Looking for advantages in the outfield in daily fantasy baseball (DFS)

Each week during the next 2 months leading up to the start of the MLB season we will be doing our consensus rankings by position. Towards the end of the week, we will look for some players that may have extra value in daily fantasy baseball leagues over seasonal leagues. This week is outfield.

One of the biggest differences between daily leagues and season long leagues is how to construct a roster. In a daily league, a player with non elite seasonal value can be a strong play for that particular day. Daily fantasy baseball heavily takes into account that day's individual matchup; a cheaper, non elite seasonal fantasy hitter with a strong platoon split facing a tomato can on the mound in a great hitting park can be as good or better than an expensive, elite seasonal hitter that day, especially if that elite seasonal hitter is facing high quality pitching in a lower run scoring environment.

Andre Ethier might be my favorite example of a selective play to squeeze out value. I recommended Ethier a lot last year because his pricing was just too cheap to ignore, and his splits against righties are elite. Ethier hit RHP to a 150 wRC+ and .211 ISO last year, and his wRC+ was 5th best among outfielders against RHP. Ethier was often priced towards the bottom of  the salary list for OF, and was an excellent way to get good value when played against a mediocre RHP, especially in a more hitter friendly road park.

Shin Soo Choo is another platoon split heavy outfielder. He's crushed RHP throughout his career, and hit them to a 148 wRC+ and .218 ISO last year. Choo's production significantly falls off against LHP, so by using him against just RHP starters, you can get a little bit of extra value out of the slot.

Here are some other outfielders to watch out for under certain conditions:

Curtis Granderson vs RHP (151 wRC+, .225 ISO last year)

David Peralta vs RHP (150 wRC+, .228 ISO last year)

Carlos Gonzalez vs RHP (150 wRC+, .332 ISO last year)

Josh Reddick vs RHP (129 wRC+, .189 ISO last year)

Chris Coghlan vs RHP (125 wRC+, .212 ISO last year)

Joc Pederson vs RHP (123 wRC+, .214 ISO last year)

Seth Smith vs RHP (123 wRC+, .203 ISO last year)

Gerrardo Parra vs RHP (115 wRC+, .170 ISO last year)

Nelson Cruz vs LHP (187 wRC+, .289 ISO last 2 years)

Jose Bautista vs LHP (166 wRC+, .255 ISO last 2 years)

Ben Zobrist vs LHP (154 wRC+, .161 ISO last 2 years)

JD Martinez vs LHP (160 wRC+, .303 ISO last 2 years)

Lorenzo Cain vs LHP (148 wRC+, .201 ISO last 2 years)

Adam Jones vs LHP (143 wRC+, .229 ISO last 2 years)

Mark Trumbo vs LHP (127 wRC+, .229 ISO last 2 years)

Chris Young vs LHP (129 wRC+, .207 ISO last 2 years)

Ryan Raburn vs LHP (127 wRC+, .208 ISO last 2 years)