Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 6/22/16

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

It's a split-slate Wednesday in DFS land, which means loads of action. The day games are pitcher-heavy, followed by an eight-gamer tonight where most of the arms are of the middle-class variety. Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Travis d'Arnaud is getting the day off after returning from the DL last night. Rene Rivera will be catching for the Mets and hitting eighth.
• Jacoby Ellsbury is back from his bout with the flu and hitting leadoff today.
• Giancarlo Stanton is sitting today for the Marlins after going 0-for-5 with a pair of Ks last night. Ichiro will get the start in RF and hit at the top of the order.
• Michael Conforto, mired in a Stanton-like slump, is also out today. Matt Reynolds is starting in LF and hitting seventh for the Mets.
• Starling Marte left last night's game early with a foot issue. Keep an eye out for updates on his status today.
• Albert Pujols sat last night to nurse ankle and hamstring issues. He's considered day-to-day for now.
• Joey Votto was out last night due to illness. There's been no update on his status as of Wednesday morning.
• Steven Pearce has been placed on the DL with a hamstring injury.
• Matt Duffy has been placed on the DL with an Achilles strain. Connor Gillaspie should be in line to the get bulk of the starts at 3B for the Giants in his absence.
• Mallex Smith has been placed on the DL with a broken thumb and will like miss a couple of months. It's a tough break for the Braves rookie who had been hitting well against RHP and was recently moved to the top of the order.

Tournament Stacks

Toronto Blue Jays
On the day slate, this one's pretty obvious. Practically every game features reputable arms and/or a bad ball park, so expect the Blue Jays (and the Diamondbacks, for that matter) to be highly owned in Rogers Centre against a lefty. Robbie Ray isn't a bad pitcher or anything. He's got good strikeout stuff, but he's also inconsistent with command and gives up more than his share of homers, and that makes him a good guy to pick on in the early games, especially with a Toronto lineup that's finally starting to live up to its potential. After a slow start to 2016, the Blue Jays are leading MLB in wRC+, wOBA and ISO over the last 30 days. Their biggest bats (Josh Donaldson, Edwin Encarnacion) also feast on lefties, so while it may take some creativity to fit them in with high-priced pitching, the profits should be there if you can find the right punt plays.

Texas Rangers
Yeah, I know. We had them in this space yesterday and they were a big, fat disappointment. Sorry about that. It might take a steady hand to roll them out there again tonight, but I've learned in these situations to trust in the system and the production will come. Dan Straily's surface numbers have been solid this season, but that 3.66 ERA isn't going to hold with his current rate of 4 BB/9. His 4.68 xFIP, which is right in line with his career number of 4.64, tells us he's due for some regression, and he's coming off a seven-hit, six-run outing against lowly Atlanta, so maybe it's already begun. He also gives up loads of fly balls, so he'll be living dangerously tonight in Global Life Park, one of MLB's top offensive venues. And as always, the Reds' beleaguered bullpen is a big part of the equation here. It's the worst in the league in ERA, xFIP, HR/9 and BB/9, and that leaves the door open for some late-inning fun, even if Straily turns in a decent outing. As for the Rangers' bats, pretty much every guy in the top 6 in the order is in play. They've got plenty of lefties they can plug in, and Ian Desmond is also doing nice work in the split this season with a .352 wOBA and .822 OPS.

Sneaky Pitcher

Trevor Bauer

We've got some significant disparity in the pricing on FanDuel and DraftKings on a couple of our top options, and this pick is geared more to the former, but given his high cost on DK, Bauer could be more lightly owned there. One other note: We could easily go with Adam Conley here. He's $3K cheaper (!!!) on DraftKings and just $400 more on FanDuel, but everybody knows how terrible the Braves are against lefties, so we don't think he qualifies as an off-the-radar pick, even though he should make a fine play if you're doing the all-day slate. Back to Bauer. Even though he's still just 25 years old, it's becoming tough to imagine he's ever going to live up to the hype he earned as the No. 3 overall pick back in 2011. That said, he is improving and we also like targeting righties with decent strikeout upside against the Rays. Tampa Bay has flashed surprising power this season, but they rank in the bottom third of the league in wOBA against RHP and strikeout more than 25 percent of the time in the split, which gives Bauer's ceiling a nice lift. Bauer isn't the kind of guy we like to recommend in cash games and we still see him as more of a tournament guy tonight, but it's worth noting that he's only given up more than three runs once in 10 starts this season and that was against Boston, so we think there's at least some level of safety in this pick.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Noah Syndergaard

For the second straight day, the projection system in all in on high-priced ace. We can only hope for a better fate than Jose Fernandez received when his bullpen (and Don Mattingly) spoiled what would've been a really nice night on FanDuel. We've got another significant split in pricing between FanDuel ($10.9K) and DraftKings ($13K), but we think Syndergaard is worth it on both sites, especially with iffy weather hanging over Jake Arrieta today. There's a strong case to be made that Syndergaard is second only to Clayton Kershaw when it comes to aces this season; so, in other words, he's practically match-up proof, and Kansas City isn't the same team they were a year ago, anyway. They're a middle-of-road offense in wRC+ and wOBA against RHP, and their strikeout rate is up from 16.3% to 20.1% in the split this year, so there's no reason to duck them. Meanwhile, Syndergaard is only getting better. His 1.91 ERA is backed up by a 2.16 xFIP and he's fanning more than 11 guys per 9. And not that he needs it, but Citi Field remains one of the best pitcher's parks in the majors. We're not looking anywhere else for cash games, and his relative affordability on FanDuel makes him a strong tournament play there, as well.

Chris Davis

We'll have a little more wiggle room to pay up for bats on the late slate, and we're not hesitating to plug in Crush. This one has everything you want: 1) an elite power hitter 2) on the plus-side of a split 3) in a homer-friendly park 4) facing a green/bad starter 5) with fly-ball tendencies 6) who doesn't miss many bats, 6) and serves up dingers like a home run buffet. San Diego's Erik Johnson doesn't have much of a major league track record, but what we've seen out of the 26-year-old is enough. In 108 big-league innings he's given up 1.99 HR/9 and owns an xFIP north of 5. He's really getting hammered this season, giving up 10 homers and 10 walks in just 22.1 IP, and he's yielded at least two bombs in all four starts. Even for a boom-or-bust guy like Davis, you're really going to have to strain to find a reason not to play him 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!