MLB

Under-the-Radar MLB FanDuel Plays for Thursday 9/2/21

Thomas Vecchio  —  @Tom_Vecchio1 Sep 2nd, 2021

When being contrarian in daily fantasy sports, there's a fine line between taking a calculated risk and being reckless. But differentiating your lineups from everyone else's is the name of the game if you plan on taking down one of those highly lucrative DFS tournaments. Whether it's because of bookmaker totals, other options at a given position, or some gem you've found who everyone is overlooking, we can always find potential under-rostered plays if we look hard enough.

Here are three such players to consider branching out for on FanDuel's main slate.

Jesus Aguilar, 1B, Miami Marlins ($2,900)

The Miami Marlins have a slate-low 3.05 implied run total and shouldn't be popular tonight.

It's no secret that the Marlins aren't a good team and are often one DFS players attack via a pitcher. That is what we could see tonight, as New York Mets' pitcher, Carlos Carrasco, is expected to be very popular tonight. That makes sense because we have a small five-game slate, Carrasco is affordable, and paying up for the hitters at Coors Field is going to be the chalk lineup build.

Taking a hitter from the Marlins is a clear contrarian route to go, but it could be a good one. Carrasco is allowing a .320 ISO, 3.18 HR/9, 38.9% fly-ball rate, and 28.6% HR/FB rate versus right-handed hitters this season. Carrasco has only pitched 23.1 innings this season, so take that with a grain of salt, but it's clear that he is struggling versus righties.

We can look to Jesus Aguilar, who has a .208 ISO, 115 wRC+, 45.3% fly-ball rate, and 37.1% hard-contact rate versus right-handed pitchers. Aguilar has hit 17 of his 22 home runs off of right-handed pitchers, so yeah, love him as a one-off tonight.

Mike Zunino, C, Tampa Bay Rays ($3,400)

I'm going to tell you a stat about Mike Zunino that is going to amaze you.

Mike Zunino has 55 total hits this season, and 27 of them are home runs. That's right, 49.0% of his hits are home runs this season. He has 31 of those hits off of left-handed hitters, where 13 of them (41%) of them are home runs. If Zunino is getting a hit, there's a good chance it's going for a home run.

That's because he has a 245 wRC+, an insane .527 ISO, 60.7% fly-ball rate, 42.6% hard-contact rate, and 35.1% HR/FB rate versus left-handed pitchers this season. It's legitimately all power for Zunino in this split, and that's the upside we always want. He's facing Eduardo Rodriguez, who has been anything but consistent this year.