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
Luis Guillorme ($2,000): Second Baseman\Shortstop, New York Mets
Guillorme has bounced back and forth between the Mets and their Triple-A affiliate in Syracuse this season, but he has been productive when given opportunities. He is projected to be in the lineup batting ninth on Monday against the Astros, and he brings a 96% Bargain Rating, which is the highest of any infielder on Monday’s slate.
In his 32 games with the Mets, he’s hitting .240 with a home run and .291 wOBA. Much of that production has come in his five games during this recent stint with the Mets; he has gone 4-for-15 (.267) with two doubles, a home run, and a .361 wOBA while averaging 7.4 DKFP per contest. He had 21 DKFP on Saturday before not getting into Sunday’s game against St. Louis.
Guillorme is worth a look as a punt play since he has been hitting the ball well lately. He doesn’t have to do much to return value at this minimum price and has favorable career splits against right-handed pitchers like Hunter Brown. Guillorme is a .277 lifetime hitter against righties with a decent .323 wOBA.
If you opt to pay up in other places and pay the minimum at one of your middle infield spots, Guillorme is a punt play with upside as long as he’s back in the lineup Monday.
Stuart Fairchild ($2,400): Outfielder, Cincinnati Reds
The Reds have a lot of things going in their favor as they come home after sweeping the Astros in Houston. The young offense is flourishing and gets a great matchup against lefty Austin Gomber and the Rockies.
The one factor that could spoil everything is the weather. Cincinnati is forecasted for rain all day, which may end up causing this game to be postponed. As a result, I’m not leaning harder into the Reds in my other picks below, but Fairchild is too good of a value to ignore.
He has a 94% Bargain Rating at this low salary under $2.5K and could be a little off the radar since he hasn’t started a game since being scratched Friday. He did play on Sunday, though, entering as a pinch runner, scoring a run and playing right field in the tenth inning. That could indicate he’ll be back in the lineup on Monday, and if he is, he’ll be a bargain.
Fairchild is only hitting .234 on the season but does have a .322 wOBA. He also has performed better against lefties, with a .254 average and .341 wOBA. The 27-year-old did take some time to adjust to MLB pitching at the start of the season but has settled in to hit .266 with three home runs and a .360 wOBA over his past 20 games.
Using our new PlateIQ tool, you can see how productive all the Reds — including Fairchild — have been against lefties over the past 30 days:
As long as it doesn’t rain, they should have a parade of runs against Gomber and the Rockies on Monday night, and Fairchild is a very affordable way to get a piece.
If the Reds game gets washed away, some other cheap OF with good Bargain Ratings to consider include Robbie Grossman, Jake Meyers, and Mike Tauchman.
MLB DFS Ceiling Projection Picks
Pitcher
Merrill Kelly ($9,600 DraftKings, $10,500 FanDuel) at Milwaukee Brewers
In one of the most fascinating pitching matchups on the board, Corbin Burnes and the Brewers host Kelly and the Diamondbacks. Burnes has been turning things around after a slow start, but the surging Diamondbacks will be a tough matchup for the 2021 NL Cy Young winner.
On the other hand, the Brewers’ offense has been struggling to get any traction this season and ranks in the bottom third of the league in runs scored, batting average, and wOBA. Things haven’t been getting better for the Brew Crew in June, either, hitting just .222 with a .296 wOBA this month.
The Diamondbacks are headed in the other direction with their offense led by Corbin Carroll and several other exciting young hitters. On the mound, Kelly has been doing his part as well, going 7-0 in his last nine starts and only allowing more than three runs in one of those outings.
In those nine starts, the 34-year-old righty has a 2.86 ERA and 3.51 FIP with 64 strikeouts in 56.2 innings. He has produced over 25 DraftKings points and at least 49 FanDuel points in four of his past eight starts, averaging 24 DraftKings points and 37.6 FanDuel points per outing.
While Kelly isn’t known as a strikeout artist, he has at least seven strikeouts in five of his past eight outings and has the second-highest strikeout prediction of the 14 starters on Monday’s slate.
Kelly has the second-highest ceiling projection on both DraftKings and FanDuel for Monday, and he’s a great piece to build around.
Hitter
Fernando Tatis Jr. ($6,300 DraftKings, $4,600 FanDuel) at San Francisco Giants
Tatis has been crushing it over the past few weeks, leading his Padres into San Francisco to face the Giants.
Since the start of June, Tatis has hit safely in 14 of 16 games. He has averaged 15.4 DraftKings points and 20.3 FanDuel points per game by hitting exactly .400 (24-for-60) with five home runs, seven stolen bases, 15 RBI, 15 runs scored, and a .542 wOBA.
Statcast numbers back up his recent success. He has a 56.9% hard-hit rate over that 16-game span, with a max EV of at least 99 miles per hour in all but two of those contests.
He should be in a good spot to keep crushing on Monday against opener Ryan Walker and bulk reliever Jakob Junis. In 21 previous games at Oracle Park, Tatis has hit .300 with seven career home runs and an average of 10.6 DraftKings points and 14.0 FanDuel points per game in his 21 career appearances.
Tatis has the highest ceiling projection on both FanDuel and DraftKings on Monday night according to THE BAT X.
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
Max Scherzer ($8,900 DraftKings, $9,000 FanDuel) at Houston Astros
Scherzer is a bargain compared to this normal pricing on DraftKings and FanDuel, and he still brings a very high ceiling as he takes the mound against the Astros. In the blended projections, he has the third-highest ceiling projection on DraftKings and the fourth-highest on FanDuel.
Scherzer has struggled in his two most recent starts, but his velocity has still been there for the most part. His issue has been with his slider, which has been getting hammered. He gave up six runs in only 3 1/3 innings against the Yankees in his last start, increasing his season-long numbers to a 4.45 ERA and 4.35 FIP in his 11 starts.
However, there are signs that he isn’t totally done yet. Before that down outing against New York, Scherzer had a run of four straight starts with over 20 DraftKings points, including a pair of games with over 30 DraftKings points. He had 31.15 DraftKings points and 55 FanDuel points in a start against the Phillies to start the month and had 10 strikeouts just two starts ago in a tough matchup against the Braves.
There’s definitely risk in playing Mad Max, but I love his upside as a bounce-back candidate in this matchup with Houston. Without Yordan Alvarez (oblique), the Astros have dropped four straight and have only averaged 3.3 runs over their past seven games.
He could continue to struggle and be a bust, but he brings way too high a ceiling not to consider him at this very affordable salary.
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Hitters
Corey Seager ($6,000 DraftKings, $4,400 FanDuel) at Chicago White Sox
Seager is in the top five of median, ceiling, and floor projections using the 50/50 projections on both DraftKings and FanDuel.
He has been sizzling over his last nine games, hitting .486 (18-for-37) with five doubles, four homers, a .459 ISO, and a .611 wOBA while producing a fantastic 16.1 DraftKings points and 21.1 FanDuel points per contest. Seager has been a solid fantasy option since returning from his time on the IL on May 17, hitting .364 with nine home runs, 36 RBI, a .331 ISO, and a .453 wOBA.
Seager and the Rangers should be in a good spot to stay smashing against Jesse Scholtens, who was just recalled from Triple-A on Friday and is expected to serve as the opener for the White Sox in a bullpen game on Monday.
Seager’s ceiling isn’t quite as high as Tatis, but if you can get both superstars into your lineup and fill in with value options, your roster should have an extremely high ceiling.
Luis Matos ($2,800 DraftKings, $2,500 FanDuel) vs. San Diego Padres
Matos was dropped from the top 100 MLB prospects by several spots coming into the season after he struggled in High-A last season. His defense is excellent, as demonstrated by winning the Defensive Player of the Year award in the Arizona Fall League, but there were questions about his bat coming into the year. The 21-year-old answered those questions with a red-hot start to the season and surged from Double-A through Triple-A, and is ready to make an impact for the Giants right away as their CF of the future.
He has only been in the Majors for four games but has already impressed, going 4-for-12 (.333) with a double and a stolen base. One of the biggest knocks on him in his progression was his over-aggressive approach, but he has already worked five walks in four games. He has used those walks and his speed on the bases to score seven runs in just four games.
Before getting called up, Matos showed a good blend of power and speed while hitting .398 in 24 games for the Sacramento River Cats with seven homers, six stolen bases, and a .475 wOBA.
The youngster brings a high ceiling and plenty of upside as he continues to look to establish himself as a regular in San Francisco’s lineup.
