Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/13/16

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 have a full 15 game slate today with one game being played in the afternoon(Pirates vs. Cubs). This game can be avoided unless you want exposure to one of the pitchers on a DraftKings lineup where late swap can be utilized. Looking closer at the evening slate we have some tough decisions to make at starting pitching. Outside of Chris Sale the options are pretty limited with mid to low tier options. Sale can be played in comfortably in cash games but as I mentioned in pitcher breakdown, he will be highly owned in GPP's and can be faded.

If you are looking for weather information for today be sure to check out our new daily Weather Report article produced by Mark Paquette. He will get you up to date on all games.

Personnel

• Logan Forsythe should be back in the Rays lineup tonight after sitting out most of the week with a bruised shoulder suffered in Monday's game. He is a better hitter against left handed pitching and will face Rich Hill in a favorable matchup tonight.
• The San Diego Padres have called up Christian Friedrich to make a spot start on Friday against the Brewers. He is not in play in DFS as he gets a very tough matchup vs. a team that hits left handed pitching very well.
• Not that it affects us in DFS but Jose Reyes should finally hear back from MLB on his suspension today. It is sounding like possibly a 60 game minimum. This means we get to keep rostering Trevor Story for the foreseeable future.
• Michael Brantley is still dealing with soreness and fatigue in his shoulder that he had surgery on in the off season. he sat out Tuesday and Wednesday's games and the Indians had a day off on Thursday. Be sure to check lineups as they roll out but I would most likely avoid him either way in all formats until he is healthy.
• Jacoby Ellsbury could return to the Yankee lineup as soon as tonight or at least sometime this weekend. He has been dealing with a strained right hip but is progressing nicely and won't need a DL stint.
• The Arizona Diamondbacks have announced they will not place David Peralta on the DL with a his wrist injury. He won't be in the starting lineup for another game or two but manager Chip Hale said he will be used off the bench if needed.
• Lance McCullers will make his season debut on Friday vs. the red hot Boston Red Sox. He comes with high K upside(12 K/9 in two minor league starts before being called up) but is faced with the task of slowing down the Red Sox who have scored double digit runs in four straight games. There are better matchups tonight.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Russell Martin FD 2200 DK 3800
Opponent - TEX (Perez) Park - @TEX
FD - 10.67 DK - 8.22

The "every lineup" designation for Russell Martin today only applies on FanDuel where is price is extremely low at $2,200. He is facing a left handed pitcher today in which he has positive splits for his career. The hits 7th for the Jays which doesn't seem all that enticing but with a loaded lineup ahead of him he should get plenty of opportunities to drive in runs today if he can limit his strikeouts. That shouldn't be an issue as Martin Perez is only striking out just over five batters per nine innings.
Domingo Santana FD 2400 DK 3300
Opponent - SD (Friedrich) Park - @MIL
FD - 9.17 DK - 7.11

Since the Padres announced they were calling up left handed pitcher Christian Friedrich to start tonight the Brewers have shot up the projections as they hit left handed pitching very well. Looking at the projection system, Santana shows up in all 25 lineups created on both sites. He is an extremely affordable option on both sites and should be back in the leadoff spot tonight. Looking at his splits, Santana fares much better against lefties with a .364 avg this year compared to a poor .182 avg vs. right handed pitching. Load up on the Brewers and start at the top with Santana.
 

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!