Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/25/16

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

Jorge De La Rosa scratched

Jorge De La Rosa has been scratched after coming down with the stomach flu. As of now, it looks like Chad Bettis will get the start. This changes a lot on the Pirates side as I am much more interested in the lefty bats like Gregory Polanco and John Jaso. However, Bettis has been equally bad over the course of his career with a combined wOBA of .346. I am still very comfortable with guys like McCutchen and Marte. Another thing to look at here is the weakened bullpen of the Rockies. They were forced to use a starter last night due to running out of arms in the pen. If the Pirates can get to Bettis early, it will be a very long night.

Couple weather concerns

We are looking at a few games with spotty rain coverage in OAK @ DET, BOS @ ATL and CLE @ MIN. While none of these are looking like they will get postponed, you never know with weather. Make sure you keep an eye out for any news. I will update here if anything breaks.

Tournament Stacks

Colorado Rockies

While this is certainly very chalky, it is such a good play. Jeff Locke has been horrible on the year with a few starts barely getting out of the 3rd inning. The Rockies have a few guys that smash lefties in Trevor Story, Nolan Arenado and Ryan Raburn. If you are looking to be contrarian, go with a stack of Story, Arenado, Raburn, Parra, Reynolds and Garneau. The Rockies are a completely different team at home and are projected to score an outlandish 6.04 runs here. Make sure you get some exposure to these guys in your lineup.

Los Angeles Dodgers

My sneaky stack of the day is the LA Dodgers. The Dodgers will be heading back home to take on a horrible lefty in Wei-Yin Chen. Chen gave up a .345 wOBA and a league leading 25 home runs to righties just last year. The Dodgers will likely trot out a few righties in Kike Hernandez, Yasiel Puig, Trayce Thompson and a few other. In order, these are my favorite 6 Dodgers bats - Kike Hernandez, Trayce Thompson, Yasiel Puig, Adrian Gonzalez, Justin Turner, Corey Seager. If you want to be super contrarian, I would go with a 2 man stack of Hernandez and Thompson.
 

Sneaky Pitcher

Rick Porcello FD 7400 DK 8100
Opponent - ATL (Teheran) Park - @ATL
FD - 33.27 DK - 17.51

Rick Porcello looks like he has finally returned to his 2014 form. With 3 straight good starts, I am pretty confident in Porcello moving forward. He has picked up a little velocity and some more movement in his secondary pitches. The Braves are not a team that scares me with the lowest .ISO and .SLG in the league by 20% over the past 3 years. Porcello should be able to limit the damage here in a good ballpark against a horrible team.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Francisco Lindor FD 3500 DK 3600
Opponent - MIN (Milone) Park - @MIN
FD - 10.73 DK - 8.71
Yan Gomes FD 2900 DK 2800
Opponent - MIN (Milone) Park - @MIN
FD - 9.38 DK - 7.51

The Cleveland Indians were right up there for my tournament stack of the day but I didn't want to list them and then list these 2 here as well. Lindor and Gomes have smashes lefties over their career with each of them sporting a .350+ wOBA. Tommy Milone is a lefty that struggles against righties and struggles giving up line drives. Milone gave up a .331 wOBA and 14 home runs in just 96 innings last year. I expect the Indians to have a huge night and for these guys to be right in the middle of it all.

Dee Gordon FD 3300 DK 4400
Opponent - LAD (Stripling) Park - @LAD
FD - 10.99 DK - 9.05

Dee Gordon is just too cheap around the industry. After going on a small cold streak, Gordon broke out and will now get back to his normal self. Ross Stripling is not a pitcher that scares me as his minor league numbers suggest he struggled with lefties. If Dee Gordon gets on base, he is going to run against the rookie. Gordon hit righties at a .329 wOBA clip last year, well above average. I am going to be plugging Gordon into all my cash games and a ton of tournaments tonight.

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!