MLB

3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 6/14/19

Jason Schandl  —  @JasonSchandl Jun 14th, 2019
Charlie Blackmon jacked a pair of home runs on Thursday, and he's in a great spot to keep rolling against Cal Quantrill and the Padres tonight.

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.

Gerrit Cole, P, Houston Astros ($12,000)

This is another slate absolutely loaded with top-end pitching options, but it's still worth paying right up to the top for Cole.

His 34.5% strikeout rate and 2.91 skill-interactive ERA in 2018 were already incredible, but he's managed to outdo himself in 2019. Both his 38.6% strikeout rate and 2.59 SIERA are good for tops among qualifying pitchers, with nobody else sporting a strikeout rate better than 35.4% of a SIERA better than 2.87.

He's one of only two pitchers with three 12-plus strikeout games on the year, and he's posted at least 58 FanDuel points in four of his last eight starts, topping 60 in three of those, and his 43.5 FanDuel points per game are the most for any pitcher on the slate (and third-most overall).

His matchup tonight is an easy one to like, too. The Toronto Blue Jays strike out at the sixth-highest rate in the majors (24.8%) against right-handed pitching, while their 78 wRC+ in the split ranks only 27th.

Oddsmakers absolutely love this spot as well. The Jays' 3.05-run implied total is the lowest on the slate while the Houston Astros sit as massive -300 favorites.

Charlie Blackmon, OF, Colorado Rockies ($4,300)

Blackmon went yard twice at Coors last night, dropping a silly 56.4 FanDuel points, and he's in a great spot for another huge game tonight. The Colorado Rockies are favored in a game with a huge 12.5-run over/under on MLB odds, and they shouldn't have any issues getting the San Diego Padres righty Cal Quantrill.

Quantrill has only pitched 26 major league innings in his career, and while his 4.07 SIERA has been reasonable, we can expect it to get worse moving forward. His 7 Triple-A starts this year only saw him notch a 4.71 xFIP, and even in 22 Double-A starts in 2018 he only managed a 4.16 xFIP.

Blackmon is sporting a 42.6% hard-hit and 44.4% fly-ball rate against right-handed pitching this season, which are both the highest marks he's ever posted in the split. When he brings that big power into Coors it brings a predictably high level of success, with a .483 wOBA and .368 ISO over 508 plate appearances since 2017.

Hunter Renfroe, OF, San Diego Padres ($3,800)

The Padres may be underdogs, but with this huge over/under we can still expect a ton of offense out of them, and they're not really being afflicted by a huge Coors Field salary hike either.

Rockies righty Jeff Hoffman has a 4.88 SIERA over his 42 career major league games, and while his 3.97 SIERA through five games in 2019 may look promising, he also posted a 5.30 xFIP in seven Triple-A games, so take that with a huge grain of salt.

Hunter Renfroe may do his best work against southpaws, but the absurd power he's showing in 2019 has more than held up in same-sided matchups, with a 51.6% hard-hit rate, 42.3% fly-ball rate and .313 ISO against righties.

You usually have to pay up into the $4,000's to get this kind of power at Coors, making it especially easy to like Renfroe's upside tonight.

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.