Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for Thursday 9/9/21

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.

Antonio Senzatela, P, Colorado Rockies ($8,400)

A small four-game slate has a unique set of pitching options.

That's right, it's no secret a small slate brings us limited options, but on tonight's slate, we can see that very clearly. There's no clear "ace" on the mound, there's no clear value option, and there's just a bunch of middling options. You could make the case that Jose Berrios ($9,100) is the best pitcher tonight, but he is on the road to take on the New York Yankees -- definitely struggling but always having power potential. The list of options goes on and on, but lost in the mix could be Antonio Senzatela from the Colorado Rockies.

Senzatela comes in with a lower 16.0% strikeout rate, a 4.8% walk rate, allowing only 0.68 HR/9, a 4.11 xFIP, a 51.9% ground-ball rate, and a 51.0% medium-contact rate this season. He doesn't rack up a ton of strikeouts, but he can seriously limit damage, and he has done so with three earned runs or fewer in nine of his last ten starts. The Rockies are also +158 on the moneyline, so we should not expect a road, underdog pitcher to be popular.

He will be up against the Philadelphia Phillies, who come in with a 93 wRC+ (18th in the league), a .168 ISO (13th), a 31.9% hard-contact rate (19th), and a 35.4% fly-ball rate (19th) versus right-handed pitchers this season. I'm sorry, but what about those numbers are dangerous? The Phillies are a really average team, and we could see Senzatela cruise through six innings while limiting the damage tonight.

Josh Bell, 1B, Washington Nationals ($3,400)

All signs point to the Washington Nationals as being an under-the-radar option tonight.

The Nats are the largest (+194) underdogs on the slate and it should lead them to be significantly under-rostered in tournaments tonight. While I'm not fully on board with an entire Nationals stack, I do see value with Josh Bell as a potential one-off in tournaments. Bell comes in with a .228 ISO, 111 wRC+, 28.2% hard-contact rate, and a 27.0% HR/FB ratio versus righties this season. This game is in Atlanta where the wind is blowing out towards center, and that gives a nice boost to the hitters tonight.

He'll be up against Huascar Ynoa, who is proving to be a solid pitcher with a 3.34 xFIP against lefties, but he is still struggling with a 38.7% fly-ball rate and a mediocre 36.8% hard-contact rate. All it takes is one fly ball with the extra wind tonight for Bell to be on the right side of home run variance.