3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 3/29/19

J.D. Martinez, OF, Boston Red Sox

Price: $4,800

There aren't a lot of players who hit the ball as hard as J.D. Martinez. He ranked 14th in the majors with a 44.9% hard-hit rate last year, and his 10.9% soft-hit rate was the fourth-lowest among anyone who ranked top-30 in hard contact. That came one year after he mashed for a career-best 49.0% hard-hit rate in 2017.

Over those last two years, his 92.1 mile-per-hour average exit velocity ranks 12th among the 504 hitters with at least 100 batted-ball events, and if we just look at 2018, his ranking jumps to 10th out of 390.

Especially deadly against left-handed pitching, he has a 48.8% hard-hit rate and 40.5% fly-ball rate against southpaws (255 plate appearances) over the last two years, turning that contact into a .459 wOBA and .357 ISO.

He brings that power into a matchup with Seattle's Yusei Kikuchi, who will be making the first major league start of his career. Kikuchi pitched well in the Japan Pacific League in 2018, ranking second in WHIP among pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched, though the 0.9 home runs per nine innings he gave up leave some room to question his ability to limit opponents' power.

Oddsmakers don't project his MLB career to get off to a hot start, giving the Boston Red Sox the third-highest implied total on the slate, and this is a good opportunity for Martinez to show off his power.

Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.