Are injured studs like Mike Trout, Madison Bumgarner or Zack Britton killing your season-long fantasy baseball squad? Heck, is Steve Pearce's calf injury annoying you? Either way, let go of your season-long rotis blues and enjoy another fun daily fantasy FanDuel Baseball Championship Qualifier. There are only two more qualifying events left to make it to the cash prize round. Now is the time to hop to it!
Our joint RotoWire-Fanduel event is a bi-weekly competition that allows participants to compete for cash prizes while attempting to qualify for the championship contest. The tournament has been running since April 5th, with the two remaining qualifying events occurring today and June 14th. Make it to the June 28th championship round and you'll compete for an extra $2,000 in cash prizes plus RotoWire subscriptions. How do you make it to the champ round? CLICK HERE to learn all the details.
RotoWire experts are participating in a concurrent contest. RW Scribe Scott Jenstad currently leads the pack through seven weeks, with Ronny Mor and Peter Merrill nipping at his heels. Podcast star Shannon McKeown is twelfth and sadly ahead of me – not that we have a side wager going or anything. Last week (5/24), RotoWire co-founder, Senior Editor, two-time winner of the Baseball Writer of the Year (FSWA) and FSWA Hall of Fame member Jeff Erickson won by a dominant 30 point margin over 49 other RW experts with dominant performances from Chris Sale, Adam Frazier, Wilmer "there's no crying in baseball" Flores and power bat Jordy Mercer. Flores, Mercer and Frazier all had 6% ownership. I guess 30 years of fantasy baseball expertise played to Jeff's advantage. Throw in heavily owned Carlos Gonzalez's 31.7 fantasy points, and I'm guessing Jeff was popping bottles at about 8pm Pacific time. CLICK HERE to see the full RW expert leaderboard.
But enough about us, what about the FAN LEADERBOARD!?! CLICK HERE to see the full board, but here are the current Top 10 fans, with two more events remaining. Shout out to the fans, baby:
- drewbos11
- dc_donkeys
- zzzimsleeping
- thatstunna
- cdub1120
- GHO2
- caddie003
- patti1putt
- jbucna
- stormy1114
There really should be more donkey mascots in sports, don't ya think?
Strategy Tips
RotoWire subscribers have a whole bunch of awesome tools for building killer lineups, with the most-helpful tool coming in the form of the MLB lineup optimizer.
Using RotoWire's daily projections, which include insights from guys like Jeff Erickson, Derek Van Riper, Clay Link and many others, the lineup optimizer will show you the highest projected lineup using FanDuel's salary limits. While generating the best possible lineup with one click of a button is the easiest way to get started, RW subscribers can scroll below the optimizer and view each position's breakdown, looking for their own values within the available player pool. And try the new Stacks and Filters options. You'll have a blast.
When it comes to DFS strategy, why not take advantage of some of RotoWire's gifts this season? Use tools like the lineup optimizer in conjunction with our daily lineups and weather reports in order to take home the gold. You gotta know who's playing and who's isn't. And RW certainly has a ton of DFS articles advising you each and every day across multiple sports.
And as if all those RW tools aren't enough, here's some handy advice from yours truly
Weather Warning
You probably should avoid or at least keep an eye on the DET vs. KC match-up. Weather reports are showing a 74% chance of rain as of 8:23am EST.
Value Picks
PMasahiro Tanaka, New York Yankees at Baltimore Orioles
FanDuel Price: $8,500
The O's bats are slumping, having averaged only 2.0 runs over their past seven games. And Tanaka is finally turning things around, coming off a 13 strikeout performance versus the A's. Tanaka won't be this cheap for long. He's also had surprising success against Orioles' batters. Manny Machado boasts a meager .235 career average versus Tanaka. Chris Davis has done worse, batting .200, while Mark Trumbo is hitless in only six at bats.
1B Brandon Belt, San Francisco Giants vs Washington Senators
FanDuel Price: $2,600
Scherzer is certainly a tough match-up, but Belt is hitting .266/.394/.560 with eight home runs and 16 RBI against right-handed pitching this season, and owns a .913 OPS over the last 14 days.
High Risk/High Reward
1B Adrian Gonzalez, Los Angeles Dodgers at St. Louis Cardinals
FanDuel Price: $2,600
Gonzalez has missed most of may due to back injury, reducing his price. But he's slashing .304/.320/.522 with four RBI's over his last seven games. Since 2014, Gonzalez has been hitting .292 versus righties. He's due to return, sooner or later, to his usual star status performance levels.
2B Rougned Odor, Texas Rangers vs Tampa Bay Rays
FanDuel Price: $2,600
Odor just had his eight game hitting streak snapped last night versus TB. The hard punching second baseman can't possibly keep hitting at his current low BA. RotoWire is predicting 18 more home runs over the ROS, and I agree. The 23 year-old is due to for some big nights soon.
OF Eric Young Jr, Texas Rangers vs Tampa Bay Rays
FanDuel Price: $2,100
This is a definite "check your starting lineups" pick. Ben Revere was expected to get Trout's spot in the OF versus righties, but recently called up Young received the start Tuesday and got a hit and two SB's. Will Scioscia gamble again with the 32-year-old speedster? If so, he certainly helps you spend big elsewhere.