3 Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for Friday 7/2/21

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's is the name of the game if you plan on taking down one of those highly lucrative DFS tournaments. Whether it's because of bookmaker totals, other options at a given position, or some gem you've found who everyone is overlooking, we can always find potential under-rostered plays if we look hard enough.

Here are three such players to consider branching out for on FanDuel's main slate.

Alex Wood, P, San Francisco Giants ($8,300)

Alex Wood has been up and down as of late but gets to face a soft Arizona Diamondbacks lineup tonight.

The Diamondbacks went 3-24 in the month of June. I'm not going to sit here and tell you how bad they are, but they're almost 40 games under .500 and it's not even the All-Star break yet. You can look to target them each and every time they are on the slate until something dramatically changes for their offense, so we turn to Wood tonight.

Wood started off the season on fire and has since hit a few bumps in the road but this is a great matchup to get things back on track. He comes in with a 3.60 xFIP, a 24.7% strikeout rate, a 56.0% ground-ball rate, a 53.9% medium-contact rate, and a 3.70 SIERA. Wood is a classic ground ball pitcher who may not have massive strikeout potential but can limit the damage throughout the game and cruise against a bad team.

Adam Duvall, OF, Miami Marlins ($3,200)

Adam Duvall mashes lefty pitchers.

That's the simple way to put things when it comes to Duvall and I like the Miami Marlins in tournaments tonight. They are on the road in Atlanta, which is a positive park shift for them, and will get to take on Drew Smyly. This season, Smyly is carrying a 5.38 xFIP, a low 17.6% strikeout rate, allowing 1.64 HR/9, and a 45.1% fly-ball rate versus right-handed hitters. Yikes. Those are some bad numbers and the more I write about it, the more I'm talking myself into the Marlins tonight.

Duvall comes in with a massive 61.0% fly-ball rate, 41.5% hard-contact rate, and a .258 ISO versus left-handed pitchers this season. Simply amazing numbers. He has home runs in each of his last two games and when a hitter with this kind of power gets on a hot streak, you don't want to be fading him with a soft matchup waiting for him.

Ryan Mountcastle, 1B/OF, Baltimore Orioles ($2,800)

The Baltimore Orioles aren't an amazing team but they have a fantastic matchup tonight.

With a 4.22 implied run total, I highly doubt the Orioles are going to be popular in any capacity and I believe that is a massive mistake. Regardless of your thoughts on their team overall, they are facing Griffin Canning, who simply isn't a good pitcher. He comes in allowing 2.45 HR/9 to right-handed hitters, a 43.5% fly-ball rate, and a 22.5% HR/FB ratio. Those are bad numbers, there are no two ways about it.

This means we want to target a righty hitter from Baltimore who has plenty of power, and that leads us to Ryan Mountcastle. He comes in with a .203 ISO, a 100 wRC+, a 43.2% fly-ball rate, and a 34.8% hard-contact rate versus right-handed pitchers this season. I'm looking to have that kind of power in my lineups every night, especially when there is a home run-prone pitcher on the other side.