Daily Fantasy Baseball Picks: June 9 – Wall Street Journal (blog)

• By
• Michael Salfino

The Methodology: As hard as it is to project a player’s performance in any given season, projecting his performance on any single day is even more difficult. Daily fantasy baseball is all about trying to maximize each day’s matchups using historic batter vs. pitcher performance, platoon advantages and the ballpark. Using prices at FanDuel, we’re making the lineup recommendations every Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday (when all teams are generally playing) based on a combination of key metrics. But always check your lineups and the current weather.

This difficult task requires cutting-edge tools. Major League Baseball analytics provider Inside-Edge (www.inside-edge.com) helps us identify bargain-priced hitters and pitchers by grading them daily in 23 statistics that span the full range of on-field performance. And we’ve also added the insights of Swish Analytics (www.swishanalytics.com), whose “data scientists” incorporate the latest technologies to predict individual performance and whose website allows users to optimize a lineup with the best-valued players around the pitcher and/or handful of key hitters of their choice.

NOTE: Daily Fantasy scoring has a strong bias in favor of pitchers so we’ll include the best option regardless of price plus, when the opportunity arises, a bargain play for those preferring to save money for more hitting. The hitting recommendations generally are value-based.

JUNE 9: PITCHERS

Corey Kluber, Indians (Mariners, $11,100): His projected range is 11.95-19.51, according to Swish Analytics (www.swishanalytics.com). This is all about strikeout upside — each strikeout gets you one point and Kluber this year has 105 in 84.2 innings pitched. And he’s only walked 14 batters. While it seems difficult to fill out a playable lineup paying this much for a pitcher, we find that hitting bargains are usually plentiful, thus minimizing the impact this stud-pitcher tax.

Francisco Liriano, Pirates (Brewers, $9,500): His range is 10.11 to 16.14 against a Brewers team that is loaded with right-handed hitters but which is ranked 27th in on-base plus slugging percentage against them (.621), according to Stats, LLC. And Liriano isn’t your typical lefty, scoring a 89 on the Inside-Edge 100-point pitching scale thus far in 2015 and striking out 81 in 66.2 innings.

JUNE 9: HITTERS

Rajai Davis, Tigers (Cubs, $2,900): He has an .852 OPS against lefties like Jon Lester this year and .895 since 2013 (313 at bats). Plus Lester has given up 15 steals in 17 attempts this year and still can’t hold runners on due to problems in throwing over to first base. Davis is 13-for-16 this year on the bases, making a steal when he gets on nearly automatic. It’s important to not be so home-run heavy with every pick, as home runs are rare events.

Justin Upton, Padres (at Braves, $3,900): This is an example of the bargain-bias in the hitter pricing. Upton has 12 homers and 12 steals and is hitting .290 while being on pace for over 100 RBI. That’s a lot of ways to pile up points. And he’s also facing one of the lowest-priced pitchers on the board, Mike Foltynewicz.

Lucas Duda, Mets (Giants, $3,400): He gets the platoon advantage against righty Chris Heston who’s been terrible on the road (5.79 ERA, .815 OPS allowed). And Duda has seven homers with a 1.056 OPS at Citi Field. These are the double-split advantages that we need to hit on to win leagues and tournaments.

BIG NAME, BARGAIN PRICE:

Robinson Cano, Mariners (at Indians, $2,300): Remember when Cano was fantasy dynamite, for a day, a week or even a year? Those days seem so long ago with Cano now $100 above the minimum price, hitting a paltry .239 with just two homers. Given that the Mariners are paying $240 million for him, should we jump at this apparent bargain? Against Kluber? No way. Recommendation: PASS.

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