MLB

3 Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for Friday 6/25/21

When being contrarian in daily fantasy sports, there's a fine line between taking a calculated risk and being reckless. But differentiating your lineups from everyone else's is the name of the game if you plan on taking down one of those highly lucrative DFS tournaments. Whether it's because of bookmaker totals, other options at a given position, or some gem you've found who everyone is overlooking, we can always find potential under-rostered plays if we look hard enough.

Here are three such players to consider branching out for on FanDuel's main slate.

Pablo Lopez, P, Miami Marlins ($8,700)

With 13 games on tonight's slate, there are bound to be a few pitchers who go overlooked.

There are two clear aces on tonight's slate -- Carlos Rodon and Framber Valdez -- who both have amazing matchups you should be willing to attack. We also have no Coors Field game on tonight's slate, so there's no mega-expensive stack you need to be paying up for. Since that is the case, you can turn to Pablo Lopez in tournaments tonight, and hopefully, grab him at a very low rostership rate.

Lopez comes in with a 25.0% strikeout rate, a 6.2% walk rate, a super-solid 3.65 SIERA, and is only allowing 0.85 HR/9. Lopez is crushing it this season and he has a matchup that should allow him to excel tonight. He will be up against the Washington Nationals, who are struggling versus right-handed pitchers this season. Sure, Kyle Schwarber is super-hot right now, but he's just one player. Overall on the season, the Nationals hold a 93 wRC+ (16th in the league), a .147 ISO (20th), a 22.8% strikeout rate (22nd), a 29.9% fly-ball rate (30th), and a 31.9% hard-contact rate (16th) in that split.

Adolis Garcia, OF, Texas Rangers ($3,500)

The Texas Rangers have a modest 4.08 implied run total tonight and should be going vastly overlooked tonight.

Even though the Rangers aren't an amazing team, they have some fantastic fantasy options you can be considering tonight. Let's start off with the fact they are facing Mike Minor, who is struggling this season versus right-handed hitters to the tune of 1.60 HR/9 allowed, a 42.6% fly-ball rate, and a 30.1% hard-contact rate. If too many fly balls are an issue for Minor, we want to target a hitter from the Rangers who has some power and can generate fly balls against left-handed pitchers.

This leads us to Adolis Garcia, who comes in with a .232 ISO, a 46.4% hard-contact rate, and a 36.2% fly-ball rate versus left-handed pitchers this season. This has me looking at Garcia as a great one-off for tournaments tonight. He can bring the power in this matchup and exceed value that way. I won't look to fully stack the Rangers but I will be grabbing some shares of Garcia tonight.

Mike Zunino, C, Tampa Bay Rays ($2,500)

Griffin Canning isn't a great pitcher and you should be looking to attack him tonight.

The Tampa Bay Rays have a 4.65 implied run total tonight and fall into the middle-of-the-pack, which should cause them to go largely overlooked. If that ends up being the case, they could be my favorite stack for tournaments on the entire slate. Canning is struggling this season versus both righty and left hitters, but giving up more home runs to righties, so we'll attack him there. He comes in allowing 2.56 HR/9, a 46.0% fly-ball rate, and a 31.0% hard-contact rate versus right-handed hitters this season.

Those are some juicy numbers to see if you want to stack against him and you may want to consider Mike Zunino tonight. He is a catcher, so he should naturally be less popular than most other players, which is always great for tournaments. Zunino comes in with a .283 ISO, a massive 53.8% fly-ball rate, and a 42.3% hard-contact rate versus right-handed pitchers. I'm shocked by those numbers as well and for that salary, his home run upside is clear tonight.