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
Maikel Garcia ($2,200): Third Baseman\Shortstop, Kansas City Royals
Garcia is one of four players on Friday night’s 14-game slate that has a 99% Bargain Rating.
Since joining the Royals 35 games ago, Garcia is hitting .264 with five stolen bases and one home run to average 6.4 DraftKings points and 8.2 FanDuel points per contest.
Garcia is extremely cheap despite a recent surge in production. He has hit safely in six of his last seven, going 8-for-25 (.320) with a .340 wOBA.
Another thing in the 23-year-old’s favor in this matchup is that he has had good splits all season against lefties, hitting .318 with a .364 wOBA and 131 wRC+. He should be in a good spot to bring value against Angels SP Patrick Sandoval. Sandoval has allowed 11 runs on 18 hits in just 8 1/3 innings over his past two starts, and his ERA has ballooned to 4.52 on the season. He has given up a lot of hard contact, including five home runs in his 12 starts. He makes the Royals a potentially sneaky source of value as he takes the mound in Kansas City.
My favorite value play from Kansas City’s lineup all season has been Garcia, who can slot into either spot on the left side of the infield and bring good upside at low investment.
Using our new PlateIQ tool, you can see how productive Garcia (and his teammate Bobby Witt Jr.) have been against lefties over the past 30 days:
Blake Perkins ($2,000): Outfielder, Milwaukee Brewers
The Brewers offense has spent most of the season riding the struggle bus, but they have had some young players flash upside and provide value at certain points in the season. One player in the middle of one of those runs right now is switch-hitting outfielder Blake Perkins.
The 26-year-old signed as a free agent to help provide outfield depth and has had to step up with Tyrone Taylor (elbow), Jesse Winker (neck) and Garrett Mitchell (shoulder) all unavailable right now. Since re-joining the team on June 3, Perkins has gone 5-for-18 (.276) with a double, a home run and seven RBI.
His per-game averages are skewed by games he enters as a pinch runner or defensive replacement, but he has exceeded salary-based expectations in four of his six games with an at-bat since rejoining the team. He was also having plenty of success before being called up, hitting .317 with four homers and four stolen bases in 36 games for the Nashville Sounds.
Perkins brings a 98% Bargain Rating to this slate and is projected to hit eighth in the Brewers’ batting order against veteran lefty Rich Hill.
At just $2K, Perkins doesn’t have to do much to return great value on DraftKings and can be a very nice filler play if you stack up ceiling options in other roster spots.
MLB DFS Ceiling Projection Picks
Pitcher
Joe Ryan ($10,600 DraftKings, $11,400 FanDuel) vs. Detroit Tigers
There are some great starting pitchers planning on taking the mound on Friday night, so there are lots of potential options to consider if you’re paying up for a top arm. Even with all those great options to consider, though, Ryan stands out with the top ceiling projection on both FanDuel and DraftKings in the FantasyLabs projections and THE BAT X projections.
The main reason Ryan takes the top spot is that he has such a favorable matchup against the Tigers while Shane McClanahan is taking on the Padres, Kevin Gausman is facing the Rangers and Zac Gallen has to deal with the Guardians. While the Tigers have been hitting a little better in their most recent games, they still rank near or at the bottom of almost every offensive category this season, especially on the road. Ryan will get a favorable head-to-head matchup against Tyler Alexander and should have a good shot at getting a win with a strong outing.
At home this season, Ryan is 4-1 with a 2.35 ERA and 1.91 FIP, and he has 35 strikeouts in 30 2/3 innings. He has held opponents to a .190 average and just five extra-base hits in those five home starts and produced over 27 DraftKings points and over 40 FanDuel points in three of those five starts.
This will be his first start against the Tigers this season, but in his career, Ryan has gone 4-0 in five starts against Detroit with a 2.54 ERA and 38 strikeouts in 28 1/3 innings.
It’s easy to see why being at home in such a favorable matchup gives Ryan the highest ceiling projection of the options on the mound Friday.
Hitter
Shohei Ohtani ($6,300 DraftKings, $4,000 FanDuel) at Kansas City Royalsers
I mean… there’s not really much left to say except, “WOW!” Ohtani has been absolutely unreal over the past few weeks and continues to be a top ceiling play on just about every slate. I highlighted him in this spot Monday, and he came through with a pair of home runs, and I’m ready to go back to the well again Friday in a great matchup as the Angels land in Kansas City for a series against the Royals.
While he plays DH most of the time, he is an outfielder on both FanDuel and DraftKings and can also move to 1B on DraftKings. He basically single-handedly won Thursday’s game for the Angels by pitching six strong innings and adding a home run in the ninth for extra cushion (which the Angels’ bullpen always seems to need).
His moonshot in the ninth tied him for the MLB lead with 22 dingers on the season. He also extended his hitting streak to 12 games, and during that run, he has gone an impressive 22-for-45 (.489) with seven home runs, five doubles, a triple, 16 RBI, and an incredible .659 wOBA. With three stolen bases during that run as well, he has averaged 18.6 DraftKings points and 24.5 FanDuel points as a hitter over those 12 games.
He should be in a great spot to keep smashing on Friday as he faces Brady Singer, who has struggled against left-handed hitters this season. In his 13 starts, Singer has let lefties .301 with five homers and a .400 wOBA. While Singer has been a little better lately, he still isn’t pitching deep into games and giving up plenty of runs.
On Friday’s jam-paced slate, Ohtani has the highest median and ceiling projections on both DraftKings and FanDuel, according to THE BAT X. He ranks very highly in the FantasyLabs projections as well.
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
Bryan Woo ($5,400 DraftKings, $6,500 FanDuel) vs. Chicago White Sox
Woo is a fascinating value pitching play that bubbles up when using the blended projections. He comes very, very cheap on both DraftKings and FanDuel. According to the 50/50 projections, he has the highest projected Plus/Minus and the highest Points per Salary of any starting pitcher on the entire slate on both DraftKings and FanDuel by a significant margin.
There is definitely upside in the 23-year-old prospect, who is making just his third MLB start of his career. He was hardly set up for success in his first two starts, which came on the road against the Rangers and the Angels. He was hammered in Texas but bounced back with a much better showing in Los Angeles last Saturday. In fact, he finished just one out short of getting his first Major League win in that start. He allowed two runs on four hits in 4 2/3 innings while striking out seven and producing 17.5 DraftKings points and 29 FanDuel points. He’ll need to be more efficient with his pitches to go deeper into games, but it was a huge step in the right direction for the young righty.
Woo has been forced to learn on the job after entirely skipping Triple-A. He was called up directly from the Double-A Arkansas Travelers, where he went 3-2 with a 2.05 ERA with 59 strikeouts in 44 innings before getting called up. He seems to be figuring things out, though and gets his best matchup yet as he faces the White Sox at pitcher-friendly T-Mobile Park.
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Hitters
Matt McLain ($4,700 DraftKings, $3,700 FanDuel) at Houston Astros
While all the hype around Reds rookie Elly De La Cruz is definitely justified, he’s not the only young player that the Reds should be excited about. Andrew Abbott is a good option to consider on the mound Friday night, and another very productive option that can fit into multiple builds is Matt McLain.
McLain can fill either middle infield spot on DraftKings and is a SS on FanDuel. He comes cheaper than his teammate De La Cruz and has more of a track record of success. In his 28 games since joining the team, he already has 13 multi-hit performances while hitting .328 with three home runs, two stolen bases, and a .385 wOBA.
He has averaged 10.1 DraftKings points and 12.7 FanDuel points per game over his past nine contests after going 2-for-4 with a home run on Wednesday.
McLain has settled into the second spot in the Reds batting order on a regular basis and can be a strong midrange play in that spot on Friday against J.P. France and the Astros in Houston.
Jesús Sánchez ($2,800 DraftKings, $2,700 FanDuel) at Washington Nationals
In the blended projections, Sánchez has the top Projected Plus/Minus of all outfielders on both DraftKings and FanDuel. He has the second-highest projected Plus/Minus of any player at any position using the 50/50 projections on DraftKings.
Sánchez has struggled a little bit over the past few games but still brings a lot of power potential. He has a .270 batting average with nine doubles and six home runs in his 43 games. His impressive .235 ISO is backed up by a .367 wOBA, a 42.5% hard-hit rate, and a 12.5% barrel rate.
He usually hits in the heart of the Marlins order and brings good upside to his matchup against Trevor Williams Friday night. Williams has been hit hard by batters on both sides of the plate this season, allowing 13 homers in 13 starts with a 4.11 ERA and 5.32 FIP. Throughout his career, he has let lefties hit .280 against him, 30 points higher than his batting average against when facing righties.
Sánchez is a cheap way to get plenty of power potential in your outfield and brings a high ceiling as long as the weather cooperates in Washington.
