4 Daily Fantasy Baseball Value Plays for 5/26/16
Ryan Raburn, OF, Colorado Rockies
FanDuel Price: $2,300
Normally, targeting Ryan Raburn against a righty isn't exactly a formula for success. But with the Colorado Rockies having the designated hitter at Fenway Park and Raburn's quality peripherals versus righties this year, there are certainly worse options at his price.
The Rockies have a couple things working in their favor today with the best park factor on the slate and the opposing pitcher with the highest SIERA in Clay Buchholz. Buchholz has seen his strikeout rate, walk rate, and ground-ball rate -- the holy trinity of pitching stats -- all slide drastically the wrong way this year, pushing his SIERA up to a ghastly 5.21. His last three starts have been even a bit worse with the SIERA moving to 5.93. We want to favor lefties, but Raburn's price is pretty enticing if he's in the lineup.
Raburn hasn't had many chances against righties toward the tail end of his career, but he has made the most of the ones he has seen. He has a 46.2% hard-hit rate in 39 plate appearances this year with a pair of dingers and two doubles. He does strikeout quite a bit -- thus the usual bench-riding against righties -- but Buchholz hasn't gotten many of those this year. This may be one of those rare spots in which using Raburn against a pitcher of his same handedness could end with quality results.