell in predicted strikeouts. While Snell is an unbeatable value on DraftKings, Ryan has the highest Bargain Rating of all the projected starting pitchers on FanDuel at 85%.
Acuña’s Braves knocked around Ryan in his most recent start, but before that, he threw a complete-game shutout against the Red Sox, earning 45.45 DraftKings points and 64 FanDuel points. He has been inconsistent over the past month, mixing great outings like that one with a few rocky starts.
On the season, he’s 8-5 with a 3.44 ERA and 3.39 FIP. His K/9 is up from last year, with 105 strikeouts in his 96 2/3 innings. He beat the Royals the first time he faced them earlier this season, improving to 5-0 in his five career starts against Kansas City. He has a 1.20 ERA in those starts and has picked up 32 strikeouts in 30 innings.
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Hitters
Jack Suwinski ($3,300 DraftKings, $2,900 FanDuel) at Los Angeles Dodgers
Suwinksi is projected to lead off against Grove and the Dodgers on Monday, and the left-handed hitting Suwinski gets a huge boost from facing a righty instead of the left-handed Kershaw.
Even after he went 0-for-29 in late June, Suwinski has stayed the primary option in CF for Pittsburgh. He has recently snapped out of his slump, going 7-for-18 (.389) over his six most recent games with a double, two homers, and a .542 wOBA.
Suwinski brings a high ceiling if he leads off again and has solid power numbers for a leadoff hitter. It’s a great matchup for him, too, since Grove has let lefties like Suwinksi hit .383 against him this season with a .465 wOBA.
He and Davis are great bargain outfielders from the Pirates’ lineup, making a mini-stack that allows you to build around high-priced hitters and pitchers in other spots.
Jose Miranda ($3,000 DraftKings, $2,000 FanDuel) vs. Kansas City Royals
Miranda is back with the Twins after spending a month in the minors, and he’s an option that stands out in the aggregate projections as he faces lefty Austin Cox and the Royals on Monday night.
In Triple-A with the St. Paul Saints, Miranda hit .305 (16-for-82) over his 20 most recent games with six doubles, a triple, two homers, and a .377 wOBA. He went 0-for-2 in his return on Sunday, but he’s expected to continue to start at 3B while Royce Lewis (oblique) is on IL.
Miranda struggled against righties before being sent to Triple-A, but he hit lefties at a .259 clip with a .287 wOBA. Last year, he was even better against southpaws, hitting .275 with a .351 wOBA.
Miranda is a solid value to consider, owning the third-highest projected Plus/Minus of all hitters on FanDuel using the 50/50 projections and the fifth-highest projected Plus/Minus of the third basemen available on DraftKings.
