3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on Wednesday 8/3/22
Just like in other sports, the focal point of your daily fantasy baseball lineups will be your high-salary studs. These guys take up by far the biggest chunk of your cap space, but they also offer the highest ceiling. And in the case of pitchers, the high-salary options typically come with the highest floors, too.
For hitters, we're looking for guys with big numbers, strong matchups, and with players around them that are likely to produce, as well, increasing our chances for runs and RBI. For pitchers, we want big strikeout numbers, while the ability to go deep in a game and pick up a win is also valuable.
With your high-salary picks playing such a big role in your lineup, you need to be right on these guys, so let's take a look at a few top-end options you can count on to anchor your lineup today.
Shohei Ohtani, SP, Los Angeles Angels ($11,300)
Shohei Ohtani makes for appointment viewing, and with him on the bump facing a great matchup, I can't ignore him tonight for DFS purposes.
Spanning 99 1/3 innings pitched this year, Ohtani has been ridiculous on the bump with a 36.4% strikeout and 5.8% walk rate. Batters are making pretty weak contact against him as well -- he's allowed only a 25.3% hard-hit rate this season.
Oakland's .274 team wOBA is the league's worst mark, and their .131 isolated power (ISO) and 23.5% strikeout rate are pretty mediocre team marks as well.
We project Ohtani for 39.7 FanDuel points -- 5.9 more than anyone else -- and the Athletics' 2.89 implied total is the lowest of the night.
Christian Yelich, OF, Milwaukee Brewers ($3,600)
While many may focus on the triumphant return of Freddy Peralta to the Milwaukee Brewers, it likely overshadows a delightful offensive matchup for Milwaukee against Tyler Beede.
Beede has really been rough this season. While the 27.6% hard-hit rate is more than palatable, the 4.0% K-BB% rate is a bit ugly. Beede has only recorded a very mediocre 8.6% swinging-strike rate on the year.
As we dive into some batted-ball data, we can see that lefties enjoy far better metrics in terms of hard-hit rate (33.8%) and fly-ball rate (37.5%). For all of those reasons, I'm really digging Christian Yelich tonight.
Juan Soto, OF, San Diego Padres ($3,900)
After making some massive trade deadline moves, the San Diego Padres will be making a push for the playoffs.
That is likely to start tonight with some big bats like Juan Soto (assuming he's in the lineup).
Chad Kuhl has been getting by with smoke and mirrors so far this season -- there's nothing that screams of a pitcher with a 4.59 ERA in 99 innings pitched. He's only struck out 16.6% of hitters so far this season, including a 40.3% fly-ball rate and 1.29 HR/9.
Lefties have particularly enjoyed a great deal of success against Kuhl this season -- try on a .486 slugging percentage, a 38.7% hard-hit rate, and 39.1% fly-ball rate on for size.
If he is available and in the middle of this Padres lineup tonight, make sure you roster Soto.
Matt Kupferle is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Matt Kupferle also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username MKupferle. 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.
