3 Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for 8/8/18

Matt Carpenter, 1B, St. Louis Cardinals

FanDuel Price: $4,500

There are far better matchups on the board than taking a shot at Trevor Richards in Marlins Park, but we might have to make an exception for Matt Carpenter, who's been a one-man wrecking crew for the St. Louis Cardinals. Carpenter slugged his fourth home run in five games on Tuesday, and since the beginning of May he's putting up a ridiculous 54.4% hard-hit rate, 48.2% fly-ball rate, .451 wOBA, and .365 ISO. That comes out to a 188 wRC+ over that span.

It's hard to bet against a guy posting those kinds of numbers, and we have to like his chances of knocking one out against Richards, who's allowing a 37.5% fly-ball rate and 41.7% hard-hit rate. Sure, Richards has only allowed five dingers this year, but given his batted-ball numbers, that looks to be merely the luck of a fortuitous 6.0% home-run-to-fly-ball rate.

Despite Carpenter's recent hot play, few are likely to be on him at this price and in this matchup, making him an ideal one-off if you're looking to be contrarian.

Kenyatta Storin is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Kenyatta Storin also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username yatters. 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.