3 Under-the-Radar Daily Fantasy Baseball Plays for 6/12/17
Daniel Nava, OF, Philadelphia Phillies
FanDuel Price: $2,200
Why He Will Go Overlooked:
There are six -- yes, six -- teams with implied team totals of 4.75 runs or more on Monday's slate. Facing Yovani Gallardo with a healthy implied of 5.46 runs, the Minnesota Twins and their outfielders, like Robbie Grossman, Max Kepler, and Byron Buxton, are likely to be heavily owned.
Facing Rick Porcello as heavy underdogs, the Philadelphia Phillies probably won't see a ton of ownership, including platoon outfielder Daniel Nava.
Why You Should Use Him:
Nava isn't usually popular, whether we're talking season-long or DFS, as he always seems to be involved in some sort of a platoon. For his career, he's only recorded one season of more than 325 plate appearances at the MLB level.
He's only recorded 83 plate appearances in 2017, but they've been productive ones. Nava is walking (15.7%) more than he's striking out (14.5%), and his .491 wOBA is nothing to scoff at.
Coming off his Cy Young campaign, Porcello has been inconsistent, and the home run ball has burned him -- he's allowed 1.56 home runs per nine innings pitched so far in 2017.
Left-handers have really had their way with Porcello, as he's allowed a .358 wOBA and a .512 slugging percentage in that situation. If you're looking for reasons to be optimistic, look away from his batted-ball profile here, too -- lefties have rocked him for a 44.4% hard-hit rate and 50.0% fly-ball rate.
If Nava finds himself in the starting lineup tonight, he's a cheap pivot that still provides some high upside.
