5 Daily Fantasy Baseball Studs to Target on 4/25/16
In daily fantasy baseball, pitchers are the cornerstone of your lineups. It’s important to spend wisely at the position; if your pitchers fail, your lineup is doomed.
In any slate, it’s also important to select the correct top-priced hitters. Luckily for us, some top bats have excellent matchups today.
Let’s take a look at the FanDuel studs for today’s main slate:
Pitchers
Madison Bumgarner, San Francisco Giants
FanDuel Price: $11,000
Madison Bumgarner made an appearance in this column last week with the discussion focusing on how good he’s been despite his numbers on the surface.
Bumgarner was excellent in his start the night of that article, striking out eight batters while only allowing one walk, two earned runs, and five hits in a tough-luck loss to the Diamondbacks.
Bumgarner is a -190 Vegas favorite versus the Padres tonight, whose offense has been abysmal so far this season.
How have the Padres fared versus left-handed pitching this season?
| Padres Versus Lefties | Value | MLB Rank |
|---|---|---|
| ISO | 0.116 | 28 |
| wOBA | 0.285 | 27 |
| wRC | 60 | 24 |
| Home Runs | 14 | 24 |
| Strikeout Rate | 23.4 | 21 |
| Line Drive Rate | 19.9 | 20 |
Expect Bumgarner to continue his dominant ways versus the Padres and hopefully earn some positive regression in the wins department.
Noah Syndergaard, New York Mets
FanDuel Price: $11,400
Say hello to the biggest Vegas favorite on the board. Noah Syndergaard and the Mets are -220 against the Cincinnati Reds.
Can you blame Vegas? Syndergaard has pitched out of his mind this season and is the early contender for the NL Cy Young award.
Look at his stats so far this season.
| IP | K/9 | BB/9 | GB % | Hard Hit % | xFIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 | 13.05 | 1.80 | 60.50 | 20.50 | 1.52 |
Those aren’t typos. He owns a 29 to 4 strikeout to walk ratio.
The Reds are actually ninth in the league in ISO versus right-handed pitching, but it’s hard to do damage versus a pitcher of with a swinging strike rate of 19.3 percent.
Trust Vegas and his recent form -- roster Syndergaard where you can tonight.
Hitters
David Ortiz, 1B, Boston Red Sox
FanDuel Price: $3,800
It’s considered cheating for this column if you write about MLB studs when they’re playing at Coors Field. With that being said, play Andrew McCutchen and as many other Pirates and Rockies as you can in your cash game lineups tonight.
For studs not playing in Colorado, 40-year-old David Ortiz may be the top option.
He’s facing Julio Teheran, who seems to be a target every week in this column. But let’s be honest, it’s for good reason -- he allowed a .210 ISO and .386 wOBA to lefties last season.
It hasn’t gotten better this year for Teheran, as he’s already allowed three home runs in just 45 plate appearance for left-handed bats.
Ortiz has similar numbers versus righties this season, mashing three home runs in 58 plate appearances. He dominated them in 2015, too, posting a .320 ISO and .413 wOBA.
The “Lefties versus Teheran†train will collide head-on with the “Ortiz versus Righties†train tonight. I believe that collision is called a FanDuel Stud of the Day Auto Play.
Edwin Encarnacion, 1B, Toronto Blue Jays
FanDuel Price: $3,900
Ah, the reverse splits king.
Edwin Encarnacion is great versus left-handed pitching. He tallied a .220 ISO versus them in 2015.
However, versus righties, his split is 74 points higher at .294.
Tonight, Encarnacion faces Miguel Gonzalez, who Baltimore believed wasn’t good enough to keep for their rotation this season -- that should say all you need to know.
Gonzalez, along with his 2015 .167 ISO allowed and below-average 17.1 percent strikeout rate versus righties, will make his 2016 MLB debut tonight versus Encarnacion’s Blue Jays.
Encarnacion has just two home runs this season, but Gonzalez won’t stand for that. Gonzalez gave up 24 home runs a year ago, so his generosity will benefit those DFS owners that roster Encarnacion tonight.
Jose Bautista, OF, Toronto Blue Jays
FanDuel Price: $4,400
Read above for everything you need to know about Jose Bautista’s opponent tonight in Miguel Gonzalez.
Joey Bats experienced nearly identical splits as Encarnacion versus righties a year ago with a .301 ISO and a .395 wOBA.
All three of Bautista’s home runs this season have come against right-handed pitching, and he’s continued his ISO split with a .283 in 71 plate appearances.
Another key factor in this matchup is Bautista’s love for pulling the baseball. Versus righties last season, his pull percentage was 52.1 percent.
Gonzalez could not get righties to go the opposite way in 2015, as 41.9 percent of their balls were pulled.
To me, that sounds like the recipe for a Bautista bomb ending up in the left field seats.
