In every MLB Plays of the Day post, several FantasyLabs writers use our Trends and Player Models tools to highlight each one player to roster heavily in cash games and/or tournaments for the day’s slates.
Here are today’s plays of the day.
The Play of the Daigle
Who is John Daigle? Ryan Gosling in disguise.
John Daigle: Carlos Beltran, NYY, OF
It’s not that Khris Davis and Danny Valencia are terrible options. They’re not. It’s just that recency bias is likely to pull DFS players toward the Athletics. Meanwhile, the Yankees actually offer a better stack in this matchup, and the player to target specifically is Beltran.
Brett Gardner was the priority last night, but Beltran is where you want your exposure tonight. His batted-ball distance in the last 15 days is farther than anyone else’s in the lineup (and 25 feet farther than Gardner’s in particular). Also, like all left-handed batters in this game (and four of the Yankees’ first five batters are lefties), Beltran is likely to benefit from the winds blowing out to right field at 15 miles per hour, especially since A) he has a top-three fly-ball percentage at his position and B) Athletics pitcher Kendall Graveman has allowed 1.50 home runs per nine innings in the last year.
Finally, Beltran has a 90 percent Bargain Rating at FanDuel and likely won’t be rostered in a high percentage of lineups.
Check out the rest of John’s recommendations in today’s Slate Breakdown.
The Remaining Plays of the Day
Here are all the plays recommended by people whose surnames don’t rhyme with “bagel.”
Jay Persson: Jason Kipnis, CLE, 2B
Second base is usually a tricky position to tackle on most slates because of positional scarcity. Catchers and middle infielders do not provide the same positional depth as other positions. There are two ways you can handle this situation:
- Pay a premium at the position.
- Save salary and punt at the position.
My decision is largely slate-dependent and based on the availability of elite pitchers and value plays across all positions.
Looking at this slate from a cash perspective, I would pay up for pitching (per usual). While I most likely would roster Chris Sale, a strong case can be made for Stephen Strasburg as well. In paying up for pitching, I’ll need to save salary at other positions. This is usually done by selecting cheap players at catcher, second base, and shortstop. However, in this slate second base doesn’t offer a viable low-priced option. Instead it offers arguably one of the best plays on the slate.
Kipnis is the clear-cut top option at second base for a multitude of reasons. He has a favorable spot in the lineup, and the Indians have a slate-high implied Vegas total of 4.7 runs. Using our advanced data, we can see that no other starting second baseman has a higher Hard-Hit Differential in the past 15 days. On FanDuel, his Bargain Rating of 95 percent offers significant salary relief. Lastly, his only top-priced competition — Jose Altuve and Daniel Murphy — are facing Sale and Matt Harvey.
I recommend keeping it simple in cash by locking in Kipnis and then saving money elsewhere.
Brandon Hopper: Jon Gray, COL, SP
Our K Predictor projects Gray to fan 6.9 batters tonight, just behind Sale (8.7) and Strasburg (8.2), who will likely be the slate’s highest-rostered pitchers. Part of the reason the K predictor is so high on Gray is his 10.2 strikeouts per nine innings over the last year.
St. Louis’ team wOBA is a slate-high .330, which isn’t great for Gray, but the Cardinals have a fly-ball rate that is merely average, and Gray doesn’t allow opponents to hit the ball in the air often. In his last two games, Gray has a mere 14 percent fly-ball rate, which is the second-lowest on the slate.
Over that same time, Gray’s exit velocity has been a mere 86 miles per hour, which is comparable to Sale and Strasburg’s exit velocities. Additionally, his Batted-Ball Distance Differential is a strong -38 feet — a mark that Strasburg (-9) and Sale (+6) aren’t close to touching.
Lastly, Gray should also benefit from umpire Lance Barksdale’s presence behind the plate. Historically, when Barksdale “teams up” with a pitcher who has a K prediction comparable to Gray’s, a +2.54 Plus/Minus ensues.
With the salary you’ll save by pivoting away from Sale or Strasburg and toward Gray, you should have plenty of money to spend on any stack you want.
For more information on Brandon’s recommended play, check out his weekly On The Contrary.
J.J. Calle: Brian McCann, NYY, C
In researching for the slate, I noticed one data point in particular: The winds at O.co Coliseum are projected to blow out to right field at 15 MPH, which should come in handy because Ivan Nova and Kendall Graveman, the projected starters in the Yankees-Athletics game, surrender home runs in bunches, both ranking among the five worst pitchers in the slate in terms of HR/9. Left-handed batters in this game need to be rostered.
In his last five O.co Coliseum games in which the wind blew to right field, McCann has exceeded salary-based expectations four times and homered in consecutive games, one of which was against Graveman. Even though the A’s are likely to use a lefty shift against McCann, and even though he has a dreadful Park Factor of 8, I think that McCann’s top-three-overall 62 percent recent fly-ball percentage gives him a real chance to benefit from the excessive wind. Per ESPN’s Home Run Tracker, all five of McCann’s home runs this season would have cleared right field at the Coliseum. When he homers, he really homers.
Among his switch-hitting teammates in the middle of the order — Mark Teixeira and Beltran — McCann over the last month has exhibited superior Consistency and Upside. Best of all, those three cost no more than $3000 on FanDuel, and overnight the Yankees went from favorite to underdog, so public exposure to them should not be high.
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The Plays of the Day series is our answer to the question, “Who do you guys like today?” We publish a Plays of the Day article every weekday for MLB and a Plays of the Week every Wednesday for PGA.
