Baseball is back and so is my Swing for the Fences column here at GoingFor2. If you don’t recall in this series of articles I will try to project and predict a player at each position that is in the best situation to hit a home run that day. I will also give a “longshot” option of a cheap player that has a shot to go deep.
Home runs are a big factor in the success of DFS baseball lineups, with a single swing of the bat your DFS lineup can go from out of the money to cashing or from a modest payout to a big GPP win. Predicting home runs isn’t easy, of course, even I predicted Mark Trumbo to hit a home run every day he played last year, I would still only have been right less than 30% of the time.
Last season I finished with a 22.1% success rate overall with Catcher surprisingly my most successful position with a 35.5% success rate and Second Base my weakest position with a 15.6% success rate. I will track my results again this season and include them at the bottom of my articles going forward. So let’s get the HR derby started!
Prices included for FanDuel and DraftKings to help find where the best value may be and positions are based on FanDuel.
So with that here is who will be swinging for the fences today…
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C – Gary Sanchez (NYY) (FanDuel: $3,400 / DraftKings: $4,000) – Hit 20 bombs in only 201 at-bats last season including one against today’s pitcher Jake Odorizzi who has reverse splits allowing 1.62 HR/9 to righties last season.
1B – Mike Napoli (TEX) (FanDuel: $3,000 / DraftKings: $3,600) – Party at Napoli’s tonight after he hits a homer off righty Carlos Carrasco. Napoli hit 27 of his 34 homers last season off righties with a .242 ISO.
2B – Robinson Cano (SEA) (FanDuel: $3,400 / DraftKings: $4,100) – Cano faces the hard-throwing righty Lance McCullers who didn’t allow many homers last season but you know what they say “the harder he throws the further it goes”, let’s test the myth tonight with Cano.
SS – Trevor Story (COL) (FanDuel: $3,600 / DraftKings: $4,100) – *Rockies stack alert* Story and the Rockies face Zach Davies who had trouble with the long ball at home in Miller Park last season allowing 1.25 HR/9. Story hit 18 of his 27 homers against righties last season.
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3B – Nolan Arenado (COL) (FanDuel: $4,000 / DraftKings: $4,800) – *Rockies stack alert* Arenado hits righties better than lefties and although the game isn’t in Coors, Arenado still had a .238 ISO on the road against righties last season.
OF – Charlie Blackmon (COL) (FanDuel: $4,000 / DraftKings: $4,600) – *Rockies stack alert* Blackmon is one Rockies’ hitter that travels well hitting for his highest ISO (.313) on the road against righties last season.
OF – Carlos Beltran (HOU) (FanDuel: $3,200 / DraftKings: $3,400) – New team and park for Beltran this season but it is a really good offense and a good hitter’s park. Beltran hit 20 of his 29 homers last season against righties including one against Hisashi Iwakuma.
OF – Khris Davis (OAK) (FanDuel: $3,000 / DraftKings: $3,500) – How is a guy that hit 42 bombs last season priced so low? Davis has two-homer upside against Matt Shoemaker who Davis hit two homers in six at-bats against last season.
Longshot – Greg Bird (NYY) (FanDuel: $2,400 / DraftKings: $2,800) – This is a Spring Training/BvP pick as Bird had a great Spring (8 HR) and has had success against Odorizzi (2 HR in 5 AB). Worth a shot with a cheap salary, the Bird is the Word!
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