3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Friday 9/2/22
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?
David Peterson, P, Mets ($8,000)
David Peterson has some dang good numbers this season.
In 89 2/3 frames, he's fired his way to a 3.59 SIERA, 27.3% strikeout rate and 12.1% swinging-strike rate. It's pretty easy to fall in love with the idea of getting access to those numbers at this salary. Peterson has tossed at least 100 pitches in each of his past two starts, and the lone blemish on his profile is a 10.5% walk rate.
Peterson gets a nice matchup with the Washington Nationals, the owners of a slate-low 2.97 implied total. The Nats' active roster is 28th in wOBA (.291) versus southpaws with the eighth-lowest walk rate (7.5%), so as long as Peterson can limit Nelson Cruz and Luke Voit, he should be just fine.
Our model really likes Peterson today. We project him for 34.3 FanDuel points. Not only is he our top point-per-dollar arm, he's our number-two pitcher overall.
Miguel Cabrera, 1B, Tigers ($2,000)
The Detroit Tigers are miserable against righties, but they're not too shabby versus left-handers. They'll see Daniel Lynch tonight, and the Tigers -- who show a decent 4.25 implied total -- are a great place to look for salary-saving one-offs and mini-stacks.
Miguel Cabrera is salaried at the minimum, and while his power has disappeared, he sports a .303 average overall against lefties with a .334 wOBA at home versus southpaws. And Lynch can help Miggy a bit as the Kansas City Royals' left-hander has permitted a 38.3% hard-hit rate and 39.4% fly-ball rate to righty sticks.
Javier Baez ($2,800), Spencer Torkelson ($2,000), Victor Reyes ($2,900) and Eric Haase ($3,000) will all hit from the right side, as well, and can serve as solid value picks.
Daniel Vogelbach, 1B, Mets ($2,500)
Washington righty Josiah Gray has swing-and-miss stuff (26.3% strikeout rate), but when he's not getting punchouts, he's issuing too many walks (9.9% rate) and giving up a lot of fly balls (50.3% rate), leading to a whole mess of homers (2.34 per nine).
The New York Mets have been handed a 4.53 implied total, the night's fourth-highest, and they're on the stacking radar.
Daniel Vogelbach gets us low-salary exposure to the Mets, and he's pummeled righties this year, racking up a .387 wOBA and 46.4% fly-ball rate in the split.
Much of what I just said about Vogelbach also applies to Tyler Naquin ($2,100), and the two of them are outstanding value hitters on Friday's slate.
