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
Triston Casas ($2,200): First Baseman, Boston Red Sox
Casas is only hitting .180 this year for the Red Sox, but he actually hit third in the lineup in the last two games the Red Sox have faced a righty, like Monday’s opposing starter Jaime Barria. He’s still extremely affordable on DraftKings, where his salary is barely over the minimum. He has a 98% Bargain Rating, the highest of any player on this slate.
Although his season numbers are low, he has been hitting much better lately. In his past 15 games, he’s batting .273 (12-for-44) with a double, a home run, and a .372 wOBA. He also has a 48.6% hard-hit rate over that stretch, according to Statcast, after he had just a 36% hard-hit rate in his first 26 games of the season.
Casas also brings good power potential, with three of his six home runs coming in his 12 most recent games. If he hits near the top of the order, especially third in front of Rafael Devers, he should get good pitches to hit and be right in the middle of the Red Sox run production.
The matchup with Barria is a little tricky to read since this will be the 26-year-old righty’s first start of the season. He has pitched well out of the bullpen but hasn’t thrown more than 58 pitches in any game. It’s likely to be primarily a bullpen game for the Angels, resulting in a mixed bag of matchups. While that is a wild card, it does boost Casas’ upside along with his risk.
He has the third-highest projected Plus/Minus of any hitter on this slate and is projected for relatively low ownership on this seven-game slate.
Peyton Burdick ($2,600): Outfielder, Miami Marlins
The Marlins and the Rockies aren’t usually lineups to pay much attention to, but the Coors Field effect is in play on Monday. That means this matchup between the two teams that were part of the 1993 MLB expansion suddenly becomes very fantasy relevant. The game has the highest over/under on the main slate by two full runs, which is enough to make both teams intriguing sources of value.
Of all the hitters in the projected lineups in Denver, Burdick has the best Bargain Rating at 97%. He also has the highest projected Plus/Minus of any player on the slate using THE BAT X projections.
While he does have a low floor, his ceiling is substantial enough to make him an option to consider if you’re looking to round out your outfield with an option under $3K. The 26-year-old hit .293 with 10 home runs and five stolen bases in Triple-A with the Jacksonville Jumbo Shrimp. In his 14 games in the Majors, he has only hit .182 with one home run and one stolen base, but most of that production has come lately. He has gone 6-for-29 (.207) in his eight most recent games with a plate appearance, and half of those six hits have gone for extra bases. He also stole a base during that stretch, which has helped him exceed salary-based expectations in five of his past eight starts.
Burdick is a high-risk play, but that extra-base potential at Coors Field is extremely attractive, especially against Rockies starting pitcher Chase Anderson. The veteran started the season with the Reds but was traded for cash considerations to the Rays, where he made two appearances before being designated for assignment and then claimed on waivers by the pitching-needy Rockies. This will be his first home start since joining Colorado, but his contact-heavy approach could be dangerous at Coors Field. In his career, he has gone 2-3 with a 6.55 ERA in Denver, so this should be a matchup to mash the Marlins on Monday.
MLB DFS Ceiling Projection Picks
Pitcher
Luis Castillo ($9,200 DraftKings, $10,500 FanDuel) vs. Oakland Athletics
Both FanDuel and DraftKings are using the seven games starting at 7:20 p.m. ET or later on their main slates for Monday night. While Cristian Javier of the Astros has the highest salary on both sites, Castillo has slightly higher marks in both FantasyLabs and THE BATX projections.
Castillo draws one of the most favorable matchups in MLB history, facing the Athletics, who many believe to be the worst team ever. While that discussion is for another time and place, their implied team total on Monday’s slate ranks dead last by nearly a full run.
The A’s are hitting just .227 as a team this season and .224 in May. They have lost seven of their last eight games and have only scored more than three runs once during that stretch. They only had four hits while being shut out by Framber Valdez on Sunday.
Castillo should be able to take advantage of that matchup, going 2-2 with a 3.31 ERA and 3.25 FIP on the season. He has 58 strikeouts in 51 2/3 innings and 20 strikeouts in 17 innings over his three most recent starts. Castillo has been especially sharp at home, where he has a 2.52 ERA and 2.11 FIP with a 10.9 K/9 rate.
On DraftKings, Castillo has the highest projected Plus/Minus of all the pitchers on the slate and matches eight Pro Trends, while no other pitcher on this slate matches more than five.
Hitter
Ronald Acuña Jr. ($6,500 DraftKings, $4,700 FanDuel) vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
Acuña continues to crush on a nightly basis and has multiple ways he can put up monster games. Earlier this season, he was doing most of his work on the basepaths, with his 18 steals ranking second in the league. He has still been running wild but has also turned up the power production over the past month. In March and April, he had four home runs in 27 games, but in May, he has already smashed seven homers in just 19 games.
On Sunday, Acuña extended his current hitting streak to 11 games, during which he’s hitting .364 (16-for-44) with an eye-popping .492 wOBA. During that run, he has averaged 13.8 DraftKings points per game and exceeded salary-based expectations in eight of those 11 contests.
The Braves and Acuña should be in a good spot against the Dodgers on Monday night. Los Angeles is turning to unproven rookie Gavin Stone, who allowed five runs on eight hits in 8 1/3 innings in four innings against the Phillies in his only MLB start this season. Stone did have success in Triple-A, but shutting down the Braves is a completely different animal.
Acuña will look to stay on a roll while spoiling Stone’s return to the Majors. The Braves All-Star comes with a hefty price tag, but his consistent production and multiple ways to put up piles of points make him the top ceiling play once again on Monday. He has the top ceiling projection of all batters on the main slate on both DraftKings and FanDuel.
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
Bailey Ober ($8,100 DraftKings, $10,300 FanDuel) vs. San Francisco Giants
Ober is the third-most expensive starter on FanDuel as he takes the mound for the Twins against the Giants on Monday night. However, he’s significantly cheaper on DraftKings, checking in as the seventh-most expensive option and bringing a slate-best 96% Bargain Rating. On FanDuel, he’s much less of a bargain but still brings good leverage since his ownership is projected to be lower than Javier’s and Castillo’s.
In his five starts since joining the rotation after the injuries to Tyler Mahle and Kenta Maeda, Ober has been impressive, going 3-0 with a 1.78 ERA. His FIP is up at 3.00, so there has definitely been some good fortune involved, but he has also been very good at keeping traffic off the basepaths with his 0.96 WHIP. In fact, Ober has only allowed more than one run in one start.
In his five starts, Ober has averaged 21.4 DraftKings points and 35 FanDuel points per start. He is coming off a strong outing on the road on Tuesday against the Dodgers, resulting in 23.3 DraftKings points and 43 FanDuel points. In another matchup against the NL West, he and the Twins get to play at home against the Giants, which should be a more favorable matchup.
San Francisco has the second-highest K% in the Majors and has scored the 10th-fewest runs of any team this season. Ober should be able to put together another strong outing, and he should be especially strong in DraftKings roster builds where he comes at such a discount.
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Hitters
Jorge Soler ($5,300 DraftKings, $3,700 FanDuel) at Colorado Rockies
THE BAT X projections have Soler as the player with the highest projected Plus/Minus on FanDuel, and he trails only Burdick on DraftKings. Those projections also have Soler with the highest ceiling projection, even higher than Acuña and Shohei Ohtani.
Before Sunday, Soler was scuffling a bit, but he broke out in a big way with four hits, including his 12th homer of the season. He finished with 27 DraftKings points and 34.7 FanDuel points in that contest and raised his wOBA to .357 on the season.
Soler tends to be boom-or-bust due to his power-focused approach, but he brings a very high ceiling at Coors Field. He has averaged 9.4 DraftKings points per game over his past 10 games and has outproduced his salary-based expectations on FanDuel in four of his eight most recent contests.
Against Anderson, Soler should be set up for success and can be a centerpiece of a Coors-based Marlins’ stack this Monday.
Jose Caballero ($2,400 DraftKings, $2,400 FanDuel) vs. Oakland Athletics
If you need an inexpensive middle-infielder to round out your roster builds, the 50/50 projections help identify Caballero as one of the best bargain plays. The 26-year-old is coming off a ceiling game on Sunday when he hit his first MLB home run in his lone official at-bat after reaching base via a hit-by-pitch and a walk earlier in the game and stealing three bases. He finished with 33 DraftKings points and 42.7 FanDuel points.
While it’s unlikely he’ll duplicate that ceiling regularly, he has shown he can be a meaningful contributor. He has been outplaying Kolten Wong in the 2B platoon and is hitting a solid .278 with a .342 wOBA in his first 23 games in the Majors.
He is projected to hit ninth again on Monday against lefty Kyle Muller. The Mariners should be able to score some runs, and Caballero could be a great value if he starts getting the green light on the bases ahead of the heart of the order when the lineup flips. He hasn’t stolen many bases in the minors, but part of that is due to his limited playing time due to injuries.
At this price on this slate, he’s worth a look as a flier to help you afford the big bats and top arms, and he has shown he can chip in good production for a Mariners’ lineup that needs any boost it can get right now.
