The World Series shifts back to Minute Maid Park for Game 6, and the MLB season will finally come to a close either tonight or Wednesday. The Atlanta Braves still hold the advantage with a 3-2 series lead over the Houston Astros, and they'll attempt to wrap things up on the road.
For those unfamiliar with the single-game daily fantasy baseball format, scoring is identical to its full roster cousin, except you only roster hitters, and lineups consist of five flex spots. The one twist? One of the five roster spots is your designated "MVP," who receives 2-times his total fantasy points, along with a "STAR" slot that gets 1.5-times the points. Naturally, it's crucial that you choose your MVP and STAR carefully if you want to be at the top of the leaderboards when it's all said and done.
On that note, let's highlight some of the top options for today's FanDuel single-game slate.
Pitching Breakdown
With the Astros back at home, they're getting the nod in implied team totals at 4.43-4.07 over the Braves.
That being said, you could argue it's Atlanta that carries the pitching advantage tonight. Max Fried will be pitching on full rest, whereas Luis Garcia will be going on short rest after pitching in Game 3.
Fried did get knocked around by the Astros in his first World Series start, though, and he struggled in Game 5 of the NLCS, as well. That being said, despite the results, the lefty's underlying numbers remain excellent this postseason, including a 2.95 SIERA, 24.7% strikeout rate, 3.2% walk rate, and 48.5% ground-ball rate. An inflated .365 BABIP suggests poor luck could be to blame for his 5.40 playoff ERA.
Additionally, it's not like it's been smooth sailing for Garcia this postseason, either. Although he's produced a 29.0% strikeout rate, his control has been all over the place, issuing a 17.7% walk rate. The end result has been a less than ideal 4.72 SIERA. Garcia performed well in the regular season, though, and was particularly strong in Game 6 of the ALCS, so a good outing shouldn't entirely be ruled out. Regardless, he figures to be held under five innings on short rest.
Both bullpens should be relatively fresh after getting the day off in between games.
Slate Strategy
Although Houston piled up nine runs on Atlanta in Game 5, it was actually Adam Duvall ($5,500) and Freddie Freeman ($9,000) who hit the game's two dingers, and Duvall was pretty much a must at MVP because his homer was a grand slam. Of course, several Astros put up plenty of fantasy points, too, including Carlos Correa ($7,500), Yuli Gurriel ($6,500), and Kyle Tucker ($7,500).
Given Max Fried's encouraging postseason peripherals and rock-solid regular season numbers, signs point to him bouncing back tonight. That has me leaning towards the Braves' bats, though even if Fried does pitch well, you can never rule out the Astros' bats breaking through late.
For Atlanta, Freeman, Ozzie Albies ($8,000), Eddie Rosario ($6,500), and Joc Pederson ($5,000) will have the platoon advantage against Luis Garcia, who allowed 1.61 home runs per nine innings to lefties in the regular season. Pederson is an ideal contrarian MVP, similar to Duvall the other night. Duvall was a popular value flex but saw little attention in the multiplier slots.
And speaking Duvall, any hitter with substantial pop is in the MVP running, so he, Austin Riley ($7,000), and Jorge Soler ($6,000) should all be under consideration, and it's doubtful any of them see double-digit roster percentages at MVP or STAR.
On the other side, Jose Altuve ($8,500) seems to be quite a popular MVP just about every slate, so you could consider fading him there for that reason alone. Otherwise, it's the usual guys in Correa, Yordan Alvarez ($9,500), and Tucker, with the latter two maybe seeing a slight bump down in roster percentages due to the lefty-lefty matchup.
Yuli Gurriel ($6,500) and Michael Brantley ($6,000) have hit for average in the playoffs, making them reasonable values, though the lack of power makes them less suitable in the multiplier slots.
A struggling Alex Bregman ($7,000) was dropped to seventh in the order in Game 5. While he had some contrarian MVP appeal batting high in the order, that's less the case now if he remains buried in the lineup.