3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Monday 8/8/22
With production being highly variable on a night-to-night basis, daily fantasy baseball plays a bit differently than other sports.
As a result of this, the primary method of selecting hitters is to "stack" certain teams in good spots to produce. Most of the top stacks on a given day come with hefty salaries. In addition to that, a vast majority of pitchers with the upside to win tournaments are high-salaried hurlers.
Therefore, crushing your value plays -- whether it be a pitcher unexpectedly piling up strikeouts or a low-salaried batter racking up points -- can be the secret sauce to taking down a tournament.
Which budget options stand out today on FanDuel?
Ian Happ, OF, Cubs ($2,800)
The Chicago Cubs are a handy stacking option tonight in a date with Anibal Sanchez. Not only do they carry a solid 4.53-run implied total, the Cubs are a pretty easy stack to get to salary-wise.
Sanchez is exactly the kind of pitcher we want to stack against. He has a 5.03 SIERA and is striking out only 17.0% of hitters through 20 MLB frames this season. He's conceding 2.70 homers per nine thanks to a 38.1% hard-hit rate and 46.0% fly-ball rate.
Ian Happ stands out as a great point-per-dollar play. He's striking out just 21.8% of the time against righties and has been fantastic at home, sporting a .392 wOBA in the split (compared to a .293 wOBA on the road).
We project Happ to score 14.0 FanDuel points and rank him as the fourth-best hitter of the night. Rafael Ortega ($2,200) and Nelson Velazquez ($2,200) are two other low-salary Cubs who need to be on your radar.
Jake McCarthy, OF, Diamondbacks ($2,200)
The Arizona Diamondbacks hold a 4.78 implied total, the third-highest of the slate, for their matchup with Tyler Beede in what is likely to be bullpen game for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Jake McCarthy is a low-salary way to get in on the fun.
Beede, a righty, is punching out just 13.3% of hitters this year at the big-league level despite working primarily out of the bullpen -- a role that usually results in a boost in strikeouts. After Beede, a Pittsburgh 'pen that is third-worst in reliever xFIP (4.40) should keep the good matchups coming for McCarthy, who has been slotted sixth in the lineup in six of his past seven starts.
McCarthy projects for 10.9 FanDuel points, per our model. He's the fourth-best point-per-dollar bat (as of early Monday).
Victor Robles, OF, Nationals ($2,200)
Victor Robles is locked in as the leadoff hitter for the depleted Washington Nationals. Any leadoff guy with a salary this low should pique our interest, and Robles can thrive in tonight's matchup.
He'll be up against Keegan Thompson, who has posted a meh 21.2% strikeout rate. Thompson has permitted exactly five earned runs in two of his past three outings, and he recorded a poor 4.64 xFIP in July.
Robles has stolen three bases over his last 13 games and has four hits -- including two for extra bases -- across the last four games.
While Washington's 3.47 implied total makes the Nats an unappealing stack, Robles is a quality one-off salary-saver.
