3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 4/4/19

Freddie Freeman, 1B, Atlanta Braves

Price: $4,400

It doesn't feel great to try to go at Yu Darvish and his career 3.29 SIERA, but there are a couple of reasons it's something to look at tonight.

First, the slate is just so short. There are only six offenses in play, so you can't be too picky about your matchups -- especially while the Atlanta Braves' 4.36 implied total is the second-highest of the night.

Second, it's been a while since we've seen Darvish look overly scary. He got in just eight starts last year, but in those 40 innings, he struggled to the tune of a career-worst 4.11 SIERA. And even in his 31 games in 2017, his 3.71 SIERA was then the worst of his career.

He was nursing an elbow injury last year, but his first start of 2019 wasn't good. He notched only a 5.3% swinging-strike rate and his 91.3 mile-per-hour velocity on his fastball is down from the 92.9 and 93.0 marks he posted in his last two seasons. It's a one-game sample, but those numbers could be early red flags.

Freddie Freeman also doesn't need a prime matchup to offer big upside against righties. The 29-year-old hasn't posted a wOBA worse than .371 against righties since the 2012 season, topping .400 in two of the last three years. His 44.0% hard-hit rate in that split last year was a career-high clip, and there's no reason to expect the trend to break this year.

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.