MLB

5 Daily Fantasy Baseball Value Plays for 4/25/19

Jason Schandl  —  @JasonSchandl Apr 25th, 2019
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Justin Bour, 1B, Los Angeles Angels

Price: $2,400

Masahiro Tanaka looks super nasty when you ponder his 2.76 ERA over five games in 2019. A look at his peripherals show some room for concern, though. None of his numbers are bad by nay stretch, but they do suggest he's in for some serious regression.

His 3.78 SIERA is the second-worst of his career, ahead only of a 3.79 in 2016. His swinging-strike rate is also down to 10.9%, matching his career low, and his average fastball velocity is down significantly, from 91.5 and 91.3 miles per hour in the last two seasons to 90.4 so far in 2019.

Again, these aren't bad numbers, but they are good indicators that we don't need to be as afraid of this matchup as it might seem on the surface -- and that's especially true on today's ugly slate.

Justin Bour's production belies how he's been playing in 2019. A .250 BABIP (compared to a .293 career average) has his wOBA down at .291, despite the fact that he's turned in an excellent 37.0% hard-hit and 37.0% fly-ball rate -- both better than his career marks.

He hasn't turned in a wOBA south of .349 or ISO below .221 against right-handed pitching since his 2014 rookie season, so we can especially predict some improvements in his numbers against righties, and at only $2,400, that kind of power gives him some nice upside against Tanaka. With the ability to send one deep, the Los Angeles Angels' sub-4.00 implied total isn't too concerning, either, because at this price even a solo dong would leave him returning big value.

Jason Schandl is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Jason Schandl also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username Jaymun. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.

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