3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Wednesday 7/6/22
With production being highly variable on a night-to-night basis, daily fantasy baseball plays a bit differently than other sports.
As a result of this, the primary method of selecting hitters is to "stack" certain teams in good spots to produce. Most of the top stacks on a given day come with hefty salaries. In addition to that, a vast majority of pitchers with the upside to win tournaments are high-salaried hurlers.
Therefore, crushing your value plays -- whether it be a pitcher unexpectedly piling up strikeouts or a low-salaried batter racking up points -- can be the secret sauce to taking down a tournament.
Which budget options stand out today on FanDuel?
Alex Cobb, P, Giants ($8,100)
Alex Cobb stands out among the value pitching options.
Cobb's underlying metrics continue to far outshine his bottom-line results. His 3.01 SIERA, 25.6% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate are pretty dope marks. His 4.59 ERA isn't nearly as fun, but Cobb has been saddled with a super unlucky .353 BABIP. His career BABIP is .292, and the league average this year is .289 -- so, yeah, he's not catching many breaks.
A matchup with the Arizona Diamondbacks is a pretty soft one. Arizona is fifth-worst in wOBA (.299) with the eighth-highest strikeout rate (23.5%). The D-Backs' 4.09 implied total is the slate's sixth-lowest.
On a slate with a few high-upside hurlers -- namely Luis Severino, Cristian Javier and Aaron Nola -- facing feeble offenses, going with a low-salary arm might not be the optimal route. But if you are looking for a value pitcher, Cobb is the best bet. We project him for 27.2 FanDuel points.
Max Muncy, 2B/3B, Dodgers ($2,700)
The Los Angeles Dodgers are going to be a chalky stack against Jose Urena -- LA's 6.01 implied total, which is more than a full run above any other team's, will ensure that. And Max Muncy is going to be very popular as a low-salary way to get a piece of the Dodgers.
After a slow start, Muncy is getting back to being the dude he's been for the past few years. In 93 plate appearances since coming off the IL in early June, Muncy has put up a .332 wOBA and .436 slugging percentage with five taters. That doesn't sound too amazing, but it's miles better than what he was doing earlier this year. In 168 plate appearances before the IL stint, Muncy had just a .281 wOBA and .263 slugging percentage.
Muncy has blasted three dingers over his past seven games, including one last night, and he should be in the heart of the order against Urena, a righty who has an ugly 5.30 SIERA in the bigs since the start of 2020 (131 2/3 innings).
Brandon Belt, 1B, Giants ($2,600)
Per our model, of the 10 best point-per-dollar bats tonight, five are San Francisco Giants.
Brandon Belt is one of them, and he offers low-salary upside in a clash with Merrill Kelly.
Kelly isn't a bad pitcher. He's also not that good, either. He's striking out just 19.6% of hitters and is riding his luck with a 6.5% homer-to-fly-ball rate that is well below his 12.5% career mark.
While Belt isn't doing too well this year, he's much better against righties. He sports a 46.6% fly-ball rate in the split this season and had a gaudy .417 wOBA, 40.9% hard-hit rate and 50.3% fly-ball rate with the platoon advantage just a campaign ago. A .278 BABIP is dragging down his production this season, and Belt's .353 expected wOBA is a pretty nice number.
We project Belt for 12.0 FanDuel points and rate him as the slate's seventh-best point-per-dollar stick.
