Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top MLB DFS Value Plays – May 17th – Oh, Oh Oh… Oh Riley!
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!
SP – Frankie Montas – Oakland Athletics – $41
First of all, a happy Friday is in order, and as my boy @ThunderDanDFS will be sure to tell you today, it’s Frankie Friday! Scherzer and deGrom are ridiculously expensive here on Yahoo! tonight, and since I consider Montas a bargain at this price on this huge slate, he fits in very well here. The A’s pounded Detroit in the first game of this series yesterday 17-3.
I will leave all of the advanced stats for the Pitching Primer as I am sure Frankie will be a big part of it, but I will say this. Montas has been outstanding this season, and he has excelled against right-handed bats. The Tigers lineup is predominantly right-handed, so I think Montas has the stuff to match the output of the top studs on the slate tonight.
2B – Kyle Farmer – Cincinnati Reds – $7
Farmer is cheap everywhere, and he may not even start tonight. First of all make sure he is in fact in the lineup against Rich Hill and the Dodgers, but he should be. I thought the same yesterday against lefty Jose Quintana and he did not start, and ended up with a pinch-hit double in the bottom of the eighth.
So why not make him across the board value if I have interest you ask? Great question! Well, he is listed as a catcher still on FanDuel, and he has eligibility at first and second base on DraftKings, but this is really only fitting for me on Yahoo at the bare minimum salary. With two mid-tier pitchers this will not be necessary, but if you want to pay up for Max or deGrom, you may need a play or two down here.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – FantasyDraft
OF – Khris Davis – Oakland Athletics – $8,100
What if there was a Kris Davis? Or even Cris Davis? Either way, both of these Davis’ have had some struggles this season, and both can still hit the ball very hard and far. Well Chris not so much anymore but we will get there. Khrush, as he is more affectionately known, wasn’t much of a factor in the throttling of the Tigers yesterday, as he was just 1-for-4, but he gets a lefty tonight in Daniel Norris.
With all of this Athletics value, it will be hard not to just stack 1-6 here with an implied run total of 5.1 at the moment. But as usual, there will likely be 1000 different ways to go here on Fantasy Draft tonight with the position flexibility. Khrush can pop at any time and break a slate. He had a double dong game on Monday, and he has hit six homers in just 39 at-bats against lefties this season. Davis also sports a .692 slugging percentage against lefties as a result.
IF – Chris Davis – Baltimore Orioles – $6,600
Alrighty Chris Davis number two. Will the real Chris Davis please stand up? This is actually serious by the way. This Davis will face Indians right-hander Jefry Rodriguez who currently has a sub-three ERA, but an xFIP of 4.59 suggests he has had some help, and regression is coming. The Orioles is lineup is nothing scary, so this could go either way. Rodriguez has only thrown 24.2 innings in 2019, and has only allowed two home runs, but both came to lefties.
First base is deep today, and this Davis really only makes sense today here on Fantasy Draft. Davis hit his fifth homer on Sunday as he seems to slowly be kicking that funk he started the season in, and he has hit safely in back-to-back games. It is pretty much home run or bust here though, and Davis has a shot to go deep tonight here.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – FanDuel
SP – Joey Lucchesi – San Diego Padres – $6,200
It looks like pretty much every site has Lucchesi too cheap today, as we get another lefty against the Pirates today. Yesterday it was Eric Lauer, and Lucchesi has been a better pitcher this year, so this is definitely another spot to target. Sure we have a nice chunk of aces in action tonight, but on a 15 game slate you will likely need some expensive bats to win a big tournament tonight. With Lucchesi’s salary this low on FanDuel, this looks like a GPP lock.
Lucchesi hasn’t been dominant or anything this year, but it is worth noting he has had his best at home this season. Also worth noting, his last start came in the thin Colorado air against the Rockies, and Lucchesi held his own. He scattered just three hits and struck out four in 5.1 innings of work. This looks like an easy 30 FDP on paper, and Lucchesi will likely be pretty popular today because of it.
1B – Max Muncy – Los Angeles Dodgers – $2,800
Every day/night when I put this article together, my first path of attack is to find the differences from site to site. That is usually the easy part, but as the season progress it has been getting tougher. Today only there was only one that really, really stands out, as Max Muncy has dipped below $3K here on FanDuel.
We had a lenghty rain delay last night in Cincinnati, and Great American “Small” Park has been known to be a launch pad on days after rain if it is at all humid, and I think we will see bombs here. Anthony DeSclafani will be on the mound for the Reds, and the Dodgers have a IRT of over five. Muncy has had his struggles this season, but this is way too cheap. In comparison, Muncy is still $5K on DraftKings, and $9,800 on Fantasy Draft. This price on FanDuel literally makes zero sense.
Daily Fantasy Baseball: Top Value Plays – DraftKings
C/3B – Willians Astudillo – Minnesota Twins – $3,600
The Twins keep crushing the ball up-and-down this lineup, as they hit four more home runs last night and put an 11 spot up against the Mariners and Erik Swanson, today will be much tougher against Marco Gonzales who has been pretty solid this year, but this lineup has been scoring on everybody.
Jason Castro is on fire as he hit another homer last night, but with a lefty on the mound today, and Mitch Garver on the injured list, expect to see Astudillo in this lineup again, and likely at the top of it. $3,600 is a little more than I want to pay for a catcher today, but if you can get a lead off catcher at this price, you have to consider it for cash games.
SS – Marcus Semien – Oakland Athletics – $3,900
Another lead off hitter as that seems to be my favorite thing today, but Oakland will face a lefty today in Daniel Norris, and they are way too cheap across the board here on DK, much like Fantasy Draft. I do not think they are going to score 17 runs again, but the Tigers will need some extra out of Norris today with having used four guys out of the bullpen yesterday, all of which gave up some runs.
Semien has been overall quiet this season, but the one thing that remains is that he is solid against left-handed pitching. He is hitting .271 with five homers to this point, so not bad but not great, and he currently carries a .770 OPS. A little low but not terrible for a guy under $4K. Semien hit that fifth homer last night in the seventh inning of off Reed Garrett.
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 2 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.
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1B/3B – Ryon Healy – Seattle Mariners – ($3,500 DK, $2,700 FD, $13 Y!, $6,800 FantasyDraft)
Healy tagged Michael Pineda for his seventh home run last night, and although he is slumping a little at the plate over the last couple of weeks, he has dropped to a nice price across the industry. The Twins will have the reborn Martin Perez on the hill tonight, so this will be a tough match-up, but Perez did finally show some signs of inevitable regression in his last start against the Tigers, taking his first loss of the season.
Healy is actually more reversed splits, as all seven of his home runs have come against right-handed pitching this season, but he likely will get bumped up to the middle of the lineup tonight as he normally does against lefties. This one is kind of risky, but Healy will definitely be a low-owned GPP target of mine tonight.
OF/3B – Austin Riley – Atlanta Braves – ($3,900 DK, $2,100 FD, $15 Y!, $7,400 FantasyDraft)
Well the 22-year-old Austin Riley has certainly hit the big leagues with a bang. He followed up his 1-for-3 major league debut which featured his first major league home run yesterday with a 3-for-4 outing adding his first double. It’s only been two games, but it is hard not to be excited about this kid if you have seen basically any of his first eight major league plate appearances.
The double and the home run should say enough, but Riley hit barrel after barrel last night, and this kid looks like the real deal. He had slugged 15 homers at AAA Gwinnett this season in 37 games before his call-up, and if he continues to mash like he has, he will be here to stay.
Yahoo! priced him out of play in my opinion, and he got a healthy price bump on DK, but this is a lock on FanDuel, and Riley is still viable anywhere. FanDuel also has him at third base as well, while other sites have moved him to the outfield. The Braves will be at home facing the Brewers and Jhoulys Chacin.
Next. MLB DFS Picks and Pivots – May 17 – deGOAT versus the WOAT. dark
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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