3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Tuesday 8/16/22
With production being highly variable on a night-to-night basis, daily fantasy baseball plays a bit differently than other sports.
As a result of this, the primary method of selecting hitters is to "stack" certain teams in good spots to produce. Most of the top stacks on a given day come with hefty salaries. In addition to that, a vast majority of pitchers with the upside to win tournaments are high-salaried hurlers.
Therefore, crushing your value plays -- whether it be a pitcher unexpectedly piling up strikeouts or a low-salaried batter racking up points -- can be the secret sauce to taking down a tournament.
Which budget options stand out today on FanDuel?
Jose Quintana, P, Cardinals ($8,400)
Jose Quintana is having a really nice season. Through 115 innings, he's sporting a 3.96 SIERA, 11.2% swinging-strike rate and 21.3% strikeout rate. He's permitted only three earned runs across his past four starts (24 2/3 innings), and two of those earned runs came at Coors in a solid six-inning outing.
Quintana gets the Colorado Rockies again today, this time away from the thin air, and he should have another good showing. While Colorado has been tough on lefties in 2022, they're 25th in overall road wOBA (.288). Their 3.10 implied total is the slate's lowest.
Our model has Quintana projected for 29.3 FanDuel points. He's our top-projected pitcher with a salary under $9,000, and he's a fine value target on a slate that has a few of them, including Zach Plesac ($7,800) and Patrick Corbin ($6,500).
Marcus Semien, 2B, Rangers ($2,400)
I plugged Marcus Semien in yesterday's piece, and he donged.
We can go right back to him tonight. He's at the same salary, is facing a lefty and should hit leadoff.
JP Sears is listed as the probable starter for the Oakland Athletics. Sears tore up Triple-A this season, but it hasn't gone as well in The Show, with the southpaw showing a 17.6% strikeout rate through his first 27 1/3 MLB innings.
Semien had no trouble lifting the ball in this split last season, recording a 49.3% fly-ball rate versus left-handers, and he's found his power stroke of late, popping three dingers over his past seven games.
We project Semien for 11.4 FanDuel points and rate him as the slate's seventh-best point-per-dollar bat (as of early Tuesday).
Albert Pujols, 1B, Cardinals ($2,300)
Albert Pujols still packs a punch against lefties, and he'll see Kyle Freeland on Tuesday.
In 88 plate appearances with the platoon advantage this campaign, Pujols owns a 45.6% hard-hit rate and .430 wOBA. That'll play.
Freeland has surrendered 26 earned runs over his previous seven starts, a span that covers 39 innings. Righties are striking out just 15.6% of the time against him.
Pujols is a low-salary way to get a piece of the St. Louis Cardinals' 4.40 implied total, and his salary makes it a lot easier to get to Nolan Arenado ($3,900) and Paul Goldschmidt ($4,600) if you're stacking the Red Birds.
