3 Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for 9/19/18

Ryan O'Hearn, 1B, Kansas City Royals

FanDuel Price: $3,700

On paper, Chris Archer makes for a nice tournament value play against the Kansas City Royals. Archer only costs $7,800 and has a solid 3.83 SIERA, 24.6% strikeout rate, and 7.8% walk rate, while the Royals have one of the night's lowest implied totals (3.31).

But while that's all true, it's hard to ignore the fact that Archer has struggled in spite of those peripherals this year, and his ERA has also exceeded his SIERA in each of the last two seasons. His 4.66 ERA is a career-worst and his 24.6% strikeout rate is his lowest since 2014. This is also his third straight campaign allowing a home-run-to-fly-ball rate above 14%.

Meanwhile, the Royals have actually performed surprisingly well at the plate over the last 30 days, posting a 40.2% hard-hit rate with the sixth-best wOBA (.336) and second-best ISO (.193). Maybe this is just a small sample size fluke, but there might be enough here for a contrarian look in tournaments.

At the very least, Archer has struggled against left-handed hitting this season, allowing a 40.9% hard-hit rate and .356 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA). That puts Ryan O'Hearn on the table, thanks in part to his monstrous .459 xwOBA and .438 ISO against righties over 105 plate appearances. Given the sample size, obviously some of this should be taken with a grain of salt, but O'Hearn showed some pop in the minors, and he's also showing a promising 52.2% hard-hit rate and 41.8% fly-ball rate in the split.

O'Hearn's price may not be ideal, but that should only keep ownership extremely low. Particularly with Archer expected to be a fairly popular value play, don't rule out the Royals as a sneaky contrarian offense.