3 Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for 5/10/19
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.
Frankie Montas, P, Oakland Athletics
FanDuel Price: $8,500
Frankie Montas might not be a household name yet, but he has shown a good bit of consistency to start the season and comes in at a reasonable price tag tonight.
Montas and the Oakland Athletics are at home in a great pitchers' park, facing off against the Cleveland Indians, who have an implied team total set at only 3.87. That is a very modest total for a team often known for having a great offense, but they haven't put it all together to start the season, with a mere 82 wRC+ versus right-handed pitchers. That mark is 25th in the league, while their .137 ISO versus righties is down at 28th, showing they provide no major threat tonight.
Montas has seven starts under his belt this season, where he has allowed three or fewer earned runs in each while posting five or more strikeouts five times. This gives him a solid floor of points each time he takes the mound, but he could have a limited ceiling with a 21.1% strikeout rate this season. You are sacrificing some potential upside to gain a safe floor of points while also bringing salary relief on top of all that.
With Coors Field on the slate, getting exposure to hitters there is always the right call, and paying up for Justin Verlander or Tyler Glasnow might not be possible in every lineup, thus making Montas a great mid-tier option.
Max Kepler, OF, Minnesota Twins
FanDuel Price: $3,700
If you aren't looking to stack hitters from Coors Field, going to the Minnesota Twins and their 5.05 implied run total tonight could be a great pivot.
They are facing off against Tyson Ross, who allowed a .368 wOBA, 1.16 homers per nine innings, and a 34.2% hard-contact rate to left-handed hitters last season. This puts Ross firmly in the category of pitchers you should be looking to stack against tonight since he struggles versus left-handed hitters, and the Twins shouldn't be as popular as there are five teams with an implied run total higher than them tonight.
Max Kepler isn't the most exciting hitter by any means but showed good improvements last year with a .187 ISO and a 13.5% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitchers. He's bringing controlled power to the table, which often puts him in a spot for some home runs since he also carried a 48.2% fly-ball rate versus righties. Kepler isn't wasting opportunities at the plate, and if he makes contact, we could be looking at a barreled ball with home run potential.
Adam Jones, OF, Arizona Diamondbacks
FanDuel Price: $3,300
Adam Jones and the Arizona Diamondbacks come in with an implied run total set at 4.49, which is middle of the pack tonight and hopefully makes them a team that is overlooked.
Arizona sets up to be a solid late night GPP stack since they are up against Julio Teheran, who is a home run prone pitcher, as shown by the fact he allowed 1.46 homers per nine innings, a 39.7% fly-ball rate, and a 34.5% hard-contact rate to right-handed hitters last season. Numbers like that are ones we want to attack whenever we can since the potential for upside is massive if he were to allow multiple home runs.
Jones was a bit of a reverse-splits hitter last season, having a .318 wOBA and a .149 ISO versus right-handed pitchers, both of which were higher compared to his numbers versus lefties.
With 14 games on the slate and Coors Field, ownership for teams in the mid-range of implied team totals could go vastly overlooked tonight, and rolling with Jones and the Diamondbacks could prove to be the contrarian stack of the night given their matchup versus Teheran.
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.
