Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/24/16

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 14-game slate tonight, so unless you just insist on living dangerously, we think you can safely ignore the Rays and Marlins at 12:10 Eastern and gear up for an interesting night of DFS with no shortage of aces or high predicted totals.

Personnel

• Christian Yelich remains out for the Marlins in today's game, sitting for the third straight day due to back spasms. Ichiro is again at the top of the lineup for Miami.
• The Rangers have placed Drew Stubbs on the DL with a toe injury and summoned Joey Gallo from Triple-A.
• Hunter Pence was on the bench again last night, but came in as a pinch hitter and delivered the game-winning hit. Keep an eye on his status before tonight's game; it appears he's nearing a return.
• Angel Pagan left last night's game early and will have an MRI to determine the severity of the injury to his hamstring.
• Odubel Herrera's early exit from last night's game was not injury related. Phillies manager Phil Mackanin told the press he yanked the young OF due to a lack of hustle.
• Jason Heyward missed his third straight game on Monday, but could return to the lineup during the current series with the Cardinals.
• Justin Upton was scratched from last night's lineup due to a quad issue. He was replaced by Steven Moya, and there's been no update on his availability for tonight as of Tuesday morning.
• A Sunday collision between Alex Gordon and Mike Moustakas sent Gordon to the DL and kept Moustakas out of Monday's game. Moustakas is expected to return to the lineup soon, however.
• Lucas Duda is going to be out for a while for the Mets after being diagnosed with a stress fracture in his back. Eric Campbell got the start Monday, but the Mets could use a rotating cast of characters in Duda's absence.

Tournament Stacks

Boston Red Sox
I wonder how much Jorge de la Rosa is loving life right now. The Rockies' 35-year-old LHP is coming off of the DL just in time to face one of baseball's best offenses. The Red Sox have punished lefties and righties nearly equally this season and lead MLB in wRC+, while ranking second in wOBA against southpaws. Perhaps the only good news for de la Rosa is that he won't be in Coors Field, but oddly, his numbers are actually slightly better at home over the course of his career. On the road, he owns a lifetime xFIP of 4.27. Overall, he's not a terrible pitcher, but that's hardly an endorsement against the Red Sox, who Vegas have slated as the highest total on the board tonight. You'll have to pay up for their bats throughout most of the lineup (lefty-mashing Chris Young a notable exception), but we think it'll be worth it tonight.

Baltimore Orioles
The Orioles aren't exactly raking right now, but that's actually working in our favor tonight. Due to the moderate cool spell, the prices are depressed, and we think this is a nice time to snag some of the power bats and bet on a breakout. Doug Fister is a professional pitcher, but he's not much more than that. He's currently mired in his second consecutive season with an xFIP in the mid-4s, with his already mediocre K rate dipping further, while the walk rate rises. A vast majority of the damage this season is coming against lefties, so go ahead and queue up Chris Davis. Manny Machado, Adam Jones and Mark Trumbo have also shown some reverse-split tendencies, so we're pretty high on the heart of the order in this matchup.

Sneaky Pitcher

Julio Teheran

This pick is really coming down to Teheran and Justin Verlander. We're going with the rarely used Atlanta recommendation for two reasons: 1) it's rarely used, and 2) Teheran is cheaper, especially on DraftKings. Verlander is a better bet roll up double-digit Ks and get a win, so if you're looking for upside outside of the top arms, he's your guy. Turn toward Teheran if you're hunting lower ownership with a slightly lower ceiling. The 25-year-old's peripherals don't quite match his 2.78 ERA this season, but that's mostly due to the fact that the advanced stats don't think his 7.8% HR/FB ratio is sustainable. And maybe it's not, but we're not super worried about the long ball at Turner Field, which ranked in the bottom third of the league last year for HR factors. And while the Brewers have produced respectably this season vs. RHP, they also strike out more than any other team in the league in this split, which gives Teheran's so-so strikeout skills a nice boost. As usual, this space is more for tournament plays, and this pick is better suited for sites that don't place a ton of value on wins, because the Braves offense is gonna make those tough to come by. But as an SP2 on DraftKings, we think Teheran makes a fine place to find some value.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Manny Machado

As mentioned, the projection system is pretty geeked about this matchup with Doug Fister for the Orioles. He's a league-average guy, Minute Maid Park is a top-10 venue for HR factors, and the Orioles hit RHP as well as nearly any team in MLB. Aside from Machado, Pedro Alvarez is also showing up in the vast majority of optimal lineups for both FanDuel and DraftKings. But since Alvarez is kind of a boom-or-bust guy, we're writing up Machado, who looks like a strong play in all formats at these prices. In 140 PAs against RHP this season, he owns a .411 wOBA and has a .551 slugging percentage in the split since the beginning of 2015.

Brian McCann

Y'all probably know by now that we love taking McCann at home in a soft matchup, and tonight's against R.A. Dickey certainly qualifies. The aging knuckleballer has been serviceable but unexciting in every season since his Cy Young campaign of 2012. It hasn't always shown up in the results, but this year, they're falling in line with the peripheral stats, which mark Dickey as a nice guy to target with some bats. His 4.50 ERA his backed up with a 4.21 xFIP, fewer than 7 Ks/9, and 1.33 HR/9. The knuckleball has always been a hit-or-miss pitch in more ways than one, and that makes Dickey more susceptible than most to disaster outings. And though he's mostly avoided getting blown up in May, the three bombs he gave up to Tampa Bay in his last outing shown what can happen when he's the slightest bit off.

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!