MLB

FanDuel MLB Sunday Night Baseball Single-Game Helper: 9/1/19

Austan Kas  —  @AustanKas Sep 1st, 2019
The Mets are taking on Zach Eflin, who has had a tough time with left-handed hitters in 2019. Which bats should you roster for the Sunday night single-game slate?

FanDuel's single-game slates are a great way to make any MLB matchup more exciting, and FanDuel is offering single-game contests for the Sunday Night Baseball clash each week. What better way to wrap up the MLB week than to play a little DFS on Sunday night?

Single-game contests are a different beast. You have $35,000 to fill out a five-man lineup. There are no positional requirements, but there are three utility spots, one All-Star slot, and an MVP position. The player you put in the MVP spot has his points multiplied by two while the All-Star position gets his points multiplied by 1.5. The three utility places are scored like normal.

This Sunday's game is an NL East battle between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets at Citizens Bank Park. The pitching matchup is expected to be Zach Eflin versus Marcus Stroman. Our models project the Mets to win by a score of 4.93-4.34.

Pete Alonso ($9,500)

Eflin hasn't been very good this year, pitching to a 4.83 SIERA and 18.3% strikeout rate. While we normally want to use lefties against him (more on that shortly), Pete Alonso is firmly in play on any single-game slate thanks to his game-breaking power.

Alonso has mashed in righty-righty matchups to the tune of a .387 wOBA. He's striking out just 22.3% of the time in the split, compared to a 33.1% strikeout rate versus lefties.

Eflin is striking out right-handed hitters just 17.8% of the time, and over 62 2/3 home innings this year, he's allowing a 40.5% fly-ball rate.

Bryce Harper ($9,000)

The Phillies are projected for 4.34 runs, per our models, which isn't a decent total. The way to attack Stroman is with left-handed hitters as he's giving up a .332 wOBA in the split, compared to a .267 wOBA to righties -- though he's getting a ton of grounders against everyone.

Harper hasn't exploded in his first campaign in Philly, but he's still got a .358 wOBA, 16.8% walk rate and 43.9% hard-hit rate versus right-handers. His wOBA jumps to .367 if we look at only his home plate appearances against right-handers.

Michael Conforto ($8,500)

Here's where we get to Eflin's numbers against lefties. In the split in 2018, Eflin is giving up a .369 wOBA, .542 slugging percentage, 10.2% walk rate, 39.4% hard-hit rate and 43.1% fly-ball rate. Yikes.

This is a great spot for Conforto, who has owned righties for a .391 wOBA, 16.0% walk rate and 44.6% fly-ball rate in 2019.

With the Mets projected to score nearly five runs, loading up on them tonight isn't a bad strategy.

Corey Dickerson ($7,000)

Dickerson has long been a useful option against righties, and that's no different now, especially if he's leading off. With the platoon advantage in 2019, Dickerson is holding a .392 wOBA, 40.3% hard-hit rate and 40.2% fly-ball rate. Those are gaudy numbers.

If you're aiming to be contrarian, you can stack the Phillies, or you can lock in Dickerson as a one-off play if you go heavy on the Mets.

Joe Panik ($5,500)

Panik is a cheap way to get left-handed exposure to the Mets. His position in the lineup has been all over the place lately, but if he found himself in the two spot, he'd be a lot more appealing than if he's down in the eight hole.

Regardless, he's cheap access to the slate's favored team, and he hits left-handed. While there's not a ton of pop in Panik's profile, he's got a mere 10.3% strikeout rate this year with the platoon advantage.