MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Studs to Target on 8/2/16

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Madison Bumgarner, P, San Francisco Giants

FanDuel Price: $11,800

Madison Bumgarner is a tough guy to figure out tonight. With a road start against the lowly Philadelphia Phillies, he’s in a great spot -- that’s not the dilemma. It’s his probable ownership that is hard to pin down.

As one of the game’s premier arms in a good matchup, he figures to be highly owned. On the other hand, he’s the most expensive hurler on a night where there are a lot of quality options -- David Price, Jose Fernandez, Jacob deGrom, Gerrit Cole and Carlos Carrasco, to name a few -- so there is some reason to look elsewhere in tournaments.

In cash games, Bumgarner’s combination of a high floor and through-the-roof upside is hard to ignore. He’s scored at least 31 FanDuel points in each of his last nine starts, and in that span, Bumgarner has totaled at least 45 points four times, including an 81-point outburst.

Ranking first in home run factor, Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia is one of the best run-scoring environments in the game, but no one told the Phillies that. Philadelphia owns the worst home wOBA (.271) in baseball, and they’ve hit just 45 taters at home this year in 1,776 plate appearances. They haven’t been much better against lefties, registering a .282 wOBA against them. The Phillies' implied total of 2.9 runs in the lowest of the day.

Bumgarner, our top-ranked pitcher, has been dealing all year long. He’s pitching to a 3.23 SIERA while recording a career-best 28.4% strikeout rate. He set the world on fire in July, posting a 31.9% strikeout rate with a 5.1% walk rate.