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Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/12/16
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
As of Tuesday morning, we're looking at a full day of baseball, unencumbered by Mother Nature. It's another split slate today, with a pair of early games and 10 on the docket for tonight. If you're playing an all-day slate, you'll want to be a little wary of the weather for Baltimore at Boston and San Fran at Colorado, but the risk appears minimal and by the time the late/main slate locks we should know exactly what we're looking at.
Other than that, we're good to go with mostly blue skies and reasonable temps (for April, anyway -- nothing in the 30s).
Some personnel issues to be mindful of:
- The Astros have activated Evan Gattis off the DL and he should be ready to return to duty. He's still catcher eligible on FanDuel (yeah, don't ask me), and reasonably priced at $2,600, so he might make an interesting tournament play if he's back in the lineup tonight.
- Tigers catcher James McCann is headed to the DL after a collision with John Jaso yesterday. Jarrod Saltalamacchia is donning the tools of ignorance for Detroit today and hitting out of the No. 7 hole.
- Reds SS Zack Cozart left yesterday's game early due to quad tightness. There's no update on his status as of this morning.
- Adam Jones wasn't in the lineup for Baltimore yesterday and is reportedly still not comfortable at the plate due to a rib injury, but he was healthy enough to enter yesterday's game as a defensive replacement, so a full return could be near.
- John Jaso is not in the Pirates' lineup today. Super cheap Matt Joyce will be hitting leadoff.
Tournament Stacks
Boston Red Sox
Despite the fact that baseball is being played at Coors Field today, the Red Sox look like the stack of the day as they look to get fat off of BP specialist Mike Wright. The BoSox have some nice bats throughout the lineup, but this recommendation is mostly about Wright's ineptitude. In 44 innings last year, including nine starts, he served up a 6.04 ERA, backed up by a 5.70 xFIP. He struck out less than six per nine innings while walking nearly four. That's garbage, even for a rookie. The system really likes David Ortiz and Hanley Ramirez, and you can build stacks in either direction off the middle of the order if your site forces you to choose between the first basemen.
San Francisco Giants/Colorado Rockies
Anybody playing at Coors is in consideration for stacking, even though you'll have to pay up significantly on many sites. The Giants look like the preferred option today as they go against Tyler Chatwood and his career 4.42 xFIP. Prices will be high across the board, but on a 10-game slate you should be able to find some decent bargains elsewhere to help you fit in a few San Fran hitters. Buster Posey's salary is going to make him tough to play ($4,900 on FanDuel), but our projection system also likes Brandon Belt, Joe Panik and Brandon Crawford on a raw-points basis.
Sneaky Pitcher
Clay Buchholz
Rolling with Buchholz is always a risky proposition—this is not a cash game play—but our system thinks you can take a chance on him in tournaments (and use the savings on some pricier Coors Field bats). He's especially in play on a site like FanDuel where getting a win from your starting pitcher is highly valuable, as Boston is a -158 favorite as of Tuesday morning.
The "Every Lineup" Guys
Mike Trout
The projection system is all over Trout today. His prices are sagging somewhat due to a slow start, but he's a proven commodity to say the least. He'll be facing a below average pitcher today in Kendall Graveman, with below average strikeout stuff. Trout should be putting the ball in play, and when that happens, good things tend to follow.
Danny Valencia
Depsite any well-deserved skepticism regarding the 31-year-old's breakout campaign in 2015, Valencia is in a good spot here, and with a very nice price on most sites. He's always crushed lefties (.371 career wOBA), and Hector Santiago is a willing victim against right-handed hitters, where he sports a 4.83 career xFIP. As an aside, you could probably build some sneaky Oakland stacks; their cheap hitters will make it much easier to pay up for Coors and/or pitching.
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!
image sources
- 1024px-Coors_Field,_Denver,_Colorado,_US: By color line (Flickr) [CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
35 Visitor Comments
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the optimal lineup is spitting out a lineup that includes Matt Duffy at a price of $4000 on dk. His actual price is $4400.
Can this be fixed?
JK there is two Matt Duffy’s
Ignore that comment
Actually I’m still confused because the system says both Matt Duffys play for SF. I’m not sure what’s going on.
One plays for Houston but was just sent down.
Yah but the one that’s 4K (HOU) is projecting as the same player as the one that plays for SF so the optimizer keeps spitting him out. needs to be updated
I’ve corrected this issue. Only the good Matt Duffy showing up now.
2 questions:
1. Is the free trial 3 or 7 days?
2. If I do not like the tool am I committed to paying for the first month?
Thank you
IS there a certain number of games I should target? Is there a slate that the machine works better for (2 games, 4, 6, 10???) I pay the premium in case I needed to announce that lol
Gomes or Weiters at C??? I am going back and forth on this…also, any thoughts on using Napoli at 1B tonight??
Mookie betts, denard span, or Matt kemp tonight?
For gpp if that makes a difference?!
Anthony,
I am using Napoli in one of my lineups.
Wow…Posey sits, Brown has to be a play at Coors for 2700 right? Can’t find much info on him.
Is brown an option on FD? If so at what position?
Also should we have any concern of the Colorado weather?
I’ve got players playing at coors scattered through numerous lineups.
Thanks
Phegley batting 2nd for 2200 on FD better option
Can take a flyer. He’s not for me. I’m having trouble getting a solid projection on him
Bryan Holladay as a punt at C, your thoughts Doug?
Man…that Denver weather is making me a little nervous too.
Thanks Doug. left a comment on yesterdays update thread. finished 50/9000. won 10 dollars. using nola. had him with bal/boston game. went weiters at catcher and got me 0. could have been better with any points at catcher.
That’s awesome! I liked Nola yesterday as well. Got stuck on the higher priced guys though
Ok. I’m using the optimizer for baseball for DK and I’m having zero success. Am I doing something wrong?
Your stacks never work. Luckily with the optimizer and hours upon hours of research I’m gunna end up making a weeks worth of pay. The optimizer is great, but to win big money you have to do some research. Jj Hardy for the win. My 3rd ranked SS for today, rostered him to pay up for sundergod and it worked beautifully. Can’t say I don’t appreciate the optimizer tho. It gives a good base projection, although I think the coors players are Wayy too pp$ especially when everyone is stacking them.
Top 2b for tonight cano
Throw in Cruz for a tourney cuz he’ll be low owned and you’re good
I agree with using optimal models as a base. Like I’ve said before, I tend to run multiple lineups (10-20 between sites) on a given night. For instance. First overall FD lineup tonight in system sitting at 107 right now (just in cash) but second overall sitting at 149. You won’t see this kind of differences in a sport like NBA as long as projections are coming out of same model.
This is why it’s EV+ to run multiple scenario lineups.
What I like about our system is it does naturally bring out some separation plays. (Burns tonight for example). Doesn’t get them all right of course (liked some Pads on the cheap).
Saying stacks never work is wrong. Stacking is what wins GPP’s. I encourage you to look at the top 10 lineups in every GPP win, You will see a pattern of stacking especially on DraftKings. Stacking 2 teams in the same lineup is a common strategy among the “pros”. What makes them pros is the bankroll to submit 200 lineups of various stacked teams in one GPP. If you are not stacking in GPPS you will have a negative bankroll by seasons end. Also if you fade Coors field you will lose most of the time as well.
I stacked some Boston players tonight. Should have went with the Baltimore players. Buckholtz has always been a joke
I loved the Sox tonight. They were projected for totals not too far what was coming out of Coors for 20-25% less.
I used the optimizer for one lineup and created one myself with the optimizer as a base. My lineup is doing better than the optimizer but overall it’s still shitty
What site?
I used the optimizer from this site. Playing on DK. Ran the lineup about 5 minutes before the first game.
Yeah DK rough tonight. Just nothing out of those big bats.
It seems like the majority of members play on FD. Are things working put a little better on FD than DK??
Tonight yes. In general I’m confident in both.
I’ve had two of the most frustrating days of baseball I’ve ever had haha. Seems like every time one of my guys is up, there’s two outs, nobody on. In the rare instance it isn’t, my guy hits into a double play. We are all due a few breaks in the coming days I think.
Baseball can be maddening at times. FD is good to go tonight, but DK had a rough one for sure. Tomorrow could be a power bonanza.
It’s like Trout is playing with the sole purpose of @#$@ing me.