3 MLB FanDuel Value Plays to Target on Monday 5/9/22
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?
Paul Blackburn, SP, Oakland Athletics ($8,600)
This slate has two excellent hurlers: Carlos Rodon and MacKenzie Gore. It also has a tremendous value option in Oakland's Paul Blackburn.
Blackburn's peripherals have transformed from 2021 to 2022. He's become a high-whiff pitcher (12.1% swinging-strike rate), and that's helped him hold a sporty 2.68 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA). He's morphed from a guy to stack against to one we roster.
His matchup is the best of the day for his handedness. The Tigers' hot start against righties has come crashing down to just 72 weighted runs created plus (wRC+) overall, and they strike out at the seventh-highest rate in the league (25.3% of the time).
On Monday, there are some high-salaried stacks worth targeting like the Angels or White Sox. Blackburn's salary is a free pass to load up on their best hitters.
Jesus Aguilar, 1B, Miami Marlins ($2,900)
When squeezing in the aces over Blackburn, Arizona's contest is a great spot to look.
The 8.5-run total in "The Valley" is accompanied by two low-output offenses this season: the Diamondbacks and Marlins. However, they're also facing arguably the two weakest pitchers on the slate.
Particularly, I want to stack against Humberto Castellanos when I can. Castellanos' minuscule 6.2% swinging-strike rate is also accompanied by a 4.70 SIERA. He's not a home run liability (zero allowed this year), but that many balls in play leave a lot to chance.
Miami has some value in their newly-shuffled lineup, and Jesus Aguilar hit second on Sunday against a righty. There's good reason for it; he's posted an .832 on-base plus slugging (OPS) against right-handers this season.
Due to the reverse split situation with Aguilar, he may be less popular than some of the Marlins' lefties in this stack, as well.
Yoan Moncada, 3B, Chicago White Sox ($2,800)
Yoan Moncada returns tonight to a White Sox lineup that badly needs him.
Projected as one of the best offenses in baseball, the Pale Hose have just an 89 wRC+ overall (seventh-worst in MLB). As a switch-hitter that posted 122 wRC+ a season ago, Moncada should be another quality bat in the order.
There will be an incredibly practical measuring stick of his impact tonight. Chicago posted just one run in Zach Plesac's 6.2 innings of work during the Guardians' last trip into town.
Plesac is a pitcher that the White Sox should club. Beyond their 4.29 implied team total, Plesac allows 79.1% of balls to enter the field of play, and a whopping 47.1% of them have been classified as hit hard. He's ceded 10 earned runs in the pair of starts since his last outing at Guaranteed Rate Field.
Moncada and Yasmani Grandal are the lone sources of value amidst this star-studded lineup, so they are crucial to utilize if you wish to pair them with their former teammate toeing the slab in San Francisco.
