3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 5/13/19
Just like in other sports, the focal point of your daily fantasy baseball lineups will be your high-priced studs. These guys take up by far the biggest chunk of your cap space, but they also offer the highest ceiling, and in the case of pitcher, by far the highest floors for production.
For hitters, we're looking for guys with big numbers, strong matchups, and with players around them that are likely to produce well too, increasing our chances for runs and RBI. For pitchers we want big strikeout numbers, while the ability to go deep in a game and pick up a win is also valuable.
Taking up so much salary, and playing such a big role in your lineup's ceiling, you're not going to want to whiff on these guys, so lets take a look at a few top-end options that you can count on to anchor your lineup today.
Brad Peacock, P, Houston Astros ($8,500)
Tonight's six-game slate doesn't wow us with pitching options. No teams have an implied total of fewer than 3.85 runs, and the slate's biggest favorite comes in a game with 9.0-run over/under, giving Robbie Ray's opponents an implied total above 4.0 runs.
So while the betting odds don't make anyone really stand out tonight, it certainly doesn't hurt that Peacock and the Houston Astros are the slate's biggest favorites (-160 moneyline) -- or that the Detroit Tigers are the team with that slate-low implied total.
More interestingly, looking at stats dating back to the start of last season, no pitcher on the slate has a higher strikeout rate than Peacock's mark of 31.5%. His strikeout numbers are down so far in 2019, but that's more than made up for tonight by a matchup with the Tigers, whose active roster has the highest strikeout rate in the majors (26.0%) since the start of the 2018 season, including a league-high 26.8% clip so far in 2019.
Combining the most favorable betting lines on the slate with plenty of strikeout upside at what is a very low price-tag for a "stud" pitching option, Peacock stands out in both cash games and tournaments.
David Peralta, OF, Arizona Diamondbacks ($4,300)
On the other side of things, the Arizona Diamondbacks are sitting with a slate-high implied total of 4.97 runs against Nick Kingham and the Pittsburgh Pirates.
That's not much of a surprise as Kingham has opened 2019 with a brutal 5.94 ERA. He hasn't been pitching as poorly as that might indicate, but his 4.37 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) is still nothing to write home about, and it's right in line with his 4.40 SIERA from his 2018 rookie campaign. He's really struggled with his control so far this year as his walk rate sits at 12.3%. He also gives up very hitter-friendly contact, with a 36.1% hard-hit rate and 40.1% fly-ball rate over his first two big league seasons.
David Peralta is on pace to increase his wOBA for the third consecutive campaign, building on last year's .368 mark with a .378 wOBA (and a .220 ISO) through 180 plate appearances in 2019.
Peralta gets a nice boost when he has the platoon advantage, with a .398 wOBA in 427 plate appearances against right-handed pitching last year and a .401 wOBA over 118 plate appearances in 2019.
Mike Trout, OF, Los Angeles Angels ($4,700)
With such a cheap stud pitching option available tonight, it's not too hard to fit Mike Trout in your lineups, and doing that is usually a lucrative endeavor.
Trout is averaging 14.4 FanDuel points per game in 2019 after putting up 14.5 last year and 15.3 in 2017. Even in what has been a bit of a "down" year for Trout, his .425 wOBA is tied for the seventh-best in the majors. Dating back to the start of the 2017 season, Trout's .440 wOBA crushes the next-best mark in the majors (.422), while his .316 ISO is in second place by a slim margin (behind a first-place clip of .318).
His matchup tonight isn't an especially easy one, as Minnesota Twins righty Jose Berrios has a strong 3.78 SIERA in 2019 (in line with last year's 3.80). Berrios is giving up career-high clips in both hard-hit rate (37.4%) and fly-ball rate (46.9%) so far this year, though, so he's not leaving opposing bats without some upside. With that said, Berrios has been tough on righties for most of his career, which could push some people off of Trout today.
Righty-righty matchups don't tend to slow Trout down (.453 wOBA and .341 ISO since 2017), however, and even though it's a tough matchup, Trout offers a monster ceiling on a nightly basis.
Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. 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.
