MLB

3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Tuesday 9/20/22

Austan Kas  —  @AustanKas Sep 20th, 2022

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?

Mitch Haniger, OF, Mariners ($2,300)

Mitch Haniger has a really good batted-ball profile against lefties, sporting a 42.9% hard-hit rate and 45.7% fly-ball rate in the split.

You can get him for $2,300 tonight versus southpaw JP Sears. A rookie, Sears has struggled in 2022, recording a 4.68 SIERA and 15.9% strikeout rate. Righties are striking out only 15.1% of the time against Sears while posting a 44.4% fly-ball rate.

Haniger has hit second or third for eight straight starts, and we project him for 13.0 FanDuel points, ranking him as the second-best point-per-dollar bat. We like the Seattle Mariners as a place to find value, as we have three Seattle bats in the top seven by points per dollar.

Gavin Sheets, 1B/OF, White Sox ($2,100)

Gavin Sheets has been projecting well lately when the Chicago White Sox are seeing righties, and that's no different today as they face Aaron Civale.

Sheets has been better in the second half, racking up a .336 wOBA, and for the year, he's got a 43.8% fly-ball rate against right-handers.

Civale isn't a bad pitcher, but this is his first start off the IL. Chicago has a decent 4.10 implied total, and Sheets makes sense as a salary-saver.

J.D. Davis, 3B, Giants ($2,800)

J.D. Davis has a nice track record versus lefties, and he's up against Kyle Freeland today at Coors.

With the platoon advantage this year, Davis owns a .343 wOBA and 44.9% hard-hit rate. Overall, he's mashed his way to a .359 wOBA in the second half, and he's recorded a 40.4% hard-hit rate and 42.3% fly-ball rate since coming to the San Francisco Giants.

San Fran boasts a gaudy 5.84 implied total -- the slate's highest -- versus Freeland, and Davis is a modest-salaried way to get in on the fun.