In this article, we cover four core plays for FanDuel & DraftKings daily fantasy baseball contests. These players are the ones we are going to have solid GPP exposure to for the main slate. Let’s jump right into today’s article.
We will stick with the same format that we’ve used recently, focusing on lower-ownership candidates for tournaments (GPPs) in this article. If you are looking for cash game plays, make sure to check out all the other great articles that we post on FantasyCruncher on a daily basis.
Top Pitcher
As mentioned in the Pitching Primer here today, Kikuchi is rounding into form nicely and has himself a great situation against the Reds this afternoon. His SIERA over the last couple weeks has nestled under the 4.00 mark, and his K/9 is over 10 in that time. He’s still walking a few too many guys for my liking, but having watched a bunch of his work this year, he’s certainly been unlucky with the quality of strike-calling he’s experienced. For the price on both sites, he may be a bit more popular than we’d like him to be, but I still see him being vastly under-owned on the slate and therefor a rock solid GPP candidate.
Stud Hitter
After a 2 home run game against Chris Flexen and company yesterday, Devers is the kind of guy that I want to heavy-up exposure to against another righty just one day later. He’s rocking a .440 wOBA and 194 wRC+ against RHP so far this year, with all 9 of his long balls coming in this split. I don’t expect him to be very highly-owned against a talented young pitcher (Logan Gilbert), but with a guy of Devers’ skill level, I’m very happy to ride the wave while the going is good. Trevor Story’s recent outbreak makes him pretty darn intriguing, too. More on this in our Cheat Sheet column today.
Value Hitter
It’s been awhile since Naylor’s seen major league action given the time on the COVID-19 IL he’s coming back from, but the price is certainly right for a great matchup here. For $3,500 on DraftKings, he brings 1B/OF eligibility to the table and is rocking an elite .422 wOBA / .261 ISO to date in 2022. Alex Faedo has allowed LHBs to sport a .338 wOBA / .500 SLG so far in 34 batters this year, and is certainly the kind of guy that Naylor can do serious damage against.
Top Stack
Houston Astros
I always like looking for stacks outside of the top 4 on a given slate when finding teams to have exposure to for GPP purposes. And, Taylor Hearn is certainly the kind of pitcher I like to exploit. His barrel rate of nearly 20% this year is one of the worst I’ve ever seen in the statcast era for a starting pitcher, and when you add that together with a team that hits lefties pretty well (34% hard hit rate for HOU against LHP), there’s nice upside here. Yuli Gurriel is always a great play vs a lefty pitcher, and there’s some low-own appeal with Jeremy Pena (.382 wOBA) and Chas McCormick (.362 wOBA) in the split, too. Yordan Alvarez and Alex Bregman are other strong targets in the split, who both sport 14%+ BB% rates against LHP and could do some serious damage, too.
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