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
Homer Bailey, P, Oakland Athletics
FanDuel Price: $8,500
How much stock do we want to put in recent success? That is a huge question if we are considering Homer Bailey tonight.
Since August 14th, Bailey has seven starts under his belt and allowed three or fewer earned runs in each of those starts, picking up the quality start four times in that span.
Bailey is in a spot to continue this strong trend since he is facing a very bad Los Angeles Angels lineup. Since September 8th, which was their first game without Mike Trout -- yes, this is a small sample size -- the Angels are holding a 26.8% strikeout rate, .123 team ISO, 61 wRC+, and 9.4% home-run-to-fly-ball ratio versus right-handed pitchers.
Oh boy, those numbers are absolutely terrible and yes, this is only over the course of a few weeks, but the Angels have lost their best hitter, have nothing to play for, and have a pitcher who is looking top-tier right now. At his modest price tag, Bailey is a strong option tonight.
Brandon Belt, 1B, San Francisco Giants
FanDuel Price: $3,000
While San Francisco isn't a great hitter's park, the Colorado Rockies' pitcher, Jeff Hoffman, is worth rostering hitters against tonight.
Hoffman comes into to this game allowing 1.59 home runs per nine innings to lefty hitters, along with a bad 10.5% walk rate and 41.7% fly-ball rate. When you see numbers like that, it shouldn't be anything to shy away from -- especially if the San Francisco Giants have an implied team total of 4.47 tonight. Now, I'm not here to say the Giants are my favorite stack of the night -- they're not -- but searching for some home run upside at lower ownership is in the cards.
A player like Brandon Belt is someone to keep an eye on tonight since he is very affordable and comes in with a strong 52.7% fly-ball rate, 40.2% hard-hit rate, and .188 ISO versus right-handed pitchers this season. That fly-ball rate is truly amazing and not something you normally see from a player at this price point, so let's go after that home run versus a bad pitcher.
Tommy Edman, 3B, St. Louis Cardinals
FanDuel Price: $3,100
Tommy Edman has five multi-hit games over his last six outings, but on a full 13-game slate, he might not be too highly owned.
The St. Louis Cardinals are on their way to the postseason but still need to be picking up wins to solidify their spot or the NL Central title. They are on the road to face the Arizona Diamondbacks, who will have Mike Leake on the mound tonight, a pitcher we can firmly attack. While Leake has been consistent as of late, he still owns a 4.49 xFIP versus lefties, allowing 1.59 home runs per nine innings and a 40.1% hard-hit rate. Those aren't strong numbers despite a few recent strong outings from him.
Edman is having a fantastic rookie season and has shown to be strong against either type of pitcher. He is carrying a .176 ISO, strong 18.4% strikeout rate, and 38.8% hard-hit rate versus right-handed pitchers. We might not be seeing a home run out of Edman tonight -- Leake is a ground-ball pitcher -- we could easily see Edman continue this multi-hit streak he has in the works.