FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Friday 10/9/20
With the other three division series matchups wrapping up yesterday, only the New York Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays will go the distance, giving us a winner-take-all Game 5 slate at 7:10pm ET.
Both teams are naturally pulling out all the stops, as both Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow will start on short rest, and we can expect both teams to unload every available resource from their respective pitching staffs tonight. A 7.5 over/under suggests a low-scoring game, with the Yankees getting the slightly higher implied team total (4.08) over the Rays (3.42).
For those unfamiliar with the single-game daily fantasy baseball format, scoring is identical to its full roster cousin, except you only roster hitters and lineups consist of five flex spots. The one twist? One of the five roster spots is your designated "MVP," who receives 2-times his total fantasy points, along with a "STAR" slot that gets 1.5-times the points. Naturally, it's crucial that you choose your MVP and All-Star carefully if you want to be at the top of the leaderboards when it's all said and done.
On that note, let's highlight some of the top options for today's FanDuel single-game slate.
New York Yankees
Unlike single-game slates for the NFL and NBA, where only a handful of players typically deserve serious consideration in your MVP slot, that isn't really the case in baseball, where just about anyone can homer on a given night. Obviously, we want to lean towards the top power bats on either side, but it doesn't hurt to take a game theory approach and go off the board at MVP (and STAR) in large-field tournaments.
As for the Yankees' matchup, Glasnow probably won't pitch deep into the game, but the Rays won't be afraid to empty the bullpen cupboard, and they could even roll out Blake Snell if necessary. In any case, there won't be any easy matchups here, but the same can be said for Tampa Bay's side, and if we're picking one offense to overcome adversity, it has to be the Bronx Bombers.
With all that being said, Giancarlo Stanton ($9,500), Aaron Judge ($9,000), and Luke Voit ($8,000) are top candidates to send one (or more) into the outfield seats. Stanton was finally held without a home run yesterday after slugging six in the five previous games, but he still figures to be one of the more popular choices for the MVP slot. In that sense, he's a guy you might consider lowering your exposure to at MVP to differentiate yourself. The other two should be fairly popular, too, but with Judge batting just .111/.194/.333 this postseason, perhaps his MVP roster percentage won't be through the roof like it normally would be.
DJ LeMahieu ($7,500) and Aaron Hicks ($7,000) are easier ways to gain exposure to the top half of the Yankees' lineup. They don't pop as much from a power perspective, but in the event of a pitching duel, their extra at-bats as high-order hitters will be vital for scoring extra fantasy points.
This being the Yankees, you can comfortably mix and match any of their bats, and Gleyber Torres ($6,500) and Gio Urshela ($6,000) could be sneaky guys to slot in at MVP when multi-entering. Despite a quiet 2020 campaign, Torres owns a .230 ISO dating back to last year, while Urshela comes in at .212. Both have homered this postseason.
Even likely number-nine hitter Kyle Higashioka ($5,000) has some pop if you need a punt to fit in the high-salaried bats.
Tampa Bay Rays
The Rays have an uphill battle against Cole, but he's been susceptible to dingers from left-handed batters, allowing 2.70 per 9.0 innings off a 40.0% hard-hit rate and 55.7% fly-ball rate. That should move us towards Austin Meadows ($7,000) and Brandon Lowe ($8,000) as MVP alternatives to the top Yankees bats, and the Rays figure to be less popular overall.
Ji-Man Choi ($4,500) is a great value out of the clean-up spot, and he homered off Cole in Game 1. For what it's worth, Choi actually has quite a bit of success against Cole in his career.
Randy Arozarena ($8,500) has been a beast in these playoffs (.500/.538/1.042), so he could be one Tampa Bay bat who finds his way onto a lot of lineups. Still, in this matchup, he may not see the same MVP levels as the similarly hot Stanton.
Everyone else in this lineup comes in on the cheap, but for the most part, you'll probably only want to dip into the lower order bats if you're going for a full Tampa Bay stack.
