3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Tuesday 8/2/22
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?
Spencer Strider, P, Braves ($8,300)
We have two intriguing lower-salary arms available to us -- Spencer Strider and Lucas Giolito ($7,800). You can make a case for either, but with Giolito struggling, Strider is pretty clearly the best value pitching option.
Strider has a top-shelf ceiling thanks to his swing-and-miss stuff. He boasts a 37.2% strikeout rate, which is tops on the slate among pitchers with a meaningful sample. It's rare that we can get access to a pitcher with this much strikeout upside for a salary this low.
With a 2.59 SIERA, Strider doesn't have many warts in his profile, but his workload is the main reason his salary is where it is. He has completed six frames just once across his past three starts and has gone six innings only four times over his 11 starts since moving to the rotation.
But the punchouts do wonders for his fantasy production. Strider has scored at least 35 FanDuel points in five of his past six starts, with a pair of 58-point outbursts in that span.
The Philadelphia Phillies are mostly a middle-of-the-road matchup, and their 3.26 implied total is a number we can attack. Strider put up 43 FanDuel points against the Phils last time out.
We project Strider for 32.2 FanDuel points. I think you can make an argument he's the slate's number-two arm behind Corbin Burnes ($11,300), and he offers a cool $3,000 in savings from Burnes.
Rougned Odor, 2B, Orioles ($2,300)
Rougned Odor has a tantalizing matchup against Spencer Howard.
Howard, a righty, has pitched to a 4.52 SIERA and 18.2% strikeout rate in 30 1/3 innings this campaign. He's been hammered by the long ball, allowing 2.97 per nine -- yes, 2.97 -- in 2022. For his career, Howard has permitted 1.98 dingers per nine, and lefties have tagged him for a .356 wOBA and 47.3% fly-ball rate.
Odor has been bad this year. With that said, he's lifting the ball a ton against righties, sporting a 53.7% fly-ball rate in the split. He also hit fifth in the order on Monday.
Our model projects Odor for 11.3 FanDuel points and rates him as the second-best point-per-dollar bat (as of early Tuesday).
Omar Narvaez, C, Brewers ($2,100)
If you're using the aforementioned Burnes, then you'll need some low-salary bats. You can turn to Burnes' own offense.
The Milwaukee Brewers have the slate's third-best implied total (4.84) for a date with Bryse Wilson, and a Milwaukee stack won't break the bank.
Wilson has labored through 55 2/3 innings this year, producing a 15.6% strikeout rate and 4.52 SIERA. He's allowed a 39.2% hard-hit rate and 2.75 dingers per nine. Lefties have a laughably high .457 wOBA against him. In short, Wilson is exactly the kind of hurler we want to stack against.
Omar Narvaez has not repeated his quality numbers from 2021, when he generated a .342 wOBA and 40.7% fly-ball rate against righties. However, he's still hitting plenty of fly-balls in the split (42.5% fly-ball rate) and has been much better on the road (.329 wOBA) than at home (.265).
Narvaez, Rowdy Tellez ($3,300), Christian Yelich ($3,400) and Kolten Wong ($2,900) are four Brewers lefties who you can jam in for a modest $11,700 total. Narvaez makes sense as a one-off cap-relief play, too.
