Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/26/16

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

The weather situation in Texas is looking pretty tenuous, with a high chance of rain throughout the evening, so be cautious with the Yankees bats. If the clouds clear, however, all those lefties could be in a nice spot against A.J. Griffin.

Elsewhere, be sure to monitor the Reds/Mets and Pirates/Rockies, but as of this morning, it looks like they should be able to get both games in.

Other than that, it looks like we're good to go with a full slate of Tuesday night baseball.

Personnel

• Michael Brantley was activated off the DL yesterday and appeared as a pinch hitter last night. He should be back in the lineup tonight as the Indians face right-handed Ricky Nolasco.
• Russell Martin continues to sit with neck stiffness and it sounds like he may get another game of rest tonight.
• Travis d'Arnaud left last night's game with shoulder discomfort and could be headed for the DL. Kevin Plawecki took over behind the dish last night and would likely ascend to the Mets' No. 1 catcher spot if d'Arnaud is out.
• Matt Holliday left last night's game with what appeared to be a cramp. He was replaced by Jeremy Hazelbaker, who supplied a home run, a double and three RBIs.
• Brandon Phillips left last night's game after getting hit on the hand by a Noah Syndergaard heater. It looked pretty bad, but X-rays came back negative, so he's considered day-to-day as of Tuesday morning.
• Carl Crawford is expected to activated from the DL today, so it could be even tougher to project the Dodgers lineup going forward.
• Ian Kinsler was scratched from last night's lineup due to illness. There's been no update on his status for tonight's game as of Tuesday morning.
• Nick Hundley has been activated off the seven-day concussion DL. He was back in the lineup and hitting seventh last night.
• Yoenis Cespedes was out of the lineup for the third straight game Monday after having fluid drained from his right leg.
• With the Red Sox in a National League park, David Ortiz took Monday off and may do the same tonight. The Red Sox and Braves move to Fenway on Wednesday, so Papi should be back in the heart of the order soon.
• Michael Saunders returned to the Blue Jays lineup Monday and went 3-for-5, but he may have lost his spot at the top of the order as Ezequiel Carrera continues to produce. Saunders hit sixth Monday night, which is still a solid spot in a loaded Toronto order.
• Jay Bruce (paternity) is expected to be out a couple of days for the Reds.

Tournament Stacks

Pittsburgh Pirates
Depending on which Pirates you played last night, you probably saw decent results, but the matchup is much more appealing tonight with southpaw Jorge de la Rosa taking the hill for the Rockies. As always, you'll have to pay the Coors Field premium, but if you can squeeze in the salaries, an Andrew McCutchen-David Freese-Starling Marte combo makes an appealing core for tournament lineups. All three display an pretty extreme preference for left-handed pitching over the course of their careers, especially McCutchen, who owns a lifetime .974 OPS and .237 ISO against lefties.

Oakland A's
We like to give you options at both ends of the price spectrum whenever possible, thus the Oakland recommendation today. Josh Reddick is the only guy in the lineup coming in at more than $3K on FanDuel, and going against Mike Pelfrey, everybody who steps into the box should have a chance to do some damage. The 32-year-old righty owns a career xFIP north of 4.50 and is giving up a ridiculous hard contact rate this year of 41.2 percent. Don't believe that respectable ERA; he's still getting slapped around. The A's don't have an especially fearsome offense, but they've got some very affordable lefties at the top of the lineup, and they're the favorite tonight in a game with an over/under of nine, so the betting markets are expecting some offense. This is a nice place to look to help you fit in some high-end pitching and/or more expensive bats.

Sneaky Pitcher

Kyle Hendricks

I'm honestly not sure how "sneaky" this pick is. We wrote up Hendricks in last night's picks column, and he could be a popular choice for DFSers looking for affordable pitching. Nonetheless, if you're shopping on the less-than-elite shelf, Hendricks looks like the go-to option. The Brewers strikeout a ton, are a righty-heavy lineup, and the wind is expected to be blowing in at Wrigley tonight. If you want to go more contrarian, you can throw out some tourney lineups with Ubaldo Jiminez (I guess), but Hendricks is posting pretty solid numbers across the board over the last two seasons and is coming at a good value in this matchup.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Andrew McCutchen

We're having a hard time talking the projection system out of McCutchen tonight, especially on FanDuel. He's off to a pretty bad start, so you can believe in that if you choose, but I'd advise against it. The plate discipline numbers through the first three weeks of the season show that he's swinging more and making less contact and that's a bit disconcerting, but he's also been burned by some bad luck. Right now his 2016 BABIP is sitting about 60 points below his career average, so a correction should be coming. Plus, this is a great matchup in the Majors' top park for offense. As mentioned earlier, Cutch has posted dirty numbers against lefties in his career, and Jorge de la Rosa owns a lifetime xFIP of 4.40 against righties.

Stephen Vogt

Vogt should be holding down a spot in the middle of the order, which is valuable (and pretty rare for a catcher at these prices). Also valuable: the chance to face Mike Pelfrey. Vogt comes with a solid floor thanks to solid contact and walk rates, as well as decent power, making him a nice play in all formats. We especially like him today based on the run-producing potential in a soft matchup for the Oakland offense.

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!