Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/5/16

Welcome to the daily MLB updates and news article. We'll try and update it right up to line-up locks with as much information as comes across our desks. Let's get to it!

Last night's picks can be found here, so you can wrap your mind around what you need to be looking at before lineups lock today.

By the way - we keep our projection system updated with all of the batting lineup changes as they occur throughout the day right up until lineup lock. Every day. If you want access to that system so you can cut out a lot of the research element, click the button below!

What We Know

Opening Day, Take Two

Postponements of yesterday's Astros/Yankees and Red Sox/Indians games means there's a healthy slate of ace-caliber pitchers in Tuesday's day games.

Houston will throw reigning Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel against the Yankees, who struggled against lefties last year, while David Price and Corey Kluber will square off in Cleveland. Those arms alone are sufficient to suppress offense, but throw in game-time temps in the 30s and runs could be even tougher to come by.

If you're playing the three-game early slate, expect to see the Mets hitters highly owned.

Weather Watch

Better news: it looks like Mother Nature will cooperate tonight. As of Tuesday morning none of the night games appear to be in danger of delays or postponements, but do keep an eye on the wind patterns. Forecasts are calling for a stiff breeze blowing in at Global Life Park in Arlington, which might make Nelson Cruz slightly less appetizing in a tasty matchup against mediocre lefty Martin Perez.

Still waiting on Sonny

Oakland ace Sonny Gray was scratched from Monday night's start due to pretty gnarly sounding case of food poisoning. His start hasn't yet been rescheduled yet, but it reportedly won't be tonight, as Chris Bassitt is scheduled to take the hill against the White Sox.

Tournament Stacks

Detroit Tigers
The Detroit lineup is built to exploit soft matchups against lefties and Miami seems ready to oblige in Tuesday's season opener for both teams. Marlins starter Wei-Yin Chen was solid last season, posting a career-best strikeout rate and ERA. Even so, he only strikes out about seven per nine and his xFIP last year was still just north of 4.00, so this isn't a dude we have to dodge. Meanwhile, only the Blue Jays hit left-handed pitching better than the Tigers last year, and Detroit has since added  Justin Upton, who struggled against southpaws last season, but has crushed them throughout the rest of his career. Stack at will here, just know that large swaths of your competitors will probably be doing the same.

Chicago Cubs
Keep an eye out for the lineup in this one. Our system really likes Dexter Fowler, Ben Zobrist and Kris Bryant against the left-handed Andrew Heaney, and with noted tinkerer Joe Maddon filling out the card, there's no telling where they might be slotted on any given night. Jorge Soler, who started at DH and hit seventh in the opener, could be another interesting tournament play depending on where he's at in the lineup.

San Francisco Giants
Do you go back to the well again? The Giants were a top stack on Monday, led by back-to-back-to-back dingers from Denard Span, Joe Panik and Buster Posey, and all the pieces are in place for a repeat performance. Milwaukee is a great place to hit, and Jimmy Nelson is a great guy to hit against--at least for lefties, who posted a .376 wOBA against him last year.

Sneaky Pitcher

Jonathan Niese
Look, if you want to say he's only sneaky because everybody else will be avoiding him, that's probably fair. Niese wasn't great last year in terms of performance or peripherals, but his HR/FB rate should be coming back down, and the betting markets are giving the Pirates a decent chance to win this game. He's not necessarily the guy I want to build my core lineups around, but as a secondary pitcher on DraftKings or flyer to pair with some pricey hitters, you could do worse.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Ian Kinsler
This is the guy our system really wants you to use to anchor all those Tigers stacks. Kinsler's home run and steal potential isn't what it once was, but he's still got enough pop and speed to give him a nice ceiling. More importantly, he'll be at the top of the order and is a good bet to be on base in front of Upton, Miggy and J.D. Martinez. He's always been a solid contact hitter, and last year he struck out in just six percent of at bats against left-handed pitching.

David Peralta
In one of the league's best hitter's parks and either in front of or behind Paul Goldschmidt, Peralta is bound to be a popular pick tonight. After hitting fourth (and delivering three hits) against a lefty in the opener, Peralta could shift up to the No. 2 hole against the right-handed Chad Bettis. The 28-year-old late bloomer was especially nasty against righties last year. Though admittedly buoyed by a ridiculous .376 BABIP, Peralta put up a .228 ISO and .397 wOBA in the split. If new age stats are you're thing, just know this: that's really, really good.

Note: The projection system loves Victor Martinez today, but he won't be starting today in the NL park, so I removed him from the optimal lineups. 

One other note: There are big differences between DraftKings and FanDuel pricing so the optimal lineups are looking quite different.

These are players that show up in each of the top 10 lineups as produced by our lineup optimizer. This doesn't necessarily mean that they're "safe," it just means that their projected weighted-mean point total is a solid building block for a great lineup foundation today.

Good luck out there today! If you want access to all of our numbers, get started with a free trial below of our lineup optimizer, on us!