Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for 4/24/19
When being contrarian in daily fantasy sports, there's a fine line between taking a calculated risk and being reckless. But differentiating your lineups from everyone else is the name of the game if you plan on taking down one of those highly lucrative DFS tournaments. Whether it's because of Vegas totals, other options at a given position, or some gem you've found that everyone is overlooking, we can always find potential under-owned plays if we look hard enough.
Here are three such players to consider branching out for on FanDuel's main slate.
Caleb Smith, P, Miami Marlins
FanDuel Price: $8,200
With only five games on the slate, ownership should be tighter, but Caleb Smith could go overlooked.
The Miami Marlins are on the road visiting the Philadelphia Phillies, which is a negative park shift for Smith, who comes into this game with a 33.3% strikeout rate this season. If he has a strong strikeout rate, why will he be going overlooked? Well, this is a smaller slate, but it features Gerrit Cole, Trevor Bauer, Masahiro Tanaka, and Aaron Nola, all of whom have shown to be consistent aces.
Smith can 100% hang with any of those pitchers and has done so this season with 29 strikeouts in 23 innings pitched while only allowing six earned runs. He has allowed fewer earned runs than all of those pitchers listed above, yet is the cheapest of the bunch.
The Phillies have a 22.4% strikeout rate versus left-handed pitchers this season, which should allow Smith to continue his strong start to the season.
Gordon Beckham, SS, Detroit Tigers
FanDuel Price: $2,800
The Detroit Tigers have a nice positive park in their favor being at Fenway Park, so we should be looking to target their offense tonight.
Gordon Beckham comes into this game with a six-game hitting streak, a span during which he has two doubles, two home runs, and three RBIs. That's super solid production from a player who is under $3,000 and has a great history versus Rick Porcello, who will be on the bump for the Boston Red Sox tonight. Beckham has 32 career at-bats versus Porcello, totaling 15 hits, six doubles, one home run, six RBIs and a .469 batting average.
Whether you believe in batter-versus-pitcher or not, with Porcello allowing a .374 wOBA and 2.00 homers per nine to right-handed hitters to start the season, Beckham is in a nice spot to continue his hitting streak.
Mike Ford, 1B, New York Yankees
FanDuel Price: $2,500
Despite dealing with a ton of injuries, the New York Yankees are on a six-game winning streak and getting it done every night.
They are on the road with an implied run total sitting at 3.93, which shouldn't be too much trouble for them to hit the over on since they have scored four or more runs in each game against the Los Angeles Angels this series. It also helps that they are up against Trevor Cahill, who has allowed nine earned runs over his last 8.1 innings pitched. So far this season, which is a small sample size, Cahill is allowing a .508 wOBA, 4.00 homers per nine innings, and a 47% hard contact rate to left-handed hitters.
Ford is showing to be a power hitter with a .200 ISO versus right-handed pitchers, but he also comes with a bit of risk since he carries a 28% strikeout rate versus righties.
Thomas Vecchio is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Thomas Vecchio also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username TomVec629. 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.
