FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Sunday 10/8/23

Our daily fantasy helper is available every day to analyze FanDuel's main slate and help give you a starting point when you're building lineups.

Be sure to also incorporate numberFire's great tools into your research process, including daily projections, the latest starting lineups and weather, and batting and pitching heat maps to find the best matchups.

Let's check out the top options on today's main slate.

Pitchers

Framber Valdez ($10,300)

At his lowest salary point since August 5th, Valdez will make his 13th postseason start against a Minnesota Twins lineup with a stingy 17.8% K-rate and a .305 weighted on-base average (wOBA) versus left-handed pitching.

In his second largest sample size as a MLB starter, the 29-year old accounted for his second best season through his six year career with a 3.39 expected Fielding Independent Pitching rating (xFIP), a 24.8% K-rate, and a 11.6% swinging strike percentage while his recent form has been relatively solid down the stretch since August with a 3.82 xFIP and quality starts in 63% of his starts during this time period.

While the Twins present a pesky matchup when examining their low K-rate, Valdez still ranks extremely well among his position with today's top fantasy projection at 35.0 expected FanDuel points with a slate-high 3.4 value rating.

Grayson Rodriguez ($9,000)

Despite a 9.4% increase to his highest salary in October, Baltimore's promising rookie ranks second among his position in value with a 3.38 rating and a 30.4 fantasy projection versus a Texas Rangers' offense with a 24.3% K-rate and a .312 wOBA.

Through his last ten starts since August, Rodriguez has been one of the best starters for his team, recording a 3.71 xFIP, a 12.8% swinging strike percentage, and a stellar 2.79 Fielding Independent Pitching rating.

When evaluating Rodriguez's elite ability to accumulate strikeouts with six or more in 70% of his last appearances and today's third highest K prediction at 5.92, Rodriguez presents underrated upside on Sunday in a favorable spot versus five Rangers' hitters with strikeout percentages ranging between 23.5% and 28.7%.

Stacks

Houston Astros

Ranking first on today's slate with a 4.23 expected run total, the Astros are considered today's top offensive option despite a difficult matchup versus Pablo Lopez.

While the Twins' right-hander is coming off his best overall season with an impressive 3.28 xFIP and a 29.2% K-rate. ideal Houston stacks can feature their best left-handed bats to attack his top weakness in this split (.327 wOBA, 3.80 XFIP) with a main focus on Yordan Alvarez (.438 expected wOBA, 18.0% barrel rate), Kyle Tucker (.387 expected wOBA, 10.6% barrel rate), and Michael Brantley (.270 expected average) while Jose Altuve (.336 expected wOBA, 8.3% barrel rate) and Alex Bregman (.349 expected OBA, .262 expected average) are secondary options.

Baltimore Orioles

After scoring an underwhelming two runs in the first game of this playoff series, Baltimore's offense looks like they are in a potential rebound spot with a 4.1 expected run total against left-hander Jordan Montgomery.

Among today's group of pitchers despite producing a strong 43.2% ground ball percentage, Montgomery could be evaluated as the worst option on Sunday when examining several key metrics during his time with the Rangers including today's weakest expected Fielding Independent Pitching rating (3.83) and strikeout percentage (21.6%).

When analyzing Montgomery's overall profile including his alarming splits to the opposing side of the plate (.301 wOBA, 4.19 xFIP), optimal Baltimore stacks should group together their top right-handed fly ball hitters to counter Montgomery's ability to keep the ball on the ground including Austin Hays (27.3% fly ball percentage, 8.9% barrel rate), Adley Rutschman (23.6% fly ball percentage, .373 expected wOBA), Anthony Santander (33.2% fly ball percentage, 10.2% barrel rate), and Ryan Mountcastle (32.7% fly ball percentage, 12.1% barrel rate) while Gunnar Henderson (.345 expected wOBA, 11.4% barrel rate) and Jordan Westburg (.314 expected wOBA, 6.5% barrel rate) rate well enough to be utilized at a shallow shortstop position.

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.