MLB

3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Tuesday 8/9/22

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?

Charlie Morton, P, Braves ($8,900)

Admittedly, with top-shelf studs like Shohei Ohtani ($11,200), Zack Wheeler ($10,700) and Gerrit Cole ($10,900) on the slate (plus Shane Bieber against the Tigers), it's not a great night to roll the dice on a value arm. With that said, it's a Coors slate, and a few high-salary offenses are in good spots, so if you want to load up on bats, Charlie Morton isn't a bad dart throw.

Morton is at Fenway against the Boston Red Sox. It's obviously not an easy matchup. But Boston is in a funk right now, sitting 21st in wOBA (.295) over the past 14 days with the 11th-highest strikeout rate (23.6%) in that span. And Morton is cooking, posting a 32.5% strikeout rate and 2.98 xFIP across his last 10 starts. The dude has been dealing.

Our model has the three aforementioned studs all scoring at least 39.0 FanDuel points, so if we're deviating from that group, we need a guy who has a solid ceiling. Morton has that in this matchup. We project him to score 34.6 FanDuel points and rank him as the top point-per-dollar arm.

Using Morton is risky, but doing so will allow you to stack Coors -- and/or other top offenses -- in ways that those who roster one of the three aces won't be able to.

Joey Gallo, OF, Dodgers ($3,200)

Joey Gallo is a sweet one-off salary saver tonight, or he can be a low-salary inclusion to Los Angeles Dodgers stacks.

LA is taking on Joe Ryan, a righty. Ryan has been decent in 2022, but he doesn't generate many punchouts, registering a 23.9% strikeout rate and 10.9% swinging-strike rate. He has 21 strikeouts in 26 innings over his last five starts against teams other than the Tigers. Lefties are striking out only 16.9% of the time against him.

Gallo is having a difficult season and is at risk of being yanked for a pinch-hitter later in the game if he comes up against a lefty. But he's still capable of donging with the platoon advantage and has a 55.1% fly-ball rate in the split this season.

We project Gallo for 10.6 FanDuel points, and he's an economical way to get a piece of a Dodgers offense that sports a 4.96 implied total.

Robbie Grossman, OF, Braves ($2,300)

The Atlanta Braves traded for Robbie Grossman primarily due to his outstanding numbers versus lefties, and they'll get to deploy him tonight versus Rich Hill.

A switch-hitter, Grossman has mauled southpaws in 2022, putting up a .422 wOBA in the split. Hill has permitted a .345 wOBA to righties while striking out just 18.0% of batters in the split.

Grossman is a low-salary way to get access to a Braves offense that is on the stacking radar on this slate. Atlanta's 5.14 implied total is the night's third-highest, and they might slip through the cracks a little bit if the masses opt for the high-salary bats from Coors instead.