3 Daily Fantasy Baseball Value Plays for Thursday 9/9/21
With production being highly variable on a night-to-night basis, daily fantasy baseball plays a bit differently than other sports.
An 0-for-4 dud from a chalky high-salaried slugger is a lot more common than a total dud from a top-salaried NBA player or even than a stinker from a top quarterback or running back.
That means that it's not uncommon for value plays to end up doing the heavy lifting in carrying your lineup. The fact that they can be the difference between a good and a great lineup isn't much different than other sports, but value plays being able to make up for a whiff on a high-salaried play completely is somewhat unique.
John Means, P, Orioles
FanDuel Salary: $8,100
This is a horrible slate for pitching. We have one guy -- Jose Berrios -- projected for more than 27 FanDuel points. You're going to have to do some mental gymnastics to talk yourself into any of the hurlers, even Berrios, and using John Means could go really badly. But I don't mind him in this spot.
Means has had a super odd season. He looked like a legit ace early on, and lately, we've been stacking against him. While he's not getting punchouts at the level he was earlier this campaign, Means has a single-game swinging-strike rate of at least 10.1% in five of his last seven starts. He put up a 22.1% strikeout rate in August. He still offers some strikeout upside.
He also gets a nice matchup versus the Kansas City Royals, and even with it being in Camden Yards, KC has the slate's third-lowest implied total (4.15).
Our model doesn't love Means, projecting him for just 23.4 FanDuel points, which is the third-fewest among the night's starters. But everyone after Berrios is grouped together in a tight tier of blah, so they're all about the same. I think Means has as much upside as anyone outside of Berrios and Huascar Ynoa ($8,800).
Brad Miller, 1B, Phillies
FanDuel Salary: $2,500
Brad Miller checks pretty much all the boxes we could want from a value play.
He's part of an offense that has a juicy (for this slate) 4.52 implied total, the second-highest, and he'll have the platoon advantage against Antonio Senzatela. Senzatela is giving up a .333 wOBA to left-handed hitters while his strikeout rate is only 14.9% in the split.
Miller owns a .335 wOBA against righties and posted a .350 wOBA in August. He hit sixth yesterday versus a right-hander and projects as the best point-per-dollar hitter, according to our numbers. His homer projection of 0.29 is sixth-best on the slate, and he's the lone guy in the top six with a salary under $3,500.
Rougned Odor, 2B, Yankees
FanDuel Salary: $2,300
Lefties have given Jose Berrios fits this year, and Rougned Odor is a low-salary way to exploit that.
Against left-handed hitters this season, Berrios has been rocked for a .347 wOBA and 40.4% hard-hit rate. That could be trouble for him at Yankee Stadium, and the New York Yankees have a 4.35 implied total, tied for the third-highest on this slate.
While Odor has a lot of swing-and-miss in his game (27.2% strikeout rate), he is sporting a 50.0% fly-ball rate versus right-handers.
Our projections rank Odor as the sixth-best point-per-dollar value among hitters.
