5 Daily Fantasy Baseball Value Plays for 6/27/19

With production being highly variable on a night-to-night basis, daily fantasy baseball plays a bit differently than other sports.

An 0-for-4 dud from a chalky high-priced slugger is a lot more common than a total dud from a top-priced NBA player or even than a stinker from a top quarterback or running back.

That means that it's not uncommon for value plays to end up doing the heavy lifting in carrying your lineup. The fact that they can be the difference between a good and a great lineup isn't much different than other sports, but value plays being able to make up for a whiff on a high-priced play completely is somewhat unique.

Let's get right into it and take a look at the top value options on today's slate.

Matt Adams, 1B, Washington Nationals ($2,700)

Considering the fact that the Miami Marlins are starting Sandy Alcantara tonight, it's nice to be able to get a cheap bat in the Washington Nationals' lineup.

Solid 3.51 ERA be damned, Alcantara has been awful this year. He's walking 11% of the hitters he's faced and his skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) sits at only 5.43 -- much closer to his career average (5.37) than to the level of play a 3.51 ERA would suggest. A 5.55 xFIP and 13.5% walk rate against left-handed hitters since joining the Marlins makes this an especially good spot for lefty bats.

Enter Matt Adams, who shows off some massive power when he has the platoon advantage. He's on pace for his third consecutive season with an ISO of at least .250 against righties, and since 2017, he's racked up a .352 wOBA and .261 ISO on a 40.0% hard-hit rate and 46.1% fly-ball rate in the split.

Matt Beaty, 1B, Los Angeles Dodgers ($2,800)

Another offense you're going to want exposure to on this tiny slate are the Los Angeles Dodgers, who get a dreamy Coors Field matchup with righty Peter Lambert trying to defend the Colorado Rockies' home turf.

We've only seen Lambert deal in four major league games, and his 4.43 SIERA is nothing special. He also posted a 4.90 xFIP in a more significant 11-game Triple-A sample to start the 2019 season, so there's a good chance we're going to see Lambert's pitching get even worse than it has been in the majors so far.

There's nothing really special about Matt Beaty's offense, but with so few cheap options in the Dodgers' lineup, he's still worth a long look. His 21.0% fly-ball rate in the majors positions him worse than most hitters to take advantage of the thin air in Coors, but he's still making hard contact, with a 43.5% hard-hit rate and 12.9% soft-hit rate, and his 27.4% line drive rate is nothing to scoff at.

We've also only seen 76 plate appearances from Beaty in the majors, so we can't lean too heavily on it. He notched a 30.1% fly-ball rate in Triple-A this year (following a 34.9% mark in 2018), so an increase in fly balls is definitely within his range of outcomes.

Jake Lamb, 1B, Arizona Diamondbacks ($2,700)

Another first baseman with the platoon advantage, Lamb was activated from the injured list on Wednesday.

He's coming off a down year in 2018, but his .286 BABIP and 13.3% HR/FB rate were both below his career averages (.302 BABIP and 16.9% HR/FB), despite the fact that his 42.5% hard-hit rate was a career best. That means we can expect regression to hit and give him a bit of a boost.

Heading into that struggle-filled year, he had turned in a .374 wOBA and .281 ISO against righties in 2016 and a .386 wOBA and .270 ISO in 2017. He doesn't need to bounce even close to all the way back to those numbers to return value at this price, but it's nice to know he's got that kind of production in him.

The righty he's up against today isn't an intimidating one, either, with San Francisco's Tyler Beede having only managed a 5.50 SIERA over 10 major league games, walking 16.5% of the hitters he's faced while getting cracked for a 37.5% hard-hit rate.

Kole Calhoun, OF, Los Angeles Angels ($3,000)

Oakland Athletics righty Tanner Anderson certainly isn't the worst pitcher on this slate, but it's also not like his 4.04 SIERA over three starts this year (and 4.60 career average over nine games) should scare you off -- especially when his 54 2/3 Triple-A innings in 2019 saw him struggle to the tune of an egregious 6.04 xFIP.

Kole Calhoun is flexing some nice power in 2019, with a .233 ISO that is on pace to crush his previous career best (.179).

Calhoun's always shown some solid chops against right-handed pitching, but this year's stat line (.328 wOBA, .228 ISO, 10.2% walk rate, 45.7% hard-hit rate, 39.9% fly-ball rate) has made him a consistent source of value when his salary falls this low against righties in 2019.

Buster Posey, C, San Francisco Giants ($3,000)

Going in the opposite direction of Calhoun, Buster Posey has been terrible in 2019.

He's only managed a .286 wOBA over 205 plate appearances, and his work against left-handed pitching -- a split that once saw him notch a .525 wOBA in 181 plate appearances -- includes a .212 wOBA and a ridiculously low 1.6% walk rate in 2019.

Even if we're talking over-the-hill Posey, we've never seen him perform anywhere near this level. Last year, he got 151 cracks at southpaws and notched a .361 wOBA while walking 13.2% of the time. And we only have to go back to 2017 to find a wOBA north of .400 (.415) and a walk rate north of 14 (14.2%) in the split (162 plate appearances).

His contact isn't all that much worse in 2019, with a 34.8% hard-hit rate and 12.3% soft-hit rate compared to 36.3% and 13.8% last year, and while he's swinging on pitches out of the zone more (32.8%) that's still not a terrible rate, and he's only got an 8.3% swinging-strike rate.

All of that is to say -- don't expect Posey to keep hitting like he doesn't even belong in the majors. You can feel good about taking advantage of the discount those struggles bring, especially when he's up against a southpaw in Alex Young, who has yet to pitch a major league inning and has only managed a 4.33 xFIP in 54 2/3 Triple-A innings this year.

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.