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 ($8,200)

Corbin Burnes ($11,000) has the highest upside on this slate, but our model actually projects David Peterson as the night's SP1, forecasting him to score 33.9 FanDuel points.

Peterson has a superb matchup with the Chicago Cubs. Sure, the Cubbies put up a fight last night against Jacob deGrom, but this is still a Chicago offense whose active roster is 27th in wOBA (.291) over the last 30 days with the 2nd-highest strikeout rate (26.2%) in that span. The Cubs' 3.19 implied total is the night's second-lowest.

I think it makes a lot of sense to pass on Burnes' huge salary in a tough matchup -- at the St. Louis Cardinals -- for either Peterson or Sonny Gray ($8,700) in a date with the Kansas City Royals. I prefer Peterson between the two due to his 27.6% strikeout rate and 12.6% swinging-strike rate.

Max Kepler, OF, Twins ($2,100)

If Max Kepler gets in the lineup today, I love him in this matchup with Zack Greinke.

Greinke is showing a 4.00 ERA, but he's been much worse than that. His xERA is 5.04, and his SIERA is 4.71. He's punching out just 13.4% of hitters.

Kepler can take advantage. The lefty-hitting outfielder has a .298 wOBA in 2022, but his xwOBA is .339. He produced a 39.6% hard-hit rate and 44.9% fly-ball rate with the platoon advantage just a year ago, and he's easy to get behind at this salary.

Ryan McKenna, OF, Orioles ($2,100)

The Baltimore Orioles boast a 4.60 implied total, the slate's third-best, for their matchup with Patrick Corbin.

While Corbin has experienced some bad luck this year, he's also had his fair share of struggles. In all, he's permitted 1.72 homers per nine and has struck out just 18.2% of hitters. Righties have hammered him for a .394 wOBA and 1.94 jacks per nine.

Ryan McKenna will hit from the right side and is projected to bat leadoff. That alone makes him an appealing value target, but on top of that, he's put up a .356 wOBA this year versus southpaws.

Baltimore figures to be one of the slate's go-to stacks, and McKenna is a low-salary way to get a piece of the O's.