3 Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for 5/8/18

Francisco Cervelli, C, Pittsburgh Pirates

FanDuel Price: $2,800

The Pittsburgh Pirates' offense normally comes with little fanfare in DFS, but tonight they face one of the season's worst pitchers. Lucas Giolito has sputtered to a 6.56 SIERA, 12.2% strikeout rate, and 15.7% walk rate through six starts, in addition to allowing a woeful .352 wOBA. Even for a pedestrian lineup like the Pirates, these are numbers that can't be ignored. However, with Coors Field in play, and plenty of stronger offenses in good spots, the Pirates could go overlooked.

The Pirates could make for an intriguing low-owned stack, and you could consider adding catcher Francisco Cervelli to the mix. Cervelli has been around a long time, having never hit double-digit home runs in a single season, and including this year's dingers, he has all of 28 career home runs.

So why is he getting a mention when we don't even need to roster a catcher? Well, as it turns out, Cervelli might be the 2018 version of Yonder Alonso, becoming the latest poster boy for the fly-ball revolution. After submitting just a 27.1% fly-ball rate in 2017, Cervelli has bumped that up to 49.3%, and when added with an improved 38.7% hard-hit rate, he's already hit as many home runs as all of last year (5). His Statcast numbers don't disagree, showing a rise in both average exit velocity and launch angle as well. It's hard to argue with the overall results, as Cervelli now owns an impressive .403 wOBA and .258 isolated power (ISO), and his strikeout rate hasn't budged from his career norms (18.2%).

Perhaps Cervelli tails off, but Alonso is showing similar power as last year, so these sorts of changes could certainly hold. It looks like there's some sneaky pop in this bat now, so don't sleep on Cervelli if you're rolling out some Pirates against Giolito.