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Hello fellow RotoBallers and daily fantasy sports enthusiasts! Every Friday morning for the rest of the fantasy baseball season, we will be publishing this short piece detailing two recommended daily league player recommendations and sleepers, from two or three of our favorite DFS sites. This week's featured expert analysis will include lineup value picks from Fanduel and DraftKings.
If you haven't experienced the thrill of drafting a new fantasy team every night, and competing for just one day, then you have no idea what fun you are missing! We highly suggest you join in on the fun, especially if you are one of the unfortunate souls who has had a tough go at it in seasonal fantasy baseball formats. Whether the injury bug bit your team, or whether your draft did not live up to your expectations (and hype), you now have a fantastic option (and reason) to keep playing fantasy baseball for the rest of the year.
Editors Note: If you want an even greater edge over your Fanduel and DraftKings competitors, check out RotoBaller's highly effective Expert Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks Newsletter. In this simple to use cheat sheet format, we provide you a minimum of 15 daily league player recommendations (usually closer to 20 players), 3 days a week (Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday) throughout the fantasy baseball season.
Alright good folks, without further ado, let's get right to the meat and potatoes for Friday, June 13th 2014:
FanDuel Player Recommendations for 6/13
Nathan Eovaldi - $6,800
The fantasy baseball season is full of ups and downs, but the beauty of daily fantasy baseball leagues is that you can isolate a player who has tremendous upside in a small sample size.
For Nasty Nate (Eovaldi), tonight's home field matchup versus Jeff Locke and the Pittsburgh Pirates presents a nice amount of profitability based on the fact that he is the 14th most expensive pitcher on the Fanduel slate.
Take advantage of his extremely favorable home/road ERA split (2.49 vs 4.29), and Pittsburgh's extremely putrid .233 team batting average on the road, and you have yourself the making of a true Fanduel sleeper.
Rickie Weeks - $2,900
Uncle Rickie, won't you hit us a homerun? Please, huh, please! Alright, you kids set your lineups, I'll get the analysis ready. (If anyone got the Slick Rick reference, then bonus points to you...if not, oh well!). Here's the deal folks; Rickie Weeks is a horrible player to own in seasonal formats because he always disappoints and never plays full time anymore, but he can be DFS gold if you know when to play him.
Now this season, he has been on the lefty side of the second base platoon with Scooter Gennett, and has a batting average over .300 for a change. So if he is in the lineup today against the homer-ball friendly Mr. Bailey (Homer), then he'll essentially be a must start for me at second base. In a healthy 27-at-bat, in-division-opponent, sample size, Weeks is hitting a stupendous .519 with 2 long balls and 2 doubles to go along with 8 RBIs. Ultimately, these are the types of cheapo, sleeper, upside plays the experts are scouting for any given day when playing Fanduel and trying to get some budget busting value.
DraftKings Player Recommendations for 6/13
Jake Arrieta - $7,400
Try and overlook Jake Arrieta's horrific previous career stats against the Phillies, because those inflated numbers are more like smoke and mirrors than actual reality. In two career starts against Philadelphia, he's had one blow up game (his first outing against them in 2012), but then sharpened up for a solid 6+ inning win in his second time around against the aging and beleaguered club last year.
Forget about the minuscule sample size versus the Fightin's because Mr. Arrieta has been dealing of late, shutting down the opposition while pitching to the tune of a 2.70 ERA with 15 strikeouts in 16 innings. With that kind of sleeper DFS upside in the two-pitcher format that is DraftKings, you can't beat the Chicago Cubs' rising star as your #2 starter for tonight. Pair him up with King Felix or Clayton Kershaw, and make a shipload of money on DraftKings tonight!
A.J. Pierzynski - $3,600
With 17 more expensive catcher options listed for tonight, you can bet your bottom dollar that we'll be checking the MLB daily lineups page feverishly throughout the day to make sure the veteran backstop is playing. Facing off against Justin Masterson and the Cleveland Indians, the former White Sox and Rangers great brings a .368 batting average with 4 extra base hits in a healthy 38 at bat sample size versus Masterson. Couple that with the general fact the the big righty from Kingston, Jamaica (look it up if you don't believe me) can't get out a left handed hitter if his life depended on it (lefties batting .293 and slugging .400 against him thus far in 2014), and holds a 5.35 road ERA this year, and you have the potential for some fantasy baseball fireworks.
So, to review this recommendation, we have a pretty large and successful hitting sample size, coupled with a weak opposing pitcher's split stats in road games, and against left handed batters. Last we checked, that is the recipe for raking in some dollar bills when playing on DraftKings.
In general, the key in any successful DFS gaming strategy is to always try to "buy low", or unearth some undervalued talent using split stats, or favorable player platoons. Although predicting the outcomes of baseball games can be extremely tough, using a smart analytical process, and good sabermetric data to back up our intuition, gives us the edge we need to slowly make incremental gains over our competitors. That is exactly what we will strive to provide you with each and every week in this article. Good luck today RotoBallers!
