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 main slate.
Here are today’s plays of the day.
The Play of the Daigle
Who is John Daigle? The man whom the Most Interesting Man in the World called “The Second-Most Interesting Man in the World.”
John Daigle: Adam Duvall, CIN, OF
Brandon Phillips costs only $2,300 at FanDuel. Jay Bruce has hit 14 more homeruns against the Brewers than anyone else in his career. Billy Hamilton is now hitting in the two hole. Even so, I would prioritize Duvall above everyone else in Cincinnati’s batting order tonight (although he’s the only player I just listed whom I wouldn’t be able to pick out of a lineup).
Duvall has a home run in three consecutive games, but if you’ve read the Slate Breakdown to any extent, you (are clinically insane, probably) know that I don’t believe in hot hands or cold streaks. What I do believe in, however, is Duvall’s contact as of late (per our advanced stats). He has a recent batted-ball distance of 256 feet and an exit velocity of 95 miles per hour. Even his top-three fly-ball percentage is worth noting. Combine all of that with his .212 Isolated Power (ISO) Differential, and there’s more than enough reason to roster him yet again.
Sure, he might be the first person I’ve never been able to identify in my cash lineup, but he’s earned it.
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.”
Bryan Mears: Mike Trout, LAA, OF
I get it. The Angels have a Vegas implied total of only 3.6 runs. They’re playing in a pitcher’s park against an ace in Chris Archer. Mike Trout is expensive, both at DraftKings ($4,900) and FanDuel ($5,100). He doesn’t have extreme splits versus a certain handedness of a pitcher, so he won’t look as sexy as guys like Corey Dickerson, David Ortiz, and Adam Duvall will tonight. I get all that.
However, Trout has been crushing the ball lately. His hard-hit rate in the last 15 days is 48 percent, which is nine percentage points higher than his 12-month rate. He is hitting the ball a really long way on average (258 feet) and is hitting a ton of fly balls and line drives. Despite not having extreme splits — which, I want to point out, is a positive factor, as players with elite stats versus both hands are better than platoon players with drastic splits — his .411 Weighted On-Base Average (wOBA) and .301 ISO are as good as they get. One of my favorite strategies in tournaments is targeting elite talent (check) in a tough matchup (check). Do your thing, Trout.
Check out the rest of Bryan’s recommendations in today’s MLB Daily Fantasy Flex podcast, coming soon.
Tyler Buecher: Madison Bumgarner, SF, SP
I like Bumgarner tonight for a lot of reasons beyond his pitching skill. As Bumgarner is the top-priced pitching option for tonight on FanDuel, people may pivot away from him in an attempt to save money. I can understand the reasoning: “Why pay $11,700 for Bumgarner when I can save $500 and take Noah Syndergaard against a struggling Padres team?”
When trying to get the most out of an expensive pitcher, I like to use our Trends tool to find a pitcher who’s priced above $10,000, owns a SO/9 greater than 8.9, and has a Vegas Score greater than 95 percent. Bumgarner checks all three boxes. Of course, so does Thor.
Given Thor’s comparability to Bumgarner and cheaper salary, most of the field will likely gravitate toward him and Bumgarner should subsequently be rostered on a lower percentage of lineups. Paying up for Bumgarner won’t be especially easy, but his 10.47 SO/9 and 1.074 WHIP are strong, and he’s show his Upside with back-to-back 50-plus point outings.
His hard-hit rate is down by 10 percentage points over the last 15 days, and he hasn’t allowed any homeruns in his last two outings. The Rockies are projected to score the fewest runs (2.6) on tonight’s slate. As a potentially low-rostered elite pitcher, Bumgarner makes for an intriguing game-theory play.
Jonathan Cabezas: David Ortiz, BOS, 1B
There are better cash game options at first base than David Ortiz, but we aren’t talking about cash games right now. The Red Sox are currently implied to score only 3.7 runs — an amount of runs below the threshold that people typically use when looking for offenses to target. Because of Boston’s low run total Ortiz could be an excellent tournament option as an overlooked player.
Of course, rostering a player with a low lineup percentage won’t do us any good if said player can’t produce, but Papi should be able to do exactly that against right-handed pitcher Michael Pineda, who has a slate-high hard-hit rate of 47 percent and seven home runs allowed through only 27 innings pitched this season. Ortiz crushes righties, as shown in his .128 ISO Differential and .639 slugging percentage. With a slate-best Park Factor of 81 and seven Pro Trends, Papi has all the potential to be an excellent tournament option in the main slate.
Kelly McCann: Corey Seager, LAD, SS
The Dodgers are projected to score 3.7 runs in Toronto. That’s not terrible but it’s not fantastic. It resides somewhere in no man’s land, which is why the Dodgers are a great target for tournaments tonight.
Seager is my favorite Dodger tonight and I suggest constructing a contrarian stack around him. Seager prefers to face right-handed pitchers, against whom he has an impressive .386 wOBA and .205 ISO. Over the past 15 days, his average batted-ball distance and hard-hit rate are up 30 feet and 14 percentage points. He’s seeing the ball very well.
Pitcher Marcus Stroman has been an effective starter this season, with an elite WHIP. However, his SO/9 — metric in which he is in the bottom quintile — is laughable. Using our Trends tool, I discovered that left-handed hitters with splits similar to Seager’s tend to do very well against bottom-feeding strikeout pitchers.
The Trends tool also shows that, when at Rodgers Center, the average lefty with a wOBA of at least .355 and ISO of .190 against a pitcher in the bottom third of strikeout percentile scores a robust 10.07 fantasy points per game and has a +3.0 Plus/Minus with a very steady 57.1 percent Consistency.
Seager has experienced a -$700 Salary Change over the last month, which has contributed to his 91 percent Bargain Rating on DraftKings. Sign me up.
Matthew Freedman: Alex Presley, MIL, OF
I’m pulling a Brandon Hopper and recommending the same guy two days in a row. Three of the last four days, Presley has started in place of the injured Domingo Santana, and Presley has done well. Yesterday, as the No. 2 batter, he went two-for-four with a two-run home run. I expect that the left-handed hitter will get the opportunity to start one more game in place of the right-handed Santana, given that the Brewers will be facing Reds right-hander Tim Adleman.
And let’s talk about Adleman. This guy is a 28-year-old rookie who has appeared in one game. His Twitter handle is literally @ImYourTA. If you look at his Twitter page, he doesn’t even look like an athlete, much less a guy who should be an MLB starting pitcher. The only pitcher who has a lower salary on DraftKings is Cory Rasmus. Sorry, Adleman, you’re not my TA.
The Brewers should have ample opportunity to crush, making Presley a strong play on DK, where he has (as he had yesterday) a meager $2,000 salary, 94 percent Bargain Rating, and respectable six Pro Trends. With positive differentials for batted-ball distance, exit velocity, and hard-hit percentage, he’s hitting the ball well.
Finally, I love that he matches for a relatively high number of my personal value-seeking trends: He’s a cheap outfielder, he has a hitter-friendly umpire behind the plate, and he gets the National League (non-designated hitter) bump.
I’m not expecting Presley to be the stud that he was yesterday, but I do expect him to have a better chance of reaching his salary-adjusted expectations than the typical player with a minimum salary. And it’s not often that you find a player with his recent production who hasn’t experienced a Salary Change. If he starts, Presley once again will make for a nice source of salary relief in both cash games and tournaments.
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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.
