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Anyone feel tired of seeing their fantasy baseball team at the bottom of the standings? Can't seem to make up ground even though you watch the games every night, and are very active on your league's waiver wire? Have no fear, we have the perfect solution for you fantasy baseball freaks. Enter daily leagues, where you can use your knowledge of fantasy baseball to compete each and every night from scratch with a new roster. Just draft your squad (slightly different style on all three of our favorite sites) using a salary cap based system, and sit back and enjoy the games for that night! With these leagues, you can leave the hopelessness of your seasonal formats aside, and focus on the next 3 plus months of fantasy baseball action.
With that being said, every Friday morning for the rest of the fantasy baseball season, we will be publishing this short piece detailing one or two daily league player recommendations and sleepers, from three of our favorite DFS sites. This week's featured expert analysis will include lineup value picks from Fanduel, DraftKings and DraftStreet.
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 20th 2014:
FanDuel Lineup Recommendations for 6/20
Jaime Garcia (SP) - $6,200
![By shgmom56 on Flickr (Originally posted to Flickr as "DSC03065") [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](http://dev.rotoballer.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/RotoBaller-MLB-News-Fantasy-Baseball-Advice-Analysis-Jaime-Garcia-150x150.png)
Take this notion to the bank as you sort through today's matchups seeking to unearth some sleepers: Jaime Garcia is supremely underrated in all formats of fantasy baseball.
It's borderline disgusting that the crafty lefty is the 20th most expensive priced starting pitcher (and you'll see a copy and paste of the following analysis for his DraftStreet recommendation because he is way undervalued there as well tonight).
With a career 2.77 ERA against the underperforming Philies lineup (12th in the league in striking out), and an ability to keep runners off base (as evidenced by his 0.96 WHIP), you have yourself the making of a true Fanduel sleeper for tonight's bigger, riskier tournament plays.
Asdrubal Cabrera (SS) - $2,900
For those of you playing in seasonal formats, we feel bad for your struggles with the underperforming Indians shortstop. Conversely, those savvy enough to choose Asdrubal Cabrera tonight in DFS play on Fanduel will be trying to get some budget busting value as he had banged Rick Porcello for a healthy .317 BA over 41 career at bats.
Normally we don't pay this much attention to smaller sample sizes in batter vs pitcher analysis, but these two have been in-division opponents for long enough to know what size bra each other's wives wear (assuming they both aren't still bachelors), forget about pitch selection and sequencing. We say take a cheapo flier on Mr. Cabrera if you're setting a Fanduel lineup tonight.
DraftKings Lineup Recommendations for 6/20
Henderson Alvarez (SP) - $7,300
You'll need a sleeper pitcher for this very competitive 2 pitcher format, so we are looking in the direction of former Jays great Henderson Alvarez. If you're trying to win a shipload of money on DraftKings tonight, then please note that the non-sexy pitching pick has owned the lowly Mets to the tune of a 3-1 record and a 2.62 ERA in 5 games (34.1 IP).
More importantly, he is also on a serious roll over his past 3 games, mowing down opponents to the tune of a 1.27 ERA, and even raising his K/9 rate a tad by striking out 16 batters in the 21.1 inning span. That all adds up to a delicious pairing to go along with your high priced ace for the night (Mat Latos).
Nick Swisher (1B / OF) - $3,300
We'll keep this short and sweet (perhaps even Swisher Sweet). Nick Swisher walked of Thursday afternoon's extra inning game with a grand salami, and we're pretty sure his success in the batters box will spill over into tonight's matchup against Slick Rick Porcello.
Although we weren't purposely trying to pick on him tonight (Porcello), the Swish-Hawk has also owned the young righty over 27 career at bats, smashing a home run and 3 doubles, all while batting a solid .296. Couple those strong stats with the fact that he's one of the cheapest 1B plays tonight on DraftKings, and we'd say you have yourself a serious budget buster. You know what to do from here; just don't take a check-swing on this recommendation if you need to save a few shekels.
DraftStreet Lineup Recommendations for 6/20
Everth Cabrera (SS) - $2,500
The cheapest sleeper play for your DraftStreet lineup tonight is none other than the Padres somewhat slumping, but speedy, shortstop Everth Cabrera. Priced as cheap as yesterday's copy of the NY Post ($2,500 is essentially a freebee on DraftStreet), you should strongly consider taking advantage of his career track record against the blow-up prone Dan Haren, who he is hitting .294 against over 17 career at bats.
Even if Cabrera doesn't show up for work, figuratively of course, he won't set you back too much, but still has the speed and run scoring upside to contribute handsomely on a good night. So to sum this sleeper recommendation up, we suggest you "punt" the shortstop position for tonight's action, and save the extra cheddar to get an ace pitcher into the mix with Jaime Garcia's.
Jaime Garcia (SP) - $14,866
Sometimes a starting pitcher will be valued right in your wheelhouse on one DFS site, but may be super over priced on another. Usually, we find disparaging valuation differences in the pricing from day to day, making it very fun to pick lineups on different sites. Today is one of those days where Jaime Garcia is remarkably a considerable value on both Fanduel and DraftStreet (normally harder to find a sleeper pitcher on DraftStreet due to their player pricing algorithm).
Still a sleeper value as the 13th most expensive starter, the thing you have to remember about the unique format of DraftStreet is that you can technically start 3 starters (their site calls for 2 "SP" slots and 1 "P" slot) or 2 starting pitchers and a reliever (usually a potential saves candidate), so finding a sleeper value for one of the SP slots is crucial. Let's review the stats: with a career 2.77 ERA against the underperforming Philies lineup (12th in the league in striking out), and an ability to keep runners off base (as evidenced by his 0.96 WHIP), you have yourself the making of a true DraftStreet sleeper for tonight.
On most nights, and on all sites, the key to any successful DFS gaming strategy is to try to "buy low", or unearth some undervalued talent, using split stats, or favorable player platoons. Sometimes sites just miss something and you can find a glitchy play (like when Hunter Pence was dropped to $2,200 for a few nights on Fanduel this past week). Although predicting the outcomes of baseball games can be extremely tough (if not borderline impossible), 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.
We can't stress this point to you enough so we'll say it yet again! 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. Good luck today playing your DFS games tonight RotoBallers!
