4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Value Plays for 5/25/16
Mikie Mahtook, OF, Tampa Bay Rays
FanDuel Price: $2,000
If we operate under the assumptioon that the Tampa Bay Rays will put Mikie Mahtook in the two hole again tonight, you should just view him as a free spot on your roster. He's min-priced on FanDuel, dude mops up left-handed pitching, and the Rays are facing one who's struggling immensely in Justin Nicolino.
Nicolino easily has the highest SIERA on the slate at 6.23. How did it get that high, you ask? Well, that's what happens when you have a 4.9% strikeout rate and 8.9% walk rate. That allows the opposing offense to absolutely flood the base paths, and a 45.6% ground-ball rate gives them enough upside for us to go all in.
His sample size is still limited, but Mahtook's first 81 big-league plate appearances against lefties have been gross. He has a 37.7% hard-hit rate and 15.1% soft-hit rate to go with a 42.3% fly-ball rate. He had 195 plate appearances against lefties last year between Triple-A and the majors, resulting in nine dingers and nine doubles with a .291/.345/.514 slash. That sample size is still small, but if he keeps stroking it like he has, he'll be an easy choice going forward whenever the Rays are up against a southpaw.
