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.
Reynaldo Lopez, P, Chicago White Sox
FanDuel Price: $7,800
A great matchup has Reynaldo Lopez in a spot to continue his recent success.
Lopez is up against the Miami Marlins, who are one of the worst teams in the league versus right-handed pitchers. Well, the Marlins are bad against everyone and rostering a pitcher against them is usually the right course of action.
Miami comes in with a 76 wRC+ (29th in the league), a .122 ISO (30th), and a 25.4% strikeout rate (5th worst) versus right-handers this season. The Marlins are bad! This isn't breaking news, but now we have Lopez, who is under $8K, going against them, and he is off to a fantastic start in the second half.
Yes, it's a super small two-game sample, but he has 15 strikeouts in 13 innings pitched, which came against the Tampa Bay Rays and the Oakland Athletics -- two strong teams. He is holding hitters to a .223 wOBA in those two starts, and while that is certain to regress a bit, the Marlins don't appear to be the team who will get that done tonight.
Colin Moran, 3B, Pittsburgh Pirates
FanDuel Price: $2,600
A solid 4.72 implied run total for the Pittsburgh Pirates tonight has them as the sixth-highest team on the slate. Will that cause them to go overlooked?
The Pirates are facing off against the St. Louis Cardinals, who will have Adam Wainwright on the mound tonight, a pitcher you should look to stack against. Wainwright isn't the pitcher he once was and comes in with a 4.57 xFIP and 12.2% walk rate versus lefty hitters this season. It doesn't stop there for Wainwright, too, as he is allowing a hard-hit rate over 40%, along with a home-run-to-fly-ball ratio up at 25.9% in the same split. Nothing about Wainwright tells you to avoid him, and with all of the hitters on the Pirates being under $4K, they make a solid team to target tonight.
One player specifically is Colin Moran, who clocks in under $3K, has some decent power versus righty pitchers, and is consistent lately. He comes in with a .198 ISO and average 17.5% home-run-to-fly-ball ratio, but he is also cheap and doesn't need to do a lot to pay off value. The most interesting things about Moran is that he comes in with hits in 8 of his 11 games since the All-Star break, producing on an almost nightly basis.
Yan Gomes, C, Washington Nationals
FanDuel Price: $2,300
The Washington Nationals are playing a doubleheader versus the Colorado Rockies today, meaning some backups will get playing time in the nightcap.
The roster for the early game has already been announced and Kurt Suzuki is behind the plate, which means Yan Gomes will be starting the night game. Gomes brings plenty of salary relief to your lineup, along with the platoon advantage against Kyle Freeland, who is terrible against right-handed hitters this season. He is a pitcher for the Rockies, so if we look at his splits away from Coors Field, we see that he is carrying a 5.32 xFIP, 50.0% hard-hit rate, and a 39.8% fly-ball rate versus righty hitters. Coors Field will always impact a pitcher's stats, but we can clearly see in Freeland's splits away from home that he still struggles versus righty hitters.
Gomes isn't going to bring a ton of power on a nightly basis, but he still carries a 48.5% fly-ball rate versus lefty pitchers, which always has upside when he is at home in a solid hitter's park. The savings are there for Gomes, the platoon advantage is there, and lower ownership is almost certain tonight.