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
Jose Siri ($3,100): Outfielder, Tampa Bay Rays
The best Bargain Rating on the entire Monday afternoon slate belongs to Siri, who has a 98% Bargain Rating and a 0.25 Projected Plus/Minus. He and the Rays are opening their series at Wrigley Field with a good matchup against Marcus Stroman and the Cubs.
Siri has been extremely productive as a value option lately, even though he typically hits at the bottom of the Rays’ lineup. He can be part of some very nice Rays’ stacks, though, since he bats just in front of the big bats as almost a “second leadoff” type option. The 27-year-old center fielder brings a great blend of speed and power potential, and he has been producing in both categories lately.
On the season, Siri is hitting .250 with nine home runs and four stolen bases. Six of those nine home runs and two of those four stolen bases have come in his 13 most recent games while he has gone 14-for-47 (.298) with a .447 wOBA. Siri has a 20% barrel rate during that span and 13 hard-hit batted balls in those 13 games, per Statcast.
Siri has averaged 11.3 DraftKings points and 14.8 FanDuel points over those 13 games, and with his price barely over $3K brings a high ceiling at a very low level of investment on Monday.
Michael Massey ($2,200): Second Basemen, Kansas City Royals
The Royals battled back on Sunday and avoided a sweep at home against the Nationals, and it was Massey who played the hero with a walk-off single with two outs in the ninth inning. Massey has the second-highest Bargain Rating on Monday at 97%. He also has the third-highest Projected Plus/Minus on the slate using FantasyLabs projections and the seventh-highest using THE BAT X projections.
Massey has played 47 games for the Royals this season, and his season totals aren’t that impressive. He is only hitting .231 with three homers and three stolen bases with a .267 wOBA. However, his recent numbers have been much better. In each of his past three starts, he has collected multiple hits, going 6-for-13 (.462) with a double, two runs scored, and two RBI in his five most recent contests.
Since the Royals have moved on from Hunter Dozier, there should continue to be increased opportunities for Massey, who definitely had a rough adjustment period at the start of the season but seems to be settling in at the Major League level. At a price barely over the minimum, Massey makes sense as a cheap play at second base Monday afternoon against Adam Wainwright and the Cardinals as the Royals travel down I-70 to face their instate rivals to start the week.
MLB DFS Ceiling Projection Picks
Pitcher
Nathan Eovaldi ($10,500 DraftKings, $11,200 FanDuel) at Detroit Tigers
Both FanDuel and DraftKings are using the six games starting at 1:05 p.m. ET as their main slate on Memorial Day, and of the 12 starting pitchers in play, Eovaldi has the highest ceiling projection by a wide margin. Since he is also the most expensive pitcher, his ownership projections are high but not intolerable as long as you find other differentiators to add to your lineup.
Eovaldi joined the Rangers as a free agent this offseason, and he has been an outstanding addition while Jacob deGrom, another free agent addition, has once again been limited by injuries. Eovaldi has been healthy to this point and looked very sharp in his 10 starts. He has gone 6-2 with a 2.60 ERA and 2.47 FIP, while stacking up 66 strikeouts in 69 1⁄3 innings. Even though those strikeout numbers aren’t his best, he has produced 23.9 DraftKings points and 38.2 FanDuel points per start.
In his past five starts, Eovaldi has been even more locked in, allowing just a total of four runs in 41 2/3 innings. He has two complete games during that span, including one in his most recent outing when he held the Pirates to just six hits and needed just 104 pitches to total 30.55 DraftKings points and 49 FanDuel points in his sixth win of the season. He has gone at least seven innings in each of those outings, producing 35.5 DraftKings points and 52.4 FanDuel points per start during that span.
Another reason Eovaldi brings such a high ceiling on Monday is that he has such a favorable matchup. He’ll go up against the Tigers, who have had one of the worst offenses in the Majors this season. They rank ahead of only the Athletics and Guardians in turns of runs scored, and they also have the third-worst ISO and wOBA as a team and the fourth-fewest home runs. While they looked a little better lately, they’re still a soft matchup for Eovaldi on Monday.
Even though he is pricey, Eovaldi’s ceiling makes him worth considering since he has the highest ceiling of the available starting pitchers by such a wide margin.
Hitter
Paul Goldschmidt ($5,400 DraftKings, $3,900 FanDuel) vs. Kansas City Royals
When he gets hot, Goldschmidt can single-handedly carry the Cardinals’ offense, and he has been heating up lately as the team’s season teeters on the brink of disaster. It has been an ugly start to the season for St. Louis, who is 24-31 even after going 11-6 over their past 17 games. They need Goldie to step up and carry the team for a little bit, and he looks poised to do just that.
He brings the second-highest ceiling projection on DraftKings and FanDuel on this slate and should be in a favorable matchup against the Royals, who will start Josh Staumont as their opener, followed by Mike Mayers in long relief.
Goldschmidt is hitting .294 with a .230 ISO and .392 wOBA in his 53 games this season and has multiple hits in three of his five most recent games. He has hit .292 with a .409 wOBA in his 23 most recent contests, including six of his 10 home runs on the season. He has also added four stolen bases in that span as a sneaky source of speed as well. With production in multiple categories, he has averaged 10.9 DraftKings points and 14.4 FanDuel points over that span.
In this favorable spot, Goldschmidt and the Cardinals have the highest Implied Run Total on the afternoon slate and should be a key spot to attack as you build your lineups.
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
J.P. France ($7,000 DraftKings, $8,200 FanDuel) vs. Minnesota Twins
The pitching options are limited on Monday afternoon’s 12-team slate, but France brings some interesting upside against the Twins, who still lead the AL Central but have been struggling a little bit lately, going 3-7 in their past 10 contests.
France had one disastrous outing against the Chicago Cubs two starts ago but has been very solid in his other three starts since being called up at the start of May. He has at least 30 FanDuel points and at least 18 DraftKings points in each of his other three starts and has only allowed two earned runs in 17 1/3 innings aside from when the Cubs roughed him up.
The 28-year-old rookie showed good resiliency bouncing back from that start and posted a season-high eight strikeouts in his most recent appearance, which was last Tuesday against the Brewers. He took the loss since Houston was shut out but still posted 23.2 DraftKings points and 38 FanDuel points.
France stands out compared to the other cheap options on this slate, who are in tougher matchups or have other major red flags. He has the third-highest Projected Plus/Minus of the starting pitchers on DraftKings according to the 50/50 blended projections.
While he doesn’t have elite strikeout stuff, he has been crafty enough to be productive for the Astros, who will be returning home after sweeping the Athletics to improve to 14-3 in their last 17 games.
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Hitters
Corbin Carroll ($5,100 DraftKings, $3,500 FanDuel) vs. Colorado Rockies
The blended projections give Carroll the highest median projection on the entire slate, and he’s the only player with a median projection over 10 on DraftKings. He matches a slate-high eight Pro Trends on DraftKings and a slate-high six Pro Trends on FanDuel, so everything points to a big game for Carroll as the Snakes start their series in the desert against the Rockies.
The Diamondbacks avoided being swept on Sunday thanks, in large part, to Carroll’s eighth home run of the season. He has also added 14 stolen bases as well while hitting .277 with a .373 wOBA. At just 22, he has established himself as one of the top young rising stars in the game and become a centerpiece in the Diamondbacks’ batting order, usually hitting third against right-handed starting pitching.
He’ll be in a great matchup against righty Karl Kauffmann on Monday. Kauffmann has allowed 10 runs in 8 2/3 innings over his first two MLB starts, and his 55.3% hard-hit rate allowed shows that not much of that has been flukey. He had a 7.78 ERA and 5.60 FIP in his eight Triple-A starts but was pressed into action in the Majors due to injuries to the rest of the Rockies’ rotation.
Carroll should be in a good spot to stay hot against Kauffmann after finding his groove again following a quiet period at the start of May. In his past 12 games, though, he has gone 12-for-43 (.279) with three home runs, four stolen bases, and a .412 wOBA for 11.4 DraftKings points and 15.2 FanDuel points per game.
Royce Lewis ($2,000 DraftKings, $2,000 FanDuel) at Houston Astros
Exactly a year ago, Lewis suffered a torn ACL, but he is expected to be activated from the 60-day IL before the Twins’ afternoon matchup in Houston. Lewis is loaded with upside in multiple categories, so take advantage of his one-day-only reduced salary of only $2K on both DraftKings and FanDuel.
Before suffering the injury, Lewis played 12 games in the Majors, hitting .300 with a pair of home runs and a .370 wOBA in his first taste of The Show. He has been viewed as an elite prospect throughout his rise to the Majors and will look to get back on track after his injury-induced detour. He’s only 23, so there’s still plenty of time for him to show he was worth the No. 1 overall pick in the 2017 MLB draft.
Lewis has looked strong during his rehab assignment, which was split between Double-A with the Wichita Wind Surge and Triple-A with the St. Paul Saints. He went 13-for-39 (.333) in his 10 games, with four home runs and four stolen bases. He spent much of that rehab at third base, which could be where he could play since Carlos Correa is patrolling his primary position at shortstop.
On this slate, though, Lewis is eligible at shortstop and comes at such a cheap price with so much upside that he’s almost impossible to pass up.
