MLB

4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Value Plays for Wednesday 9/15/21

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-salaried slugger is a lot more common than a total dud from a top-salaried NBA player or 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 these low-salary picks can be the difference between a good and a great lineup isn't much different than DFS for other sports. But value plays being able to completely make up for a whiff on a high-salaried play is somewhat unique.

Huascar Ynoa, P, Braves

FanDuel Salary: $8,400

Wednesday's pitching slate is a mile wide, but only an inch deep.

There are not many traditional aces on the slate, but several interesting arms with strikeout upside, and that includes Huascar Ynoa. The Braves' right-hander sees the softest matchup possible for a righty with the Colorado Rockies tonight. The
Rockies' current active roster sports just a 77 wRC+ overall against right-handed pitching this year, and there is an added bonus tonight that they are away from Coors Field.

Ynoa actually faced Colorado at Coors Field two weeks ago for his worst start since returning from the IL on August 17th, where the Rockies chased him after 5.2 innings amidst allowing 4 earned runs. Given the environment, that performance is not a terrible floor outcome, and he may be able to face the soft lineup at home with much better success this go-round.

Ynoa's 27.0% strikeout rate personally the season as a whole is great value at this salary in a soft matchup, even though the Rockies are not a high-strikeout team at just 23.0% for the season.

Odubel Herrera, OF, Phillies

FanDuel Salary: $2,500

The Phillies may sneak under the radar tonight with so many high implied totals on the slate, but their 5.26 implied team total is not worth ignoring when considering the value inside their lineup on FanDuel.

That starts with their leadoff man, Odubel Herrera. Herrera is having a career year against right-handed pitching, yet is just $2,500 with the common knowledge he is batting at the top of the order most nights against righties. Specifically, Herrera has a career-best .186 isolated power (ISO) versus righties so far in 2021, and he has added a solid .326 wOBA as well.

Alec Mills starts for the Chicago Cubs tonight, and Mills generally does a great job of suppressing hard contact, but lefties have gotten much better results than righties. Mills has allowed a 5.11 xFIP and 32.7% fly-ball rate to lefties, whereas those numbers are a staunch 3.65 xFIP and 23.5% fly-ball rate to righties. That platoon advantage is important to target against him, which makes Herrera, Brad Miller, and Didi Gregorius the key cogs to a Phillies stack for Wednesday.

Jo Adell, OF, Angels
Jack Mayfield, SS, Angels

FanDuel Salary: $2,900 and $2,400

All things considered, the Angels may be the best stack on the slate tonight.

Their salaries are incredibly forgiving against the struggling White Sox lefty Dallas Keuchel. Since the trading deadline, Keuchel has just a 5.27 xFIP combined with a 41.0% hard-hit rate and a paltry 10.6% strikeout rate. Balls are in play often against Keuchel at the moment, and they are usually smashed somewhere far away from home plate.

The only downside is that, in general, the Angels' lineup does not have many powerful bats. David Fletcher and Philip Gosselin both have ISO figures below .110, and both figure to bat in the top three spots in the lineup. There are, however, a couple of interesting bats deeper in their lineup -- Jo Adell and Jack Mayfield.

Adell has a .250 ISO against lefties this season in a growing sample of 44 plate appearances, and Mayfield has a .227 ISO across 75 appearances himself. Both have largely hit too low into the Angels' lineup this season to be core plays, but projected lineups give them a decent chance to slot higher in the order tonight without Shohei Ohtani. If both crack the top-6 spots, this Angels' lineup figures to be much more powerful to take advantage of a reeling Keuchel.