Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/13/16

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

We've got a massive slate ahead with three games this afternoon, 12 tonight, and every MLB team in action. Even better: it's green lights all around on the weather watch. You'll of course want to check back closer to lineup lock for the evening games, but if you're playing an all-day slate, it looks safe to pick and choose from every game on the schedule.

Personnel wise, however, there's reason for caution, especially when it comes to catchers. Here's a quick rundown:

• Brian McCann left last night's game with bruised foot and it looks like he'll be out today. The Yankees backstop is off to a blazing start to 2016 and hit a home run Tuesday night before exiting. If you're ok with punting the position, Austin Romine makes a interesting choice against lefty J.A. Happ in Rogers Center.
• Buster Posey is also day-to-day after suffering a foot bruise Monday. He sat out last night and watched as his replacement, Trevor Brown, smashed a pair of home runs. Given his price at Coors Field and his uncertain status as of this morning, it might be best to lay off Posey if you're playing all-day contests on a site that doesn't allow late swaps.
• The Tigers and Pirates, who played in Detroit on Monday and Tuesday, will finish up their four-game split series in Pittsburgh, which probably means no Victor Martinez.
• Evan Gattis made his season debut Tuesday after being activated from the disabled list, striking out three times in four at bats. Some rust is probably expected for the slugger, who retains catcher eligibility on FanDuel, but the upside is always there and the price is pretty good.
• Francisco Liriano, who was originally scheduled to start today for the Pirates, has been scratched. He'll be replaced—so to speak—by Ryan Vogelsong.
• The Mets are sitting a slew of lefties against Marlins southpaw Adam Conley today. Lucas Duda, Michael Conforto and Travis d'Arnaud are taking a seat, to be spelled by Wilmer Flores, Juan Lagares and Kevin Plawecki, respectively. Our system likes Flores, who will be hitting fifth, quite a bit. He's just $2,200 and SS eligible on FanDuel.

Tournament Stacks

San Francisco Giants/Colorado Rockies
Get used to this. Even though you pay a premium, it's always dangerous to fade Coors, and the Giants have a solid lineup 1-8, so it's even tougher when they're in town.

Both teams are definitely in play here, but the Giants look like the pick, especially if Posey is in the lineup. Trevor Brown (who's not even in the player pool at FanDuel) socked a pair of bombs last night and was 10 percent owned in DraftKings' $1M Sweet Spot tournament. Expect that to be higher tonight, but don't expect that kind of pop from the 24-year-old. With three home runs this season, he's already matched his career high for a full season at any of his minor league stops. Still, he's in play (just $2,700 on DraftKings) and so is any other dude in the San Fran lineup. The Giants don't many true power bats, but they've got good hitters who can take full advantage of the thin air and spacious gaps in Colorado. On a raw-points basis, our projection system ranks Posey, Brandon Belt and Joe Panik at the top of their respective positions, and Matt Duffy, Brandon Crawford and Denard Span aren't far off.

The top of the Rockies lineup is also an attractive, if chalky option. The projection system likes Charlie Blackmon, Trevor Story, Nolan Arenado and Carlos Gonzalez from a pure points standpoint.

Minnesota Twins

If you want to look elsewhere or find cheap bats to pair with your Coors guys, the Twins are intriguing tonight against Carlos Rodon. Given Rodon's strikeout upside (and the Twins' penchant for whiffing), Minnesota's bats will probably be lightly owned. They're definitely not the safest choice for your cash games, but that differentiation could pay nicely in tournaments if Rodon's command issues re-emerge; last year he walked more than 4.5 per 9. Brian Dozier, Trevor Plouffe and Miguel Sano all sport career wOBAs north of .350 against lefties, though Sano's is admittedly coming from a pretty small sample size.

Sneaky Pitcher

Mike Leake

The St. Louis twirler is pretty unexciting (read: kinda bad), but he's got a nice win expectation (Cardinals -160), which is always nice on sites like FanDuel that award pitching wins with big points. He should also see his pedestrian K rate improved by Milwaukee, which is striking out more than every team other than Minnesota this season. Probably a tournament play only, but he's one of the cheaper arms on the slate, which makes it much easier to play Coors Field bats at will.

Also consider: Jared Eickhoff against a sluggish Padres offense.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Brandon Belt

Here's the key piece to your Giants stacks, according to our system. Hitting fourth or fifth (depending on Posey's availability), Belt is in prime position to both push runs across and to get driven in. He's not a slugger, but you don't have to be to have big-time upside in Colorado (see: Brown, Trevor). He consistently delivers solid peripherals and is nearly split neutral, which keeps his value high when bullpens come in to play. His walks are also way up and strikeouts way down early this season, which doesn't matter nearly as much as his established track record, but is interesting to note anyway.

Trevor Plouffe

The "every lineup" distinction is maybe not the best way to term it in this case; there are loads of attractive options at the hot corner today and Plouffe isn't the highest-end choice by any means. But our projection system just can't get enough of him at these prices and in this matchup. Even if Rodon is lights out, Plouffe is only setting you back at near-minimum prices, and he's not going to need much to return value. He walked nearly as much as he struck out last year, which raises his floor, and the big-fly probability here is respectable.

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!