3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Wednesday 8/24/22
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?
Brady Singer, P, Royals ($9,500)
While the $9,500 salary is a little much for a typical value play, Brady Singer offers a $1,700 discount off Shane McClanahan ($11,200), who is in a sweet matchup (Angels) and will surely be the chalk arm of the night.
Singer has been dealing lately. Over his previous six starts, he owns a 30.0% strikeout rate and 3.09 xFIP. It's not like he's had an easy run of games, either, facing the Chicago White Sox (twice), Tampa Bay Rays (twice), Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees in that stretch.
Singer can have success tonight in a date with the Arizona Diamondbacks, a team whose active roster is only 22nd in wOBA (.310) for the campaign. Arizona's 3.91 implied total isn't too scary.
We project Singer for 28.1 FanDuel points. That's not a great score, but it puts him right in the heart of a jumbled pack behind McClanahan (42.2 FanDuel points) and Framber Valdez ($10,700; 38.1 FanDuel points).
Gavin Sheets, 1B/OF, White Sox ($2,300)
The Chicago White Sox are an offense I'm into tonight. Not only do they have a friendly matchup against Spenser Watkins, the Pale Hose have just one bat -- Jose Abreu ($3,500) -- above $3,100, making them a sweet fit alongside McClanahan.
Watkins boasts a punchless 14.3% strikeout rate on the year and is allowing a 40.1% fly-ball rate. Watkins, a righty, has some reverse-splits tendencies in 2022, but I still like the left-handed Gavin Sheets as a way to get low-salary exposure to Chicago's 4.35 implied total.
Sheets is projected to hit sixth. He's posted a .357 wOBA in the second half, and overall this season, he's tagged righties for a 49.7% fly-ball rate.
Cavan Biggio, 2B/3B, Blue Jays ($2,000)
The Toronto Blue Jays are going to be a popular stacking option. They're at Fenway against Brayan Bello, and the Jays are showing a 5.20 implied total.
If he's in the lineup, Cavan Biggio will be a minimum-salaried way to get in on the Blue Jays, and the salary savings he offers can go a long way toward pairing the Jays' top hitters with McClanahan.
Biggio has a modest .324 wOBA this year against righties, but he is walking a good amount (13.2% walk rate) in the split and hits gobs of fly-balls (42.5% fly-ball rate). That'll do against Bello, a promising prospect who has struggled mightily in the bigs to the tune of a 17.2% strikeout rate and 12.6% walk rate.
