Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/12/2016

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 an eight-game slate with a bevy of talented arms taking the hill, which could make value opportunities (especially ones everybody else isn't on) tough to find. There's also no day baseball today, which is a bummer for those of us who can watch at work, but it also helps beef up the main slate on a relatively light day.

Personnel

• Wilmer Flores has been placed on the DL with a hamstring strain. On the bright side, he won't have to face Clayton Kershaw tonight.
• Brandon Belt was held out of yesterday's lineup due to illness, but eventually entered the game and scored the winning run in the 13th inning.
• Really sad news here: Billy Hamilton will be out for a bit to be with his family after his 3-year-old nephew was killed in a car wreck. Thoughts, prayers, condolences. Whatever you've got, send them his way. He's expected to rejoin the team this weekend.
• Mark Teixeira has missed back-to-back games with neck spasms. He's considered day-to-day for now.
• Jacob Ellsbury also continues to sit for the Yankees due to a hip injury and could be out of the lineup again tonight.
• Domingo Santana returned to the Brewers starting lineup Wednesday. He's been in and out since a shoulder injury popped up last week, so keep an eye out for the Milwaukee lineup before plugging him in.

Tournament Stacks

Baltimore Orioles
Our projection system makes no secret of its feelings for Tigers starter Mike Pelfrey. The two are natural enemies. Like a feral predator stalking a wounded gazelle, every time the system catches whiff of Pelfrey, it pounces and algorithmically tears him to shreds. Here's why: Pelfrey sucks. Sorry. I know that's harsh. For all I know, he's a super chill dude with a wide variety of interests and kind soul. But the projection system has no tolerance for human emotions. It deals in cold numbers and those numbers say Pelfrey sucks. In 10 big-league seasons, he's never gone a full year with an xFIP better than 4.30. Through 30 IP this season he has as many walks as Ks (15) and has given up six home runs. That's bad news against the Orioles, who lead the AL in slugging against RHP and play in one of the league's best home run parks. They're going to be highly owned, which is a mild deterrent in tournaments, but we suggest you find your differentiation elsewhere and load up on Baltimore power bats tonight.

Milwaukee Brewers
Padres starter James Shields has been about as steady as they come over the last few years, cranking out 200-plus innings with solid numbers in nine straight years. He also saw a boost in his strikeout numbers last season that somewhat covered up for a pretty dramatic increase in his walk rate. Unfortunately for him, the K numbers are down quite a bit this season, while the walk rate has climbed even higher and now sits a four per nine inning through seven starts. Another troubling trend: the spike in his home runs allowed last year has also carried over to 2016, which could be problematic in Miller Park, which ranked third in MLB last season for home run factors. The Brewers strike out a bit, but they're posting solid numbers against RHP, and the San Diego bullpen has been pretty bad this year, so that provides a nice boost if they're able to chase Shields relatively early. Vegas has Milwaukee as one of its highest totals on the board tonight, and we tend to agree. This recommendation is less hearty than than the Baltimore pick, but you might find some low-ish ownership rates with upside.

Consider: Boston Red Sox. Dallas Keuchel was better last time out, and the peripherals suggest he's not as bad as he's looked, but Boston has one of MLB's top offenses and they're undeniably smoking right now. They put up 40 runs and 48 hits in a three-game sweep of Oakland, and while bats can go cold overnight, it wouldn't be a bad idea to get some exposure on the chance they stay hot and Keuchel stays cold.

Sneaky Pitcher

Jimmy Nelson

Does David Price qualify as "sneaky?" Maybe. He's given up at least six runs in three of his last four outings, which has lowered his price and could scare DFSers away in the short term. We hope that's the case, because we're recommending him as a tournament play tonight. But if you need a deeper discount, give Nelson a look. He's not safe by any means. He's been getting burned by the long ball this year, and pitching in Milwaukee won't help with that. But pitching against the Padres might. They're better than only the Braves in terms of team wOBA against RHP this season and they strike out more than any team in the NL in the split. The Brewers are also the favorite, so Nelson stands a decent chance to pick up the W, which is a big deal on FanDuel and sites that reward pitching wins similarly.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Clayton Kershaw

As always, you'll want a little diversification in tournaments, but we can't see going away from Kershaw tonight in cash games. The matchup with the Mets isn't the juiciest for the best southpaw in the game, but it's not bad, either. The Mets will often alter their lineup significantly when facing a lefty, but it's a somewhat inferior offense in this split regardless of who they trot out there and it comes with solid K potential. Not that Kershaw needs a boost. He remains one of the game's best by pretty much any metric you want to use, and Dodgers Stadium provides a nice cushion against the few mistakes he does make.

Adam Jones

It doesn't always work out this nicely, but especially on FanDuel, where Jones is coming cheap, these are our two building blocks for pretty much every cash game lineup and will show up more than anybody else in my tournament lineups, as well. As we talked about in the picks column, Jones is showing signs of coming around after being hampered by injuries throughout April. He has hits in five straight game and has homered in his last two, so the price on him should be on the rise. Also working in his favor are a history of reverse splits and the chance to square off with Mike Pelfrey, tonight's punching bag du jour.

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!