3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Thursday 8/25/22
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?
Jameson Taillon, P, Yankees ($9,400)
The two go-to pitchers tonight are Aaron Nola ($10,800) and Jacob deGrom ($12,500). Both offer sky-high ceilings in great matchups, and they're in their own tier. They'll soak up a huge chunk of the draft percentage at pitcher. In truth, that's who I'll use in the vast majority of my lineups.
However, I'm intrigued a little by Jameson Taillon facing the Oakland Athletics.
We know the matchup is a good one. For the year, Oakland is next to last in wOBA (.276) with the 11th-highest strikeout rate (23.1%). Taillon gets a huge park boost in Oakland, and the Athletics' 3.11 implied total is the night's second-lowest.
With a 20.7% strikeout rate, Taillon has nowhere near the swing-and-miss upside of the night's big two aces. But he can post a solid score in this soft matchup -- projected for 30.9 FanDuel points, per our model -- and offers sizable salary savings from Nola and deGrom. He's at least worth sprinkling into a few lineups.
Gavin Sheets, 1B/OF, White Sox ($2,300)
If you're using deGrom, you need to find some low-salary sticks.
I wrote up Gavin Sheets in yesterday's piece, and he came through with 19.5 FanDuel points. We can go right back to him in another matchup with a righty.
With the platoon advantage this year, Sheets sports a decent .322 wOBA with a 44.8% fly-ball rate. He's ripping it up in August, recording a .385 wOBA for the month.
He'll see Jordan Lyles in this one. Lyles is giving up a 41.7% fly-ball rate overall, and lefties have bashed him to the tune of a .368 wOBA and 1.73 dingers per nine.
Bradley Zimmer, OF, Phillies ($2,100)
The Philadelphia Phillies have been a popular stacking option lately. Not only have they had some nice matchups, the Phils have carried modest salaries across the board. That all holds true again tonight, and they are a perfect stack to use alongside deGrom.
Philly hosts Justin Dunn and boasts the slate's highest implied total (5.34). Guys like Kyle Schwarber ($3,200) and Rhys Hoskins ($3,200) project as fantastic point-per-dollar plays and will be chalk, but if you really want to save salary, look to Bradley Zimmer.
Just $100 over the minimum, Zimmer is slated to hit ninth. That's obviously not ideal. But this is mostly about the $2,100 salary and the exposure to a Philly offense that could nuke Dunn, a righty who has conceded five homers in 13 1/3 innings this year and has a 5.78 SIERA for his career.
