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?

Brandon Lowe, 2B, Rays ($3,000)

Brandon Lowe will see a platoon advantage against right-hander Austin Voth, and on top of a handedness advantage, the game is in Baltimore (which ranks third in home run park factor for left-handed hitters).

Voth, over 194 batters faced this season, has limited hard contact to a 26.4% rate and a .145 ISO (league average for non-pitchers being .153) but has an expected ISO of .161.

That's not bad by any means -- just more average -- and Lowe against righties is a bad, bad man. (How do you do, fellow kids?)

Lowe has a career ISO of .259 against right-handed pitching with a 142 wRC+ and a 39.8% hard-hit rate.

At FanDuel Sportsbook, Lowe has the second-best home run prop (+320) of any hitter with a salary at or below $3,000 (with only Rhys Hoskins at $2,900 faring better at +300).

Austin Slater, OF, Giants ($2,500)

With left-hander Tyler Gilbert getting the start against Austin Slater's San Francisco Giants, Slater should be in the leadoff spot in the order. The Giants have actually faced five lefties in their past six games, and Slater has led off in all of them.

Slater, then, gets us affordable access to the slate's second-highest implied team total.

Over the past four seasons (451 plate appearances against left-handers), Slater has racked up a 147 wRC+, a .223 ISO, and a 34.5% hard-hit rate.

Gilbert has allowed the worst expected slugging percentage (.566) and expected ISO (.268) in the bigs among qualified pitchers.

Slater is the second-best projected value in numberFire's projection model.

Max Muncy, 2B/3B, Dodgers ($2,400)

The Los Angeles Dodgers boast the slate's top implied total at 5.26 runs in a matchup against Paolo Espino. They're a top stack for a reason.

Speaking of the top, Max Muncy won't find himself at the top of the order, but he also is far from the top of the salary pool.

Among all hitters with a salary at or below $3,000 tonight, Muncy holds the seventh-best home run prop (+300). (That's better than even teammate Will Smith's +330 odds. Smith's salary of $3,000 still makes him a stellar value play, for what it's worth.)

Espino's expected ISO of .219 is 19th-highest in the Majors, and his expected slugging (.485) is 25th-highest.

Muncy's career wRC+ is 123 against righties, and his ISO is .241.