Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 7/5/16

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

After a long stretch of split slates, we get a nearly full 14-gamer tonight featuring pitching options across the spectrum and some of the best non-Coors hitting parks in baseball. Should make for a fun day of DFS in all formats. Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Kris Bryant won't miss any time after a collision in the outfield on Monday. He's back in the lineup today and playing 3B for the Cubs.
• Jose Reyes is expected to be activated by the Mets today. He's not yet available on FanDuel, while DraftKings has him at $2.9K. Though he didn't do much in his minor league stint, the Mets have indicated they intend to make him their lead-off hitter at some point.
• Derek Norris was removed from Monday's game after getting hit on the arm on a Brandon Drury follow-through. X-rays came back negative, but he could be sitting tonight.
• The Red Sox have sent Christian Vazquez down to the minors with Ryan Hanigan set to come off the DL.
• Peter O'Brien is returning to Triple-A; the Diamondbacks activated Nick Ahmed off the paternity list in the corresponding move.
• Pedro Alvarez has been placed on the bereavement list and is expected to miss the next few days.
• Denard Span is expected to need a DL stint to recover from neck stiffness that's kept him sidelined recently.
• Ender Inciarte is expected to return to the Braves lineup tonight after sitting over the weekend with a groin injury.
• Tommy Pham was scratched from the Cardinals lineup Monday due to shoulder soreness and is considered day-to-day for now.
• Eduardo Escobar is expected to sit through at least Thursday as he nurses a hamstring injury.

Tournament Stacks

Toronto Blue Jays
Even with a few offenses in good spots today, I'd have to guess this is going to be an extremely popular pick, because it's got everything we want: a powerful offense, a good park, and a fly-ball pitcher who has been hammered this season. Chris Young hasn't thrown enough innings to qualify among the league leaders, but if he did, he'd be outpacing the rest of the league by more than a homer and a half in HR/9 this season. He's giving up 3.43 per 9, and that's with more than half of his appearances coming in pitcher-friendly Kauffman Stadium, which is practically the polar opposite of the Rogers Centre in terms of home run factors. Meanwhile, the Blue Jays are third in MLB in ISO against righties this season, and they've been just fine without Joey Bautista in the lineup, posting top-10 wOBA and wRC+ over the last two weeks. Maybe the only thing we don't like about this one for Toronto is Kansas City's stout bullpen, but that's not enough to dissuade from heavy exposure tonight.

Oakland A's
And now for your non-chalk pick of the day. The A's aren't a team we'll recommend often, but when we do, odds are it's against a lefty. They're a pretty middle-of-the-road offense overall in the split, but they've got some pieces who can do substantial damage against southpaws, starting with Danny Valencia, Marcus Semien and Khris Davis. All three come with major power upside, and that's what we're looking for, particularly in GPPs. Tommy Milone isn't quite the second coming of Chris Young when it comes to fly balls and homers, but he's definitely a guy we can pick on. And while his 1.78 HR/9 this season is a bit higher than his career average, his 40 percent hard-contact rate and a career of fly-ball tendencies tells us it's not all bad luck either. Another major factor here is that the A's are coming cheap across the industry. No hitter in the lineup will cost you more than $3.6K on either FanDuel or DraftKings, and that makes them a nice option to pair with expensive pitching tonight.

Sneaky Pitcher

Jake Odorizzi

Despite the fact that there are quite a few quality arms coming in the mid-tier price range tonight, there's no obvious place to turn for pitching value tonight. Lots of guys could turn out to be solid SP2 types, but there's at least one thing we don't like about the matchup for each of them. We're settling on Odorizzi for a couple of reasons: A) He's a nice favorite to get the win, which will help cover for the fact that the Angels don't strike out much on FanDuel, and B) he's really cheap on DraftKings. Odorizzi's a pretty average guy, but when he's been hurt this year, it's primarily been by the long ball. We don't see that as much of a threat tonight, because (Mike Trout obviously excluded), the Angels don't have a lot of guys who scare us. They rank 25th in the league in ISO against RHP, and what pop they do have will be suppressed by Tropicana Field, one of baseball's better pitcher's parks. It probably goes without saying, but this is strictly a second-starter pick on DraftKings. You could probably do worse for tournaments on FanDuel, given that Odorizzi could get you a strikeout per inning, but if you're playing him there, it's really win or bust.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Madison Bumgarner

There's an awful lot of soft pricing on FanDuel today for hitters, and that'll make it easier to fit in the most expensive pitcher on the slate, but even on DraftKings, the projection system says Bumgarner is worth the price. You probably don't need us to extol the glories of the Giants' 26-year-old lefty. Even though advanced metrics say his 2.20 ERA is due for some regression, there's plenty to like about Bumgarner tonight, not the least of which is his 9.8 K/9 rate. The park and matchup are almost equally enticing. AT&T Park was the best venue for pitchers in MLB last season, and the Rockies are far less dangerous away from home. They rank 25th in wRC+ (which accounts for park factors) against lefties this season with a 23.6 percent K rate. That equates to safety plus upside for MadBum tonight, and we can't see looking anywhere else for cash games.

Bryce Harper

Harper ends up in this spot for us quite a bit, and the reasons why remain the same. He's still hitting for solid power, he's on pace for a career high in steals, he draws loads of walks, he's striking out less than ever, and he's due for some pretty significant positive batting average regression. Regardless of matchup, that makes him worth his current price on FanDuel, and when he's facing an average guy like Zach Davies, he's a good bet to return value on his DraftKings price, as well. Davies isn't terrible or anything, but he is susceptible to the long ball, especially against lefties (1.47 HR/9 in the split). That's enough to make Harper a solid building block in all formats, and he's the only hitter showing up in all optimal lineups 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!