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?
Frankie Montas, P, Yankees ($9,100)
While $9,100 is a little steep for a value arm, when you compare Frankie Montas' salary to the $11,100 tag on Corbin Burnes, who is likely to be the night's chalk pitcher, it looks more like a value.
On this six-game slate, Montas and Jose Berrios ($8,500) are two lower-salary pitchers who need to be on our radar. Of the two, I much prefer Montas.
Montas is on the road at the Los Angeles Angels. It's a nice park-factor boost for him, and the Halos are an offense we want to pick on. Even with Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani healthy, the Angels' active roster ranks just 22nd in wOBA (.309) for the year with the highest strikeout rate (25.5%).
Montas hasn't been good in a small sample of 19 2/3 innings with the New York Yankees, struggling to a 4.67 SIERA and 15.2% strikeout rate. But he's faced a brutal schedule since the trade, getting the St. Louis Cardinals, Boston Red Sox, New York Mets and Toronto Blue Jays, and he was solid with the Oakland Athletics over a much larger sample, pitching to a 3.41 SIERA and 25.8% strikeout rate over 104 2/3 frames.
In what is his easiest on-paper matchup since coming to the Yanks, Montas should have a good night on Monday. We project him for 33.3 FanDuel points and rate him as the number-three pitcher.
Jake Cave, OF, Twins ($2,000)
If you want to get up to the aforementioned Burnes, you need to find a couple of value sticks.
Enter Jake Cave.
Salaried at the minimum, Cave will have the platoon advantage today against Brayan Bello. While Cave is at risk of being pinch-hit for if he comes up later against a lefty, he's pretty good against righties and is hot right now. He donged yesterday and has four hits across the past two days.
The Minnesota Twins carry a 4.39 implied total into this matchup and should be able to make some noise versus Bello. A top prospect who dominated in the minors this season, Bello hasn't found his footing yet in the bigs. He's got an 11.5% walk rate in a small sample of 22 innings, and he had a 10.0% walk rate in 58 2/3 innings in Triple-A.
Cave can be a salary-saving one-off play or a nice piece in Twins stacks. You can also add in Max Kepler ($2,500) and Nick Gordon ($2,200) at their low salaries.
Emmanuel Rivera, 3B, Diamondbacks ($2,500)
Emmanuel Rivera has been locked into the number-two slot in the Arizona Diamondbacks' lineup, and he'll face Ranger Suarez tonight.
Rivera has hit second in 12 of Arizona's last 13 games, and in the one exception, he was penciled into the three-hole. So, in short, Rivera is $2,500 and will be in a meaty spot in the lineup -- that's a great place to start.
Against lefties this season, Rivera has mashed, putting up a .376 wOBA, and he's been a beast overall in the second half with a .388 wOBA since the break.
Arizona has a decent-for-this-small-slate 3.92 implied total for the date with Suarez, who is sporting a 4.03 SIERA and 20.2% strikeout rate. Rivera is one of my favorite value bats of the night.