Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/18/16

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 Boston Red Sox and Kansas City Royals will play a double header today. Only the early game is included in the "All Day" slate but both matchups can be found in the "Early Only" and "Late" slates on both sites.

Personnel

• Odubel Herrera will be out of the Phillies lineup on Wednesday to discomfort in his back. Peter Bourjos will take his place in the starting lineup and will bat 9th in the order.
• In the same game, Martin Prado will beout of the Marlins lineup today and will be replaced with Chris Johnson who will bat seventh today vs. Jeremy Hellickson.
• J.D. Martinez remains in the two spot in the Tigers lineup right ahead of Miguel Cabrera where he should see considerably more fastballs. 
• Salvador Perez will sit out the first game of the double header vs. the Red Sox this afternoon. Expect him back for game two of the twin bill.
• Hanley Ramirez is out of the Red Sox lineup in game one of the double header. Chris Young will get a start in the outfield and bat 8th today vs. Ian Kennedy.
• Victor Martinez has been scratched from the Tigers lineup today. Nick Castellanos has moved up to the cleanup spot and Jarrod Saltalamacchia slipping into the lineup

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Giancarlo Stanton FD 4000 DK 4900
Opponent - PHI (Hellickson) Park - @PHI
FD - 13.61 DK - 10.33

Looking at the FanDuel optimizer today, Stanton's name showed up in over 70% of the lineups created(25 lineups created). He gets a nice matchup vs. Jeremy Hellickson and the Phillies. Hellickson has high K upside but has also been punished by the long ball giving up nine home runs this year. Stanton is one of the best power hitters in the league and is once again operating a hard bit rate above 35%. He makes a great play on his own or as a part of a stack starting at the top of the order with Derek Dietrich.

 
Rajai Davis FD 2900 DK 3500
Opponent - CIN (Finnegan) Park - @CIN
FD - 8.73 DK - 7.66

Peaking at the early DraftKings optimizer results shows us the system really favors Rajai Davis today in a matchup vs. the Reds in a good hitters park. He is coming off a big night going 3-3 with a double and 3 RBI while hitting out of the 9 hole. Davis has much better split vs. left handed pitching for his career and usually bats leadoff in those situations. The Indians have taken the first two games of this Interleague series by a combined score of 28-7 and there is no reason the beat down doesn't continue. Davis also provides terrific speed and run scoring potential if he does hit leadoff today.

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!

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