Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 05/19/16

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 an interesting slate here, mostly because the two early games hold far more appealing offensive matchups than the nine night games combined. Luckily, we've got a couple of mediocre dudes taking the hill in Cincinnati tonight. The only drawback there is you can expect everybody to be all over the Indians and Reds after last night's home run derby.

Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Jonathan Lucroy and Ryan Braun are sitting today against the Cubs. It's a routine day off for the Brewers' backstop after 13 innings behind the plate last night, while Braun is still nursing a lower back issue. Alex Presley will get the start in left and hit second, while Martin Maldonado will catch and hit eighth.
• Matt Wieters will get the day off for the Orioles. Caleb Joseph is catching and hitting eighth.
• Jon Jay is expected to return to the Padres lineup tonight.
• Angels C Geovany Soto has been placed on the DL. Carlos Perez should serve as the primary catcher in his absence.
• Adrian Gonzalez sat again last night with a back issue. He's expected to return to the lineup tonight or tomorrow.

Tournament Stacks

Seattle Mariners
If you're playing the early/all-day slates, you've got plenty of stacking options to choose from; you could make a strong case for either the Mariners, Orioles or the Cubs as the top offense of the day. Aside from the short porch in RF at Camden Yard, we're settling on Seattle because a) the Mariners are more affordable than the Cubs, and b) we'd rather pick on Tyler Wilson than Nate Karns. In 16 big-league appearances, Wilson is fanning an absurdly low 3.78 per 9 and owns a 4.75 xFIP. And then there's park. It's well-established that Camden Yard boosts left-handed power as much or more than every other stadium in the league, and looking down the Seattle order and seeing all those lefties is just too much to resist. There are plenty of ways you can go here, but the 2-5 stack including Seth Smith, Robinson Cano, Nelson Cruz and Kyle Seager looks like the chalk play.

Cleveland Indians
Vegas has the Indians as the top-scoring offense for today, and there's plenty to like in this matchup against 28-year-old rookie Tim Adleman, starting with the Great American Ballpark. Wednesday night's display, which included six HRs (two each for Jay Bruce and Rajai Davis) is at the high end on the spectrum of possible outcomes, but it's not an extreme outlier or anything. The Smallpark has consistently ranked among the top venues in MLB for HR factors in recent years, but not all DFS sites are going to hike the prices like they will in Coors, so it's always a decent place to look to for high-end value potential. Adleman isn't going to overpower anybody, and has struggled with command in his first three big-league starts. If things get sideways early, it could get ugly for Cincinnati, whose already terrible bullpen has been put through the ringer already in this series. We like Kipnis and Lindor as the building blocks here, and keep an eye on the lineup to see if Carlos Santana gets a turn at 1B; we like him quite a bit more than Mike Napoli.

 

Sneaky Pitcher

Jeff Locke

I'm gonna give you Locke here, but I'm not happy about it. The fact is that rostering a LHP against the Braves is kinda automatic for many DFSers at this point. Despite edging Francisco Liriano last night, Atlanta remains really, really bad against lefties. Just telling you they rank dead last in the MLB in most metrics that matter doesn't even tell the whole story. Their wRC+ is 50. For reference, the Pirates lead the league against lefties with 139 wRC+ and nobody but the Braves is below a 59. Their OBP is .271. Their OPS is .552. If the Braves were a journeyman middle infielder, the Braves are probably the only team that would employ him. So how is this a "sneaky" pick? Because Locke is almost equally as bad. It's gonna take a strong stomach and to take a peak at that 4.96 xFIP and decide, "yeah, I'm gonna roll with that." But as far as off-the-radar pitchers go on this slate, you might as well take a flyer. I guess. Or you might just wanna club yourself in the shins with a spiked bat. Either way.

Consider: Jon Gray. Picking a green starter against one of the most potent offenses in the NL is no recipe for long-term DFS success, but it's at least as appealing as putting Locke in your lineups. Gray got blown up in his first two starts (both at Coors Field, notably), but he's been good since then. The former first-round pick's high-strikeout ceiling is lowered by the Cardinals low-K tendencies, but Busch Stadium is a good pitcher's park, so he's worth some consideration if you're bargain hunting.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Manny Machado

There are loads of guys in the early games that the projection system is fawning over today, but none are as reliable as Machado. Of course, you could say that about the 23-year-old phenom on just about any slate. He's one of the best hitters in the game and he's coming in at less-than-superstar prices, especially on FanDuel. Mix in the fact that SS is pretty bad today, and Machado is a lock-and-load option for us unless you're playing all-day slates and stacking Indians. Don't be cowed by the R vs. R matchup. Machado is rocking everybody this year, and owns a .449 wOBA, and .362 ISO vs. RHP this season.

Jason Kipnis

For the late slate, Kipnis is our go-to guy, given his enticing high-floor, high-ceiling potential in his matchup. As mentioned, the Indians are expected to put up nice numbers today, and everybody in the lineup gets a HR boost from the park. Kipnis is also super steady. He's scored in double figures on FanDuel in seven of his last eight games, and while you can quibble about hot streaks, sample size and arbitrary endpoints, his recent output is just a continuation of what he's done throughout the majority of his career. He sports a .354 career wOBA against RHP and is coupling that with a .202 ISO in the split this season. We've got him as a strong play in all formats tonight.

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!