Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 7/19/16

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

We've got a full 15-game slate tonight with a handful of nice pitching options and at least as many offenses in good spots to go off. Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Brandon Phillips' calf injury acted up last night and he had to be removed from the game in the seventh inning. The Reds haven't updated his status yet, but don't be surprised if he's sitting tonight.
• The Rays have activated Steve Pearce from the DL. Nick Franklin was sent back down in the corresponding move.
• Matt Wieters was removed from Monday's game after being hit by a pitch and was sent for X-rays on his foot. Stay tuned for updates.
• Ketel Marte was scratched from last night's lineup due to illness. There's been no word yet on his status for tonight.
• Jhonny Peralta was out last night due to discomfort in his thumb. He's considered day-to-day for now.
• Chris Davis was out due to illness last night and is considered day-to-day.
• Hyun Soo Kim sat for the fourth straight game on Monday as he continues to nurse a hamstring injury. Consider him day-to-day until further notice.
• Yan Gomes has been placed on the 15-day DL with a shoulder injury. Chris Gimenez and Robert Perez will handle catching duties for the Indians while he's out.

Tournament Stacks

Colorado Rockies

Unlike last night, when it was really tough to discern which side of the Coors game was the chalk, the choice is clear tonight. That doesn't mean the Rays shouldn't be in consideration—Tyler Chatwood doesn't scare us that much—but Tampa Bay has been much less dangerous against righties this year, so Colorado is the chalk play here. Of course, that may be reason to consider fading them in tourneys, but we think you're going to want at least some exposure to the Rockies bats as rookie southpaw Blake Snell makes his first trip to Coors. All the Colorado righties are in play, but don't overlook Carlos Gonzalez and Charlie Blackmon, as well, because if things go well there's a good chance they'll be seeing at bats against some right-handed arms out of the bullpen, and they could go relatively under-owned due to the LvL matchup. Snell has shown big-time strikeout upside in the minors, but he's never been sharp with his command, and righties have been able to get some loft against him in his first 30-plus innings as a big leaguer. Thus far, he's done a good job of preventing those fly balls from becoming homers, but that's a lot easier done at Tropicana Field than at Coors.

Detroit Tigers

The Tigers drew high ownership last night and disappointed, and that—almost as much as the matchup with Tommy Milone—makes them an intriguing GPP play tonight. Recency bias is a real thing in DFS, and people who got burned by Detroit last night will be skittish about going back to the well again. Conversely, our projection system thinks human emotions like disappointment are foolish and shows no hesitation in recommending the Tigers' righties tonight. We've never been bashful about picking on Milone, and though he's getting more ground balls this year than he has in the past, he's also somehow giving up more homers (1.52 per 9). Detroit hasn't performed as well against LHP this year as we might have expected, but given the prevalence of righties putting up nice production, we think that 100 wRC+ and .167 ISO in the split will be climbing in the second half of the season.

Sneaky Pitcher

Jameson Taillon

Even for an off-the-radar pitcher, this one comes with a lot of risk, mostly pitch count-related. It's also somewhat specific to FanDuel, where he's coming in at a nice price. But it's a rags-or-riches slate when it comes to pitchers, so if you're not spending for one of the top five or six guys, it's going to get ugly quick. Taillon is a high-level prospect going in a nice pitcher's park against a team that whiffs a bunch against RHP. Sounds great, right? The catch is that this will be the rookie's first start off the DL, and the Pirates will probably be treating him with kid gloves. A strict pitch limit will hurt his upside and eat into his win potential, but he's shown good command and an ability to coax ground balls, so there's at least a chance that the stars align and he's able to work six or so innnings in under 90 pitches. If so, he would make a fine tournament play on FanDuel or even an SP2 on DraftKings.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Nolan Arenado

He'll be the anchor of virtually every Colorado stack played tonight, and we think he's worth paying for in all formats tonight. Let's start with the obvious: Arenado is awesome, and he's even better against lefties (.404 wOBA, .967 OPS, and more walks than Ks). Also: Coors Field, which amplifies said awesomeness. Meanwhile, Blake Snell leans heavily on his fastball and curveball, which is bad news tonight, because Arenado mashes fastballs, and Denver's thin atmosphere often leaves curves hanging. All of which makes Arenado the top choice among high floor/high ceiling guys tonight. So even though he'll probably be highly owned, we think it'd be worthwhile to pay the premium and save your salary elsewhere.

Carlos Martinez

The projection system is pretty geeked about CarMart taking on San Diego, and it's not even considering the fact that Mike Leake (Mike Leake!) somehow struck out 11 Padres in six innings last night. In fairness, the Padres haven't been as terrible against righties lately, but they're still pretty bad in the split, ranking 28th in wRC+ and striking out nearly 25% of the time for the season. The recent improvement (last night obviously notwithstanding) coincides strongly with the insertion of Travis Jankowski at the top of the lineup, but we're not fading a pitcher based on the presence of a leadoff guy with little power who strikes out in nearly a third of his PAs, even if he is pretty solid otherwise against righties. As for Martinez, his strikeout numbers are a little down this year, but he's also shown incremental improvements in his ground ball rate, homers allowed and walks allowed. It's maybe not a perfect tradeoff, but if he can recapture some of his ability to miss bats, we could be looking at an ace. And, for what it's worth, he fanned 18 guys across 12 innings in his last two outings before the All-Star Break, so that upside still exists.

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!