Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/20/16

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

Playing the four-game early slate today could get dicey, as there's a strong chance of rain in St. Louis, and a possibility of precipitation in latter stages of Angels-White Sox tilt.

That hinders the attractiveness of two solid pitching options (Carlos Martinez and Chris Sale), but the night slate should offer plenty of opportunities for action with no inclement weather in the forecast for any of the 11 games starting after 6 p.m. Eastern.

Personnel

Keep an eye on the lineups for these early games, as we're likely to see some regulars get rest in a day game following a night game. It's especially likely at catcher, where Devin Mesoraco will get a break, to be spelled by Tucker Barnhart.

In other news:

• Billy Hamilton is hitting at the top of the order for the Reds today. That always helps, but his inability to reach base consistently makes the speedster little more than a tournament flyer.
• Zach Cozart, the Reds' regular SS and leadoff hitter is out today. He'll be replaced by Ivan DeJesus, who's hitting eighth.
• Addison Russell is out for the Cubs. Javier Baez is starting at SS and hitting eighth.
• Jorge Soler will also take a day off. Kris Bryant is in left, with Tommy LaStella taking over at third and batting sixth.
• Jeremy Hazelbaker is out for the Cardinals. The 28-year-old rookie has cooled off considerably since his hot start, going 0 for his last 14.
• Julio Teheran is slated to take the mound tonight against the Dodgers after being scratched yesterday due to illness. He's been much better at home lately, but lefties continue to mash against the erstwhile phenom.
• Adam Jones left last night's game with a stomach ailment. As of this morning, here's been no update on his availability for tonight's game.

Tournament Stacks

New York Mets
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. Of course, the day after they launched six bombs in Philly, we're giving you the Mets stack. Hopefully you had some exposure to last night's offensive bonanza. If you didn't, no worries. The projection system doesn't even figure that into today's calculations, and it still sees big things ahead for the no-longer-slumping Metropolitans. As last night showed, Citizens Bank Park is a homer-friendly venue, and Philadelphia starter Jeremy Hellickson is a fly-ball pitcher who has been pummeled—especially by lefties—over the course of his career. Even when he was good with Tampa Bay, the peripherals said it wouldn't last. And, yeah, it didn't. The Mets have a nice selection of affordable lefties with upside to choose from, and even right-handed David Wright should also be able to handle this matchup just fine.

Milwaukee Brewers
Yeah, I know what you're thinking. The Brewers?!?!? Hey, I don't make the numbers, but I do abide by them. Milwaukee ranks in the bottom third of the league in most offensive categories this season, but they've got a great park to hit in and a nice matchup tonight against soft-tossing Tommy Milone. We're counting on those two factors to override the Brewers' ineptitude. Working in our favor: Milone doesn't strike people out, which is one of the Brewers' biggest weaknesses, and doesn't get ground balls. That sets up nicely for a couple of Milwaukee long balls, as Miller Park was third behind only Coors Field and the Great American Ballpark in home run factors last season. Also important: Ryan Braun ($4,200) is the only Brewers bat over $3K on FanDuel.

Sneaky Pitcher

Drew Pomeranz

We wrote him up last night, but at these ultra-bargain prices on a slate that includes some big-time arms, it probably bears repeating. Pomeranz has legit strikeout upside, as he's already demonstrated in limited work this season. Sure, the 12-plus K/9 won't last, but he's north of 8 per 9 on his career, and ZiPS' and Steamer's rest-of-season projections are calling for him to whiff more than a batter per inning the rest of the way in 2016. Sounds great, right? It's probably still not enough to turn me toward Pomeranz in cash games given the other options available, but he's definitely worth plugging in to some of your tournament lineups.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Manny Machado

You guys want to know what Machado's wOBA is so far in 2016? .516; ISO? .392; Slash line? .392/.438/.784. All the obvious caveats apply re: small sample sizes, but those numbers are so pretty I thought we should all just take a minute to admire them. If you want safety, Machado's has a hit in all 12 games this season. For upside: he's homered in nearly half of them, including each of the last two. Of course, our belief in the 23-year-old goes beyond his torrid start to 2016; he was an elite prospect and truly came into form last season when he posted a .370 wOBA. Today he's going against R.A. Dickey, which is always something of a boom-or-bust proposition for hitters, as shown by the fact that he's struck out 15 batters but given up 20 hits in 14 innings this season. But regardless of the knuckleball's effectiveness (or lack thereof), the projection system thinks Machado is worth his price today. As of the latest update, he's showing up in all of the top 10 optimal lineups for both FanDuel and DraftKings.

Neil Walker

Last night's two-homer game isn't an influence here; more of a confirmation that Walker retains excellent upside in the right matchup, and going against Hellickson in Citizens Bank qualifies as such. Though he's a switch hitter, Walker has always demonstrated a strong preference for right-handed pitching, against which he owns a .346 career wOBA and .182 ISO. We'd like him a little more if he were higher in the order, but he's a fine play in any format and a solid building block for a 3-6 Mets stack.

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!