Fantasy Baseball Picks: Top DraftKings MLB DFS Value Plays for August 31

DraftKings contributor Garion Thorne and RotoWire’s Erik Halterman join The Sweat to give their favorite DraftKings value plays for Wednesday’s MLB slate.

Watch the entire baseball segment below!

VIDEO:

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Video Transcript

Erik Halterman:

Let’s go all the way down to $2,000 and Nick Pratto of the Royals. He’s been an above-average hitter on the season. At least, that’s the case as of yesterday after he homered twice. I’m not sure he had an above-average batting line before that, but he’s at a 109 wRC+ on the season. Pretty lopsided (numbers): Hitting .209 (and) his on-base is only .295, but he’s slugging .461.

You can see similar lopsidedness in his underlying numbers. He’s striking out almost 35% of the time, which is a pretty big problem. But when he does hit it, he’s hitting it pretty hard. His 16.7% barrel rate is excellent.

Garion Thorne:

AJ Pollock, who is $3,300. There might not be a bigger Jekyll-and-Hyde hitter in baseball when it comes to handedness splits than AJ Pollock.

He has one home run in almost 300 at-bats against right-handed pitching and seven home runs in his 89 at-bats against left-handed pitching. That’s the difference between a .315 isolate power, which is sort of Aaron Judge-esque, and a .066 isolated power, which is basically just Billy Hamilton. AJ Pollock has been completely useless against right-handed pitching.

Fortunately, he draws a left-handed pitcher tonight in Kris Bubic, who has really be hit hard pretty much all season but specifically his last three starts. He’s got an ERA up above 9.00, (and) opponents are hitting .435 against Bubic in those last three outings.

Pollock hit leadoff against a righty yesterday. I think if Luis Robert is unavailable tonight, you’re going to see AJ Pollock back in that leadoff spot tonight, which makes him infinitely more valuable for the White Sox.

Erik’s Pick: Nick Pratto ($2,000)

Garion’s Pick: AJ Pollock ($3,300)

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