Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top MLB DFS Value Plays – Saturday, May 11th (Early/Main)
Daily Fantasy Baseball is in full swing, and whether you play on DraftKings, FanDuel, Yahoo, or Fantasy Draft, this article is designed to help you find the best value plays across the board for today’s slate. These low salary targets are my top players to help you roster your stud bats and pitchers.
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While most of our content is site specific, whether it be for hitting or pitching, this article is going to be different. What I will do here, is evaluate potential value plays for that particular day, across the four major DFS sites.
So the plan of attack here is, first I will highlight my top value plays for Yahoo and Fantasy Draft. I will dig up certain plays that I think fit their scoring systems, and possible flaws in pricing. I will then do the same for FanDuel, and then for DraftKings.
Finally after I break down my favorites from each site specifically, I will then finish up with top overall multi-site value plays. These are the top players viable across the industry, who are in line to out produce their respective salary, no matter what the site. All of these plays are just simply the best value plays that stand out across the industry, regardless of site.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – Yahoo! – (Main Only)
SP – Anthony DeSclafani – Cincinnati Reds – $38
With three aces on this slate in Gerrit Cole, Jacob deGrom, and Max Scherzer, I figure it will be extremely hard to put together a good lineup with two of those guys. While DeSclafani has been a guy I have targeted bats against in the past, he is pitching much better this year, and he has arguably the best match-up here on the slate against the light-hitting Giants in San Francisco.
You will notice on the other sites today that DeSclafani will cost you so much there that you will not even consider it, but here on Yahoo, This can make some sense if your SP1 is up over $55. I would prefer Walker Buehler today for $5 more if you can afford it at $43 just so we are clear, but DeSclafani against the Giants here sets up for decent value.
DeSclafani faced this Giants team in his last start, and was able to put together his fourth fantastic start in a row. In that game, he struck out eight, while allowing just four hits in six innings, picking up a win and a quality start. In that four game span, DeSclafani has struck out 28 batters in 23.2 innings, notching two wins and three quality starts along the way. Regression is likely, but not today against this Giants club.
C – Wilson Ramos – New York Mets – $7
Catcher mandatory site. Blah. I wish Mitch Garver was affordable because dude can launch. Anyways, $20 for a catcher is just not happening. We are all about the value here, and as long Ramos stays at minimum price I can hop on. I don’t know. Maybe we will see Thomas Nido here again, but with this being a night game and Ramos having two days off prior to yesterday, I can see him getting back there again.
Ramos is certainly not having an offensive season like he has had in the past, but my guess is he will come around bit still. He is starting to turn a corner a bit, and although he has just one home run, he is driving in some runs with 18 RBI’s up to this point. Ramos went 2-for-5 last night, with an RBI and a run scored.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – FantasyDraft
Early Slate: (6 Games)
Cleveland Indians Stack – (Lindor, Kipnis, Ramirez, Santana, CarGo) – CHEAP!!
At first glance at then early slate on Fantasy Draft, I noticed was that these Indians are just way too cheap. Cleveland will face Aaron Brooks and Oakland, and the most expensive player in this stack is Francisco Lindor at just $8K. I am going to start my lineup with at least three or four Indians today, plug in the only ace on the slate in Trevor Bauer, then take it from there.
Cleveland lost in 12 innings last night, as they struggled a bit with Athletics starter Frankie Montas. This offense as a whole is struggling, as not one hitter in this lineup his hitting .300 or above. However, JRam and Lindor are just way too cheap for their talent and this match-up, and I am locking those two in at the very least.
Main Slate: (8 games)
Ian Kinsler – San Diego Padres – $7,300
Looking at the main slate today, my first thought was man we got a tough one here. We have a ton of expensive pitching, and not much for value hitting to pair it with. I wanted to give you one below $7K today, but they will have to wait for the last page. There are a couple guys that will help you roster these pitchers, but they also grade out as valuable everywhere.
Therefore, I’ll pick my favorite cheap Coors play here today. Okay it isn’t really my favorite, but I can always get behind a lead-off Ian Kinsler at this price. If he hits further down in the lineup I would maybe reconsider, but if you are paying $20K or close to it for two pitchers today, this might be the best play you can find at this price, and you will need it.
Jay Bruce – Seattle Mariners – $2,800
Leave it to FanDuel to screw up the early slate. Action will start earlier here than everywhere else, and that means this is the only site that included the lone 12:05 CST game between the Mariners and the Red Sox. On top of that, they left off the late afternoon games, and cut the slate down to four games. My guess is they will have another afternoon four game slate before the main, but going six games for early and eight games for main was the right approach.
Anyways, at least we have some value in this game. The Mariners got pounded in game one of this series last night 14-1, as they struggled to figure out left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez, who allowed just five hits in seven innings of work. Bruce is struggling to hit for average, but the power is returning a bit this season.
The Mariners will face Rick Porcello today, and I think this offense will hit him a little better than they did ERod yesterday. Jay Bruce with a $3,300 Dan Vogelbach looks like a solid two-man mini-stack that can help with rostering some studs here.
Kyle Schwarber – Chicago Cubs – $2,400
No offense in baseball and DFS is harder to predict than the Cubs in my opinion, but with the looks of this four game slate here on FanDuel, they may be chalk. Minnesota has the hottest offense on this slate without a doubt, but you will definitely need some value to fit in some of their hot bats. The Twins or Red Sox look like my four man stack of choice here, but with the Cubs facing Kyle Davies they look to have the easiest match-up on “paper.”
I can’t get behind recommending a stack from a team that got blanked by Gio Gonzalez can I? No I can’t. Just when Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo are starting to come around, this team has a loss like last night, and it seems to set them back a few games more often than not. While I may flirt with some semblance of a stack here, it will likely be GPP only, and it will have to have some value in it. That leads me to Schwarber.
With just four home runs and a batting average under .250, it is safe to say the Schwarb is struggling this season, but the same can be said about most of his teammates as well. Schwarber is just 3-for-21 in his career against Davies, but two of those hits were bombs. I need a cheap home run call today, I’ll say Schwarber hits his fifth.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – FanDuel Main
SP – Jon Gray – Colorado Rockies – $6,800
FanDuel is going to keep the trend going of pricing down pitchers at Coors, while they price the hitters out of play for the most part. The Padres only managed two runs off of German Marquez last night, and they get a similar power righty today in Jon Gray.
I know we have four stud pitchers on the slate, and you obviously will want to roster one of those guys for cash games today, but Gray has the ability to put up similar numbers to those studs in this match-up. Obviously the park factor is a bad as it gets, but Gray could be a solid GPP play here if he can put up something like 40 FDP.
Variance is key in tournaments of course, and not many people will even think about rostering a pitcher in Coors Field with the other options on this slate. However, with the bats you can put together with $6,800 at pitcher as opposed to a guy $10K or above are obviously much, much better. With great spots lacking for hitters as a whole today, four Rockies against Joey Lucchesi and Gray in SP spot will likely be the start of my top GPP today.
1B – C.J. Cron – Minnesota Twins – $3,000
The Twins and Tigers will play two today, so make sure you can check your lineups before plugging this in, but I fully expect Cron to start the second game against a lefty in Gregory Soto. Game two tonight should be a slugfest, as Soto and Twins rookie Kohl Stewart are set to do battle, and much cannot be expected of either.
Stewart has promise as a former first round pick, but development has been a little slow. Meanwhile Soto will be making his major league debut, and he has not thrown more than 5.1 innings in a minor league game yet this season.
If you want to pivot away from Coors Field tonight, I suggest riding these red hot Twins bats in this match-up. Just make sure you confirm the starting lineup, as it could be interesting today on game two of double-dip.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – DraftKings Early (6 Games)
1B – Rowdy Tellez – Toronto Blue Jays – $3,900
On the Early DK slate, we don’t get that Red Sox/Mariners game, but we have a much better overall slate with the mid-afternoon games included as well. I normally try to stay away from Blue Jays in general, but we got some value here today, as Toronto will face Ivan Nova. Nova and Aaron Brooks are my favorite pitchers to target with bats on this slate, and that is saying quite a bit with Matt Harvey in action.
I will admit, I had no idea who Rowdy Tellez was before this season, but the 24-year-old 255 pound lefty has shown some pop at times, and he should match-up well here against Nova. Even though Vlad Jr, had another 0-for-4 last night, I do not mind a mini-stack here Tellez and him. I would love to target Nova with more than two bats here, but I just have a hard time trusting this lineup against anyone.
2B/OF – Stevie Wilkerson – Baltimore Orioles – $3,600
#FreeSquare season continues! Yeah $3,600 doesn’t count really, and $3,200 for Chris Davis isn’t exactly free either, but these two continue to be priced way down, and they continue to produce here and there. Wilkerson hit fifth while Davis followed him in the lineup last night against Trevor Cahill and the Angels, and I expect the lineup to look similar today against Matt Harvey.
Davis went deep last night, and maybe he should be in this spot, but the position flexibility here with Wilkerson has me on him just a hair more. Wilkerson went 1-for-4 with a double last night, and the 27-year-old rookie is slugging .417 with two homers through 14 games now.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – DraftKings Main
OF – Yasiel Puig – Cincinnati Reds – $3,700
As is the case across the industry for the main slate tonight, real good value is hard to come by. With good pitching pretty much everywhere, one guy I will likely throw some bats is Jeff Samardzija. Houston and Philly maybe have better offensive match-up’s overall than the Reds do, but in a search for value, I landed on Reds slugger Yasiel Puig, who is slowly coming around as the season progresses.
Puig is hitting just .205 with five homers to start the season, but since the calendar turned May, things have been turning around. He went 2-for-5 last night with two RBI’s, and he has stolen a base in each of the last two games as well. Puig is 3-for-9 career off of Samardzija, and has swiped a base off of him as well. For this price, I think you can do a lot worse today.
2B/SS – Garrett Hampson – Colorado Rockies – $3,400
I am all for a cheap punt in Coors Field today, as it will be very hard to lock in good bats today with these pitching options. The Rockies will face another lefty today in Lucchesi, and Hampson should grab another start here in favor of Daniel Murphy, but that will be something to keep an eye on.
Hampson is not a power threat, and his struggles will likely keep him on the bench against right-handed pitching from here on out, but if you are looking at a Rockies stack today, he might be able to save a few bucks. Hampson went 2-for-3 last night with a run scored and a walk.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – Across the Industry!
Welcome to the most important, and final page of the article. On most days, certain value plays will line up well on two or three, or even all of the sites covered in this article.
From the looks of it, I have a piece of every player coming up here on at least two sites in my early lineups, so just because you did not see somebody yet on another site specific slide from earlier, he could be coming up right now.
Early Slate:
SP – Marcus Stroman – Toronto Blue Jays – ($8,000 DK, $38 Y!, $15,500 FantasyDraft)
Stroman isn’t exactly cheap on DK or Yahoo for that matter, but I will go as far as saying this way too low on Fantasy Draft. I was originally going to use this as my Fantasy Draft play, but when I think of relative value, I want to emphasize how important Stroman can be on two pitcher sites here on this early slate.
Spencer Turnbull and Miles Mikolas will cost you more today, and not only does Stro have better numbers this season, he has a much better match-up here this afternoon against the White Sox. I think he is actually in a plus spot for a win here as the Sox will counter with Nova, and although he has been lit up in his last two starts, his ERA still sits under three, and those were tough match-ups against the Twins and the Angels.
All in all, in seven starts this season, Stroman has pitched well against bad offenses, and gotten hit by good offenses. I think Trevor Bauer is a lock here against Oakland, and I do not want to get any riskier with my SP2. On DraftKings, Stroman is just barely cheap enough to make it work.
Main Slate:
1B – Joey Votto – Cincinnati Reds – ($3,500 DK, $3,200 FD, $11 Y!, $6,600 FantasyDraft)
First of all, skip Votto on FanDuel for sure. He should easily be under $3K there. The other three sites look to keeping this pretty fair however. Votto is likely nearing the end of his fantastic career with Cincinnati, but my guess is he will still slowly improve on his numbers as the season progresses, and still have another decent when it is all said and done.
Votto is hitting just above .200 this season with just three home runs, but even less impressive in my eyes is the RBI total which sits at just six at this point, a month into the season. Samardzija has been really good at home this season, but he is getting hit hard by lefties. I will have some Reds stacks tonight, and they will definitely include lefties Votto, Derek Dietrich, and Jesse Winker.
2B – Robinson Cano – New York Mets – ($3,500 DK, $2,900 FD, $13 Y!, $6,500 FantasyDraft)
One more multi-site value play for the main slate tonight, as Robby Cano added to the offensive barrage the Mets displayed yesterday against Pablo Lopez and the Miami Marlins. They will face another young prospect in Sandy Alcantara today, and it will be interesting to see if they can match or come close to their 11 run outburst last night.
Cano is banged up, and will rest here and there so make sure he is back in the lineup again, but his 2-for-4 game last night and his 4-for-5 against the Padres a few days ago shows this vet can still swing it. We will need a cheap one-off everywhere tonight. Cano is my guy here.
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That is all for today’s edition of MLB DFS Top Value Plays. I hope you like the format, as I think this is the best way to talk about which value bats and pitchers to consider, no matter what site you play on.
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