REST OF SEASON VALUE

Most already consider Nelson Cruz to be a good starting 1B/DH, but the projections indicate he is an elite fantasy option. As of 4/21, Nelson Cruz is the #15 ranked 1B/DH based on ownership percentage (97%). He is projected to be the #3 1B/DH. Even if he is owned in plenty of leagues, he is still undervalued and if you act quickly there is a clear buy low opportunity. Owners should hold onto him and probably decline offers unless there is an even better 1B/DH option available. Of the 3 1B/DHs (Edwin Encarnacion, Carlos Santana) with this market rank (97% Owned), he is the top rated one. He is projected for 451 fantasy points in 130 remaining games. Based on average FPs, he is even better with the #2 highest average. The market ranks Nelson Cruz behind Santana and above Voit but the projections rank Nelson Cruz over Santana.

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He has more relative weaknesses than strengths which hurts his value in leagues that score based on production in individual categories.

WEEKLY FANTASY VALUE

Nelson Cruz is a good value the rest of the week. He has a market rank of #15 while his projection rank (rest of week 4) is #1. When compared to other 1B/DHs in week 5 Giancarlo Stanton (20.2 FP) is projected for more points and is starting in fewer leagues. Edwin Encarnacion (17.2 FP), Joey Votto (17.4 FP), Carlos Santana (16.8 FP), Anthony Rizzo (16.1 FP), and Paul Goldschmidt (18.6 FP) are all projected for fewer points than Cruz but are starting in more leagues. Starting in 79% of leagues he is expected to produce 16.5 fantasy points (WK 5). At his start percentage, he is expected to be the #14 1B/DH of week 5. He is projected to be better than that (the #5 1B/DH). Even though his per game projected FP average is not better than normal, he will benefit from playing a projected 5 games.

He is projected for 18.9 fantasy points in week 5 (#5 1B/DH) in 5 games.

Nelson Cruz last five game log with fantasy points (CBS, FD, DK) and statline.

DAILY FANTASY VALUE

FANDUEL VALUE (4/21): There are 11 other options at $3400 (Shin-Soo Choo, Leury Garcia, A.J. Pollock, Nick Castellanos, Kevin Kiermaier, Max Kepler, Byron Buxton, Brandon Nimmo, Niko Goodrum, Shohei Ohtani, Jeff McNeil) and Cruz is the best option of these 12. Adam Jones (9.1 FP), Nick Markakis (9.9 FP), Alex Gordon (9.2 FP), Michael Brantley (12.4 FP), and Lorenzo Cain (10 FP) are all projected for fewer points than Cruz but have higher salaries. Based on salary, he is expected to have 9.7 FPs, a value reached in 61 of 158 games (39%). The combined 'cover percentage' for outfielders expected to start is 43%.

DRAFTKINGS VALUE: There are 3 other options at $4600 (Michael Brantley, Marcell Ozuna, Dwight Smith) and Cruz is the best option of these 4. Andrew McCutchen (8.7 FP), Mike Trout (9.7 FP), Christian Yelich (8.4 FP), J.D. Martinez (8.7 FP), and Charlie Blackmon (8.2 FP) are all projected for fewer points than Cruz but have higher salaries. Based on salary, he is expected to have 8 FPs, a value reached in 63 of 158 games (40%). The combined 'cover percentage' for outfielders expected to start is 37%.

Cruz is in the SportsLine Projection model FanDuel optimal lineup and DraftKings optimal lineup. SportsLine.com also offers premium optimal lineups from Mike McClure, a professional DFS player who has used his own proprietary model to successfully win over $1 Million in Daily Fantasy. His lineups often differ significantly from the SportsLine Projection model.

WEEKLY FANTASY RECAP

Out of 4 fantasy weeks he had one where he was +50% above his weekly average of 13.1 fantasy points. He had one bad week where he came up 50% below average.

DAILY FANTASY SEASON RECAP

He averaged 13 FD points and 11.8 DK points per game. We looked at all of his games that were between the 10th and 90th percentile where the 10th percentile is his floor and the 90th is his ceiling. When he was bad in DFS, he was really bad with a floor of zero points. He had a relatively high ceiling. On DraftKings it was 24 and on FanDuel it was 31.2 FPs. He has had more bad FanDuel games (below average by 20%) than good games (20% above average), and the same was true on DraftKings. We are only including games where they were in the daily fantasy slate and played.