Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 5/26/16

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

Two short slates is going to make it tough to find meaningful differentiation in tournaments today and at some positions it'll be a challenge to even find a usable dude (good luck finding a SS who's not 30 percent owned in tourneys on the early slate).

Luckily, we've got Jose Fernandez and Red Sox to see us through. The lineups are starting to trickle in, so let's get to it.

Personnel

• Josh Harrison is out of the lineup again today due to illness. The good news is that the Pirates lineup shuffle vs. lefty Patrick Corbin has Jordy Mercer batting leadoff. That helps out the SS menu on the early slate quite a bit.
• Giancarlo Stanton is out of the lineup for the second straight day with rib soreness. Christian Yelich is also sitting again, so Marcel Ozuna is hitting third against LHP Drew Smyly, while Cole Gillespie is manning RF and hitting fifth.
• Jean Segura is back atop the Diamondbacks lineup after taking a fastball off the helmet on Tuesday.
• Chris Herrmann is catching and hitting sixth today for Arizona while Wellington Castillo takes a breather.
• As of this writing, the Blue Jays lineup hasn't been posted yet, but manager John Gibbons has said Devon Travis could be moving to the top of the order soon. Stay tuned. He'd be in a great spot today if he were to hit leadoff today.
• Troy Tulowitzki sat Wednesday with a quad injury. He's considered day-to-day, so keep an eye out for the Jays lineup, which may or may not surface before lineup lock.
• Dustin Pedroia was pulled from Wednesday night's game with a hamstring issue, but has said he intends to play tonight.
• Xander Bogaerts was removed late in Wednesday's game with a thumb injury, but initial indications are he'll be good to go tonight.
• The Yankees are awaiting MRI results on Mark Teixeira's neck. That might explain his .576 OPS this season.
• Alex Rodriguez is expected to be back in the Yankees lineup today.
• Matt Carpenter was out Wednesday on paternity leave, and there's no update on his status for tonight yet. Kolten Wong shifted to the top of the order in his absence yesterday.
• Mike Moustakas hasn't played since a collision that sent Alex Gordon to the DL over the weekend. He's set to be examined by team doctors today.

Tournament Stacks

Boston Red Sox
As we wrote yesterday, there's really no way to get around the Red Sox right now. They're dominating the league in wOBA, wRC+ and OPS, and those aren't just empty stats. They're translating in a very real way to runs on the scoreboard. Today's victim foe is Colorado youngster Jonathan Gray. In theory, he's got the stuff to derail the Red Sox juggernaut, but he's also got blow-up potential as was on display in his last outing when the Cardinals touched him up for nine runs in 3.2 innings. I might scale back my Boston exposure a tiny bit based on Gray's elite strikeout stuff, but there's no way I'm fading them. One note: Dustin Pedroia and Xander Bogaerts were pulled from last night's game with injuries. Neither is thought to be serious, and Pedroia has said he's playing today, but management may have other ideas.

Toronto Blue Jays
It was supposed to be the Blue Jays, not the BoSox, with the offense crushing the league in 2016. But so far, that hasn't come to fruition. Nonetheless, we're loading up on Toronto righties against CC Sabathia today. The prices are down, especially for Josh Donaldson and Edwin Encarnacion on FanDuel, but they're still putting up massive numbers in their opportunities vs. southpaws this year, and Sabathia ain't the guy he used to be. The underlying stats say he's been the beneficiary of some good luck with regard to homers and that could be coming to an end today. Yankees Stadium is widely known for its hitter-friendly porch in right, but it's a top-10 venue for right-handed home run factors, as well.

Sneaky Pitcher

Matt Wisler

This will make the third straight day we've recommended a Braves pitcher in this space, and so far it's worked out pretty well on sites where wins aren't super important. And here's something you don't see every day: the Braves are actually favored to win this one (thanks, Wily Peralta!). As we've talked about plenty this week, the Brewers are the most strikeout-prone team in MLB against RHP, and Turner Field does a solid job of suppressing offense. Wisler should be able to take advantage of that. He's been pitching well lately, with back-to-back seven-K outings, and while he's due for some home run regression, chances are that won't come while he's pitching at home. I'll have less exposure on FanDuel and other sites that value wins highly, because ugh. The Braves offense. But they should be able to scratch across some runs against Peralta, and at these prices, Wisler will have good chance to return solid value in all formats.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Jose Fernandez

We don't often include a pitcher here, so when one shows up in each of the top 10 optimal lineups on both FanDuel and DraftKings, it gives you a sense of how strongly the projection system feels about the matchup. Looking at Fernandez vs. the Rays, it's easy to understand why. The 23-year-old righty is mowing guys down at an incredible rate through nine starts (13.09 Ks/9), and while his command has been spotty, his overall numbers haven't suffered because of it. His 3.02 ERA is actually higher than his FIP (2.36) and xFIP (2.60), and while Tampa Bay has shown surprising power this season, we're not letting that back us down today. They strike out more than any team in the league other than the Brewers vs. RHP, and Tropicana Field is one of the top-10 pitcher's parks in MLB. That gives us a rare combo of safety plus upside with Fernandez, and we'll be using him heavily in all formats today.

Josh Donaldson

Donaldson gets the slight edge here over Manny Machado, and he's especially attractive on FanDuel where his price remains too low. While his overall numbers are somewhat disappointing, there's no fault to be found in his stats vs. lefties. His 1.150 OPS and .478 wOBA in the split won't last for the duration of the season, but he's a well-established lefty killer, with career marks of .982 and .417 against southpaws. Sabathia doesn't have the stuff to contain that kind of talent, and neither does Yankee Stadium.

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!