Price: $5,000
J.D. Martinez' ability to make ridiculous contact against both left- and right-handed pitching tends to make him a mainstay in this article.
2018 saw him hit lefties for a 44.0% hard-hit and 14.0% soft-hit rate, while he posted a 45.2% hard-hit rate and only a 10.0% soft-hit rate against righties. In 2017, he had better than 47.0% hard contact in both splits, and in 2016 he had a 45.7% hard-hit rate against lefties and 39.1% against righties.
Dating back to the start of the 2017 season, Martinez' 92.2 mile-per-hour average exit velocity ranks ninth among the 508 hitters with at least 100 batted-ball events.
Today, he's up against Oakland Athletics righty Mike Fiers, who hasn't posted a SIERA of 4.25 or better since 2015. Dating back to the start of the 2018 season, he has allowed opposing hitters a 39.8% hard-hit rate and 43.6% fly-ball rate -- just the kind of contact a pitcher can't afford against a guy like Martinez.
Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. 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.