5 Daily Fantasy Baseball Value Plays for 4/24/19

Rio Ruiz, 3B, Baltimore Orioles

Price: $2,300

The Baltimore Orioles have scored five runs or more in four of their last six games, and it's starting to look like their lineup might not be terrible.

They still rank only 20th in the majors in wRC+, but they've shown that they can offer upside when the circumstances are right, and that looks to be the case tonight against the Chicago White Sox and righty Ervin Santana. This matchup has the Orioles boasting a strong 5.13-run implied total.

Of course, that can be attributed to Santana as much as it can the orioles' recent success. The 36-year-old hasn't finished a season with a SIERA better than 4.60 since 2016, and hasn't finished better than 4.25 since 2014.

Last year he only pitched five games, but he turned in an egregious 5.95 SIERA, and if we combine that with 2019's two starts he's been thrashed for an absurd .451 wOBA, boasting a 7.08 xFIP. Over the last two years, the average hitter against Santana has basically been Mike Trout.

Rio Ruiz certainly doesn't offer anything special from the dish on his own. In 284 career plate appearances he's only managed a .273 wOBA, though admittedly that is being held down by a .250 batting average on balls in play (BABIP). BABIP tends to hover around .300 for most hitters, so we can expect some improvement from him -- especially because his 34.6% hard-hit rate is a pretty solid rate, and is paired with a not-terrible 19.2% soft-hit rate.

He's got the platoon advantage here, and with Santana's ability to elevate even the most middling bats, Ruiz shouldn't have a tough time returning value in the heart of a potentially high-scoring Baltimore lineup.