MLB

3 MLB FanDuel Studs to Target on 6/26/19

Yordan Alvarez' hot start may not be sustainable, but Dario Agrazal and the Pirates aren't likely to slow him down on Wednesday. What other high-priced players should be on your radar?

Just like in other sports, the focal point of your daily fantasy baseball lineups will be your high-priced studs. These guys take up by far the biggest chunk of your cap space, but they also offer the highest ceiling, and in the case of pitcher, by far the highest floors for production.

For hitters, we're looking for guys with big numbers, strong matchups, and with players around them that are likely to produce well too, increasing our chances for runs and RBI. For pitchers we want big strikeout numbers, while the ability to go deep in a game and pick up a win is also valuable.

Taking up so much salary, and playing such a big role in your lineup's ceiling, you're not going to want to whiff on these guys, so lets take a look at a few top-end options that you can count on to anchor your lineup today.

Patrick Corbin, P, Washington Nationals ($9,800)

At this point of the season, I'm sure you're not surprised to see that we're attacking the Miami Marlins again, especially when the game is taking place in the pitchers' haven that is Marlins Park.

This game has the most pitcher-friendly park factor on the slate and a low 7.5-run over/under. That leaves the Marlins (who are +130 underdogs) with a weak 3.45-run implied total -- the lowest on today's main slate.

With Patrick Corbin's middling 4.04 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA), this is about as safe a spot as you're going to find for him, and it also gives his ceiling a nice boost. His 26.6% strikeout rate is good but not great, though our models still project him for the most strikeouts (6.56) of any hurler on the slate.

That's thanks in large part to the Marlins' 2019 struggles from the dish, striking out at the 10th-highest clip (23.8%) and sitting tied for dead-last in wRC+ (75) in the majors.

Rhys Hoskins, 1B, Philadelphia Phillies ($4,300)

For the third straight year since coming into the majors, Hoskins is flexing some serious power in 2019, with a .391 wOBA and .266 ISO, which brings his career averages to .381 and .273, respectively. That production also continues to come with some outstanding contact numbers, including a 47.3% hard-hit rate, 15.4% soft-hit rate and 50.7% fly-ball rate.

He is especially nasty against southpaws, so far owning a .430 wOBA on the season, which looks a lot like the .407 he posted as a rookie. For the third straight season, he's also walking more often than he's striking out in the split.

A matchup with New York Mets lefty Jason Vargas shouldn't change his fortunes much, as the 36-year-old Vargas' 3.75 ERA does not tell the real story about how he's pitching this year. His SIERA is up to 5.27 (his worst in over a decade), he has a double-digit walk rate for the first time since 2006, and he's only managed a 5.58 xFIP against right-handed bats.

Yordan Alvarez, OF, Houston Astros ($4,300)

It's easy to like the Houston Astros offense tonight as they come in as massive -235 favorites in a game with a 9.5-run over/under on MLB odds.

They're projected so highly thanks to their matchup with right-hander Dario Agrazal and the Pittsburgh Pirates. Agrazal has only pitched four major league innings so far, but he hasn't shown a ton of promise. He looked good in a small sample in Double-A this year (2.75 xFIP over 25 innings), but a move up to Triple-A was far less encouraging, only managing a 4.28 xFIP in 54 innings. Stepping up to an even higher level of competition is not likely to serve him well in the short term.

Alvarez is also in his first major league season, and it's hard to be more impressive than he has. It's only a 60 plate appearance sample, but he has absolutely erupted for a .483 wOBA and .462 ISO, racking up 7 home runs, 12 runs scored and 17 RBI in only 13 games.

Those numbers aren't sustainable, sure, but he also raked for a .464 wOBA and .399 ISO in 253 Triple-A plate appearances this year after managing a .431 wOBA and .290 ISO in 190 Double-A plate appearances in 2018. The dude's got some serious potential, and even when regression hits he should keep producing at a high level, especially with the platoon advantage in a soft matchup like he gets here.


Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.