Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 6/21/16

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

No day baseball is kind of a bummer for those among us with the good fortune to be able to watch games at work, but the trade-off is that we get a well-stocked 15-game slate tonight. Differentiation and appealing punt plays are always easier to find when all 30 teams are in action, and the fact that we've got a nice menu of arms only makes the slate tonight more intriguing. Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Steve Pearce left Monday's game with a hamstring issue and is expected to be sidelined for at least a few days.
• Matt Duffy is headed for the DL with an Achilles injury. Ramiro Pena filled in at 3B yesterday, but there's been no update on who will take his roster spot as of Tuesday morning.
• Mikie Mahtook sustained a fractured hand after being hit with a pitch on Monday and is likely headed for a lengthy DL stint.
• Yasiel Puig is expected to be activated from the DL today. He's been out since June 2 with a hamstring injury.
• Dexter Fowler has been placed on the DL with a hamstring injury. His absence should free up more playing time for rookie Albert Almora. Ben Zobrist and Chris Coghlan have taken turns at the top of the lineup in the last two games.

Tournament Stacks

Texas Rangers

We've got quite a few offenses in nice spots tonight, and for our purposes there may not be a better one than the Rangers. Part of the reason is due to the fact that we've got some ace-caliber arms on the hill who will send us bargain shopping for hitters, and the projection system is high on quite a few Texas bats from a value standpoint. But even if you're not especially cost-conscious, the Rangers look like a good bet for offense tonight. Anthony DeSclafani isn't the worst starter the Reds have thrown out this year, but he hasn't been impressive in his two starts since coming off the DL, despite what that 2.08 ERA might have you believe. Even tossing out the 14 hits and eight free passes he's surrendered in 8.2 innings this year, his 4.03 career xFIP tells us he's a guy we can pick on, especially in Global Life Park, which provides a substantial boost to offense. The Rangers have been slightly better than average against RHP this season, but they've been stout lately, posting the sixth-best wOBA in MLB over the last 30 days as they've built up a big lead in the AL West. Vegas has them projected for nearly six runs in this one, and we wouldn't be surprised to see them top that.

Baltimore Orioles

Even without Manny Machado's services, the Orioles have Vegas' top total on the board tonight as they face San Diego's Luis Perdomo, a Rule 5 guy who was recently moved into the starting rotation. So far, the results say he's in over his head—not that he was killing it in the bullpen either. He's surrendered 69 hits and 41 earned runs in 42 innings this season, while posting 4.5 walks per 9. He's also homer prone, which is bad news at Camden Yard against an Orioles team that is tied for the MLB lead in ISO (.199) against RHP in 2016. Baltimore's top bats will cost you a little more, but they should be worth it in lineups where you can fit them in.

Sneaky Pitcher

Sonny Gray

This one will likely test your tolerance for risk. The fantasy community as a whole was pretty down on Gray before the season started, and he supported that skepticism with an awful start to 2016. He's been OK since coming off the DL (one good, one bad, one decent start), but he should be lightly owned tonight given the number of more palatable pitching options. What the projection system likes, other than his solid if not spectacular pre-2016 track record, is the matchup with the Brewers in a pitcher-friendly park. Oakland Coliseum has long been one of MLB's biggest suppressors of offense and only Dodgers Stadium and Tropicana Field are worse for offensive park factors in 2016. As for the Brewers, they rank in the bottom third of the league in wRC+ against RHP and strike out more than any team in MLB in the split. Gray still doesn't have the massive upside (or reliability) that you'll find elsewhere on the slate, but he should be able to return solid value, especially on FanDuel, as the A's are favored to get the win.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Jose Fernandez

We've got a nice handful of aces throwing tonight, so the fact that the projection system has Fernandez pegged as the go-to option on both FanDuel and DraftKings in all of of its top optimal lineups tells us plenty. The Marlins fireballer has been typically outstanding this season and leads the league by a healthy margin with 13.17 Ks/9. He's also sporting a 2.00 FIP that ranks third in MLB, and while his xFIP is slightly higher (but still awesome) at 2.33, that number is accounting for expected home run regression, and we don't think that's an issue in Miami against the Braves. Marlins Park is pretty neutral in overall park factors, but is second only to AT&T Park in San Francisco when comes to limiting the long ball. Meanwhile, the Braves are the worst team in the league when it comes to power numbers. They're not as terrible against RHP as they are against southpaws, but they're still 28th in MLB in wRC+ and wOBA in the split. That makes Fernandez our top choice in all formats tonight.

Shin-soo Choo

Choo isn't the kind of guy you'll usually see showing up in every optimal lineup, but as alluded to earlier, his presence today is more a function of cost and opportunity than anything else. He's coming pretty cheap across the industry, and hitting atop one of the highest-projected offenses on tonight's slate, that makes him a nice bargain. He's also picking up the production lately, with just one goose egg since coming off the DL a little over a week ago. And while that .233 batting average is ugly, he's getting on base plenty, leading to a .351 wOBA on the season. His lack of big-time upside makes him more of a cash game guy unless you're stacking Rangers, but we think he makes a nice building block in lineups where you're paying up for pitching 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!