Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/10/16

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 full slate of 15 games on the schedule, but weather is looming as a big factor again in a handful. We're still a few hours from lineup lock as I write and much could change, but be sure to keep a close eye on the following: Detroit at Washington, Pittsburgh at Cincinnati, Chicago at Texas, San Diego at Chicago and Arizona at Colorado.

Personnel

• Logan Forsythe was forced to leave Monday's game after getting hit by a pitch in the shoulder. X-rays came back negative, and there's been no update on his status for tonight.
• Domingo Santana continues to be bothered by a shoulder injury, but he's also been available for pinch-hitting duty. It's unclear when he might be ready for a return to the lineup, and he's been a late scratch a couple of times since the shoulder started bothering him, so it might be wise to let the situation play itself out before depending on him in your DFS lineups.
• Jed Lowrie left Monday's game after fouling a ball off his foot. X-rays were negative, but he's considered day-to-day for now.
• Danny Valencia left Monday's game due with a hamstring issue. Keep an eye out for updates on his status today.
• Yasmany Tomas missed his fourth straight game on Monday due to a neck issue, but early indications are that he could be back in the lineup tonight.
• David Peralta sat out Monday's game with forearm tightness and is considered day-to-day for the time being.
• Jacoby Ellsbury is expected to sit again tonight for the Yankees.
• Starlin Castro sat out last night's game after leaving early Sunday due to a rib cage injury. There's been no update on his status for tonight as of 1 p.m. Eastern today.

Tournament Stacks

Arizona Diamondbacks
It should be an interesting night in tournaments, with a nice variety of pitching options and plenty of team stack possibilities. But as we almost always do when there's Colorado baseball on the ticket, we're starting at Coors Field. Both sides of this game are in play; Arizona starter Rubby de la Rosa has had troubles with left-handed hitters, and the top 4-5 Colorado hitters are all attractive. But we're siding with the visitors, largely because the Rockies have a lefty on the mound and Arizona is a top five offense against southpaws in terms of wOBA, ISO, OPS and slugging percentage. The Diamondbacks are loaded with right-handed sticks (David Peralta could be the only lefty in the starting lineup), built around stalwart Paul Goldschmidt. Goldy's off to a slow start by his standards, but he's getting on base in more than 40 percent of plate appearances, and his BABIP is .70 points off his career average, so we're not overly concerned. Meanwhile, Jean Segura, Wellington Castillo and Yasmany Tomas are all hitting well through the first month-plus and while you'll have to pay up for any/all of them, we think you're going to want some exposure to this lineup tonight.

Oakland A's
At the other end of the pricing spectrum, we have Oakland. The A's will be facing spot starter Sean O'Sullivan, owner of a 5.21 career xFIP, and nobody in the lineup is gonna cost you too much. Josh Reddick is the highest-priced hitter at $3,200 on FanDuel, where he's put up at least 15 points in five straight games. He's in a good spot to keep it going in a game with one of the highest projected run totals on the board. The hesitation here is that Oakland isn't really a power-hitting team, and Fenway Park suppresses left-handed home runs. But Oakland hitters should produce, and coming a these prices, you'll be able to fit in some high-priced bats and/or pay up for pitching.

Sneaky Pitcher

Matt Wisler

Adam Morgan

Oh boy. Yeah, that's really what I'm going to do here. Recommend two mediocre dudes facing each other. Obviously, this is more of a tournament situation, but plugging in one of these guys is going to allow you to load up on Coors Field bats, and they're both in a solid matchup. The Phillies and Braves have two of the three worst offenses in MLB, and the Braves are especially awful against left-handed pitching, and that could be enough to lift one of these guys to a W. Don't get us wrong. We're not suggesting Adam Morgan is a good pitcher, but he's probably not quite as bad as his 6.00 ERA would suggest. He's been burned by some bad BABIP luck and while he gives up loads of fly balls, we're not too worried that the Braves, who have a grand total of 5 HRs in 745 PAs this year, are going to punish him for that. As for Wisler, we're not quite sure what to make of him at this early stage of his career. He's outpitched his peripherals through six appearances (five starts) in 2016, and he's coming off eight innings of one-hit ball against the Mets. What's especially interesting about that outing is that lefties have been Wisler's nemesis in his brief time as a big leaguer, and New York has a lineup full of them. If he's getting lefties figured out to some degree, he might be able to deliver on the middle-of-the-rotation value that was projected for him as a prospect. But honestly, that's not what we're concerned with tonight. These picks are about two things: low cost and the fact that one of these pitchers stands a good chance to get the win. The Braves are actually the slight favorite, but I'll probably be hedging and playing both pitchers on FanDuel in otherwise identical lineups full of Coors bats tonight.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Paul Goldschmidt

Chalky as it may be, we just can't ignore Goldy against a southpaw in Coors Field. In his career in this split, Goldschmidt owns a .430 wOBA, 1.024 OPS and .595 slugging. Take those numbers and put them in the best park for offense and you've got the top play on the board for today. Rockies starter Chris Rusin does a decent job of keeping the ball on the ground most of the time, but his lifetime numbers are pretty soft, especially against righties. His career xFIP in the split is 4.45, and we're expecting Arizona's right-handed-heavy lineup to get to him today, putting Goldy in prime run-producing position.

Carlos Gonzalez

Nearly as attractive is CarGo's matchup with Rubby de la Rosa. CarGo's power numbers are down a bit this season, but otherwise he's producing as well as ever, with a .358 wOBA and a .315/.360/.477 triple slash. What really drives this recommendation, however, is de la Rosa's trouble with left-handed hitters (as well as the obvious Coors factor). The disparity between his splits are canyon-like across the board, so we'll just sum it up with his xFIP in 2016: 2.98 vs. righties, 4.66 vs. lefties. It could be tough to fit both of these guys into "every lineup," but our projection system has them pegged as the top two plays on slate by a nice margin, so squeeze them in where ever you can.

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!