Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 7/2/2016

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

As far as split slates go, this one is pretty tough to beat. We've got aces and middle-tier arms in good spots, and solid bats at multiple price points. Read on for news updates, as well as recommendations.

Personnel

• Trevor Bauer, who was scheduled to start today was called on to pitch five innings in relief in the Indians' 19-inning win over Toronto yesterday. The Indians have yet to announce a starter for today's game.
• Steven Souza has been activated from the DL and is expected to start today for the Rays. Taylor Motter has been sent down to make room on the roster.
• Yasiel Puig was forced to leave last night's game with a shoulder injury, but it's not considered serious and he may not have to miss any time.
• Brock Holt returned from the DL and went 2-for-4 last night hitting out of the No. 6 hole.
• Denard Span was scratched from Friday's lineup due to a neck issue. Consider him day-to-day for now.
• Carlos Beltran was on the bench again last night and will likely remain there with the Yankees in an NL park, as he nurses a hamstring issue.
• D.J. LeMahieu is expected to return to the Rockies lineup today after missing nearly a week with a knee bruise.
• Joc Pederson has been placed on the DL with a shoulder injury; Will Venable was recalled to replace him.
• Yunel Escobar sat again Friday, but is expected to return to the Angels lineup this weekend.
• Stephen Piscotty was out Friday with a foot injury, but should be back soon.
• Aledmys Diaz picked up right where he left off before taking a foul ball to the face and missing most of the week. He went 2-for-5 with double in his return last night.
• Curtis Granderson is expected to miss at least a couple more games as he nurses a calf injury.
• Hanley Ramirez missed last night's game due to a side injury. Keep an eye out for updates on his status for tonight.
• Byung-ho Park was sent to the minors to make room for Miguel Sano, who was activated from the DL on Friday.

Tournament Stacks

Toronto Blue Jays
We're kind of going out on a limb here, considering we don't yet know who will get the call for the Indians, but chances are we're looking at a call-up, and that makes the Blue Jays bats significantly underpriced. Their salaries were set as if they were facing the suddenly good Trevor Bauer, and none of the options at Cleveland's disposal have his talent. Add in the fact that this game will be in one of baseball's best hitter's parks and the Indians' bullpen was depleted by yesterday's marathon, and we'll be happy to roll with most of the bats in the Toronto lineup today.

Boston Red Sox
If the day-slate pick was a little on the speculative side, we're making up for it by going extra chalky here. Boston has baseball's top offense in terms of wRC+ and wOBA, and they're at their best at Fenway, which ranked third in the majors for overall offensive park factors last season. If that's not enough, they'll also have the pleasure of facing Hector Santiago, a fly-ball pitcher with homer issues and a 5.04 xFIP. And keep in mind, this is a guy who makes roughly half his starts this season in Anaheim, which suppresses offense more than any park in the AL. This year's sample (eight starts) isn't large enough to trust, but last year he surrendered a .350 wOBA and more than 1.7 HRs/9 on the road, and with hard contact rate that's risen every year of his career, he's likely headed for similar carnage this season. The Red Sox will be extremely popular tonight, which is kind of a bummer, but we can't recommend fading them in this matchup.

Sneaky Pitcher

Scott Kazmir

We're not expecting Kazmir to get a lot of love tonight, and we're 100 percent OK with that. Because while fellow lefty K specialists Drew Pomeranz and Rich Hill (not to mention Jake Arrieta) divert everybody's attention, Kazmir comes with almost as much upside. Not that you shouldn't consider the other guys, as well. Arrieta's our pick for cash games, and Hill and Pomeranz are in great pitcher's parks, but the projection system actually prefers Kazmir, and not just on DraftKings where he's dirt cheap. Of course, playing him will require some risk tolerance, because Kaz hasn't been all that great lately, but a roster full of safe plays rarely takes down a GPP. What we like here is that Kazmir has been much better at home this season, which isn't surprising, considering Dodger Stadium is one of MLB's most pitcher-friendly venues. Also, the Rockies strike out a decent amount (23.1%) against lefties and are far less dangerous away from Coors Field. They rank 24th against lefties in wRC+, which account for park factors.

Consider: Joe Ross, because Cincinnati is sneakily terrible against RHP this season.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Xander Bogaerts

As mentioned, the projection system is all in on the Boston bats today against Santiago, but Bogaerts is the only one showing up in every optimal lineup on both FanDuel and DraftKings. On the former, the reasoning is simple: he's way underpriced, coming in as the fifth-most expensive SS on the late slate. But even on DK, where nobody will cost you more at the position, we're not afraid to pull the trigger (and this is where slotting in Kazmir should really pay dividends). Aside from Santiago's weaknesses we already discussed, it's just tough to do better than Bogaerts when he's facing a lefty. Sure, you can find more power, but the Boston 23-year-old ranks among the elite when it comes to floor/ceiling combo in this split. Since the beginning of last year he's hit over .360 against lefties, with a wOBA approaching .400, and nearly as many walks as strikeouts. We don't turn to Bogaerts hoping for multiple homers, but his enviable lineup spot coupled with his respectable power and speed give him plenty of upside, and it's even higher at home, where he owns a .494 slugging percentage this season.

Bryce Harper

I'd like to give you an early-slate guy, but there's just nobody the projection system is this high on, and likely won't be (at least until we get word on who Toronto is facing). As for Harper, he's still awesome, despite what you might believe if you own him in a season-long league that uses batting average. Which, by the way, sucks. Walks matter. Convince your leaguemates. Back to Bryce, yeah he's been hovering in the .250 range for a while now, but as we advised in the picks column, don't let that disguise the fact that he's still a steady producer in DFS. He's reaching base in more than 40 percent of plate appearances and is still pacing toward about 35 bombs with a career high in stolen bases. The one drawback is that his upside is hurt by the fact that everybody's pitching around him this year (21.8% walks, 13.9% Ks vs. RHP this season). That dings his value in tournaments, but at the same time raises his floor. We like him little more on FanDuel where he's more affordable, but he's playable in all formats on both sites 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!