Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 8/4/16

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 pair of mid-sized slates today with a five-gamer starting just after noon Eastern, followed by seven tonight. Both come with a nice variety of offenses in good spots, but pitching looks pretty dicey tonight. Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Cameron Maybin is out of the lineup today after suffering a jammed thumb last night.
• Lorenzo Cain is taking a day off and will be replaced in CF by Billy Burns, who's hitting eighth.
• Zack Cozart is out again as he deals with a finger injury. Ivan DeJesus will continue to fill in at SS and hit second.
• Carlos Gonzalez left last night's game after turning an ankle. X-rays came back negative, however, and he's considered day-to-day for now.
• J.D. Martinez returned from the DL last night and homered off of Chris Sale to lift the Tigers to a win.
• X-rays came back negative on Hanley Ramirez's wrist and he's expected to avoid a DL stint. Consider him day-to-day until further notice.
• Troy Tulowitzki missed another game on Wednesday. He hasn't played since suffering a chip fracture in his thumb on Sunday, but the Blue Jays are still hopeful he won't require a trip to the DL.
• Andrew McCutchen is expected to sit again tonight. Though no injury has been reported, the struggling star has been on the bench for the last two games.
• Francisco Cervelli missed last night's game and is going through concussion protocol after taking a pitch off the helmet Tuesday.
• Josh Harrison was also out last night for the Pirates. He hasn't played since suffering a leg injury on Sunday and is considered day-to-day.
• Byron Buxton sat out last night. He injured his knee on Sunday, but the smoking-hot Twins obviously have done just fine without him.

Tournament Stacks

St. Louis Cardinals
It's an interesting pair of slates we've got here today, because while we've got lots of offenses in good spots, there's not one that jumps out as the obvious choice for stacking (Coors Field, not withstanding, of course). The Cardinals are pretty close to chalk, though, especially on the early slate. They've been better all season against RHP, but Brandon Finnegan and the Great American Ballpark should make up for any of their southpaw shortcomings. Put simply, Finnegan is getting shelled by righties this year. He's given up a 40 percent hard-contact rate and 2.11 HRs/9 in the split, leading to a .347 wOBA allowed. And though the Cardinals are shorthanded, they've still got capable bats with solid histories against LHP. Tommy Pham and Jedd Gyorko were at the top of the order last night, and though they've each posted reverse splits in 2016, prior to this season they profiled more as lefty mashers. They're also both affordable, so if they're back at the top of the lineup again, they'll make nice plays to go with Stephen Piscotty, who has a .465 wOBA (!) and .323 ISO (!!) against lefties this season.

Baltimore Orioles
All stacks carry some boom-or-bust risk, and that seems especially true for the Orioles this season, who rank among the league leaders in wRC+, ISO and K% vs. righties. They're also in a bit of a funk lately, so you might want to consider that as well. Nonetheless, we like their potential to blow A.J. Griffin up. Camden Yard provides a big boost to HR potential, especially for lefties, and Griffin's high hard-contact rate and fly-ball tendencies should help there, as well. He's most vulnerable against lefties, who are putting up 2.39 HRs/9 against him in 2016, but we're ok with righties, too—especially guys like Adam Jones, Manny Machado, Mark Trumbo and Jonathan Schoop, each of whom have ISOs north of .200 against RHP and are coming at moderate prices.

Note: Yes, Coors Field is definitely in play. Frankly, we don't love the Rockies or Dodgers all that much, because Kenta Maeda has one of the best xFIPs on the slate and Tyler Chatwood has the best ground-ball rate. That said, Coors has humbled better pitchers than these guys many times, so if you're playing more than one lineup, you're probably going to want a Coors stack in the mix. Both sides are in play, but we'll side with the Dodgers tonight, especially with Trevor Story out for the year and CarGo questionable after rolling an ankle last night.

Sneaky Pitcher

Kenta Maeda

Who wants to live dangerously? Playing pitchers in Coors Field is a great way to lose money, so we can't recommend anybody there as more than a one-off in a low-dollar GPP, but the potential is there in that format to zoom past the field if Maeda goes out has turns in a solid start. The thing is, there aren't any guys going tonight we feel super confident in, so if you're required to eat some risk, there's a contrarian case to be made for Maeda. It starts with the fact that he could be facing a watered-down Rockies lineup. Story is on the shelf for the remainder of 2016, and CarGo's status is up in the air as of this morning. Colorado still has guys who can produce, but few lineups in baseball are well-suited to lose two bats out of the middle of their lineup in less than a week. And, as mentioned, Maeda has put up solid numbers this year. Lefties can get to him, but if Gonzalez is out, Charlie Blackmon and David Dahl are the only guys we're really worried about from that side of the plate. Meanwhile, Maeda has been dominant against righties, fanning more than 10 per 9, while walking just 1.34, with a hard-contact rate of just 25 percent. All that sounds pretty good, but this is still Coors Field, so while we think it's worth a shot in big tourneys, don't get carried away. Maeda doesn't often work deep into games, so even if he's OK, you could end up sweating the win through three innings of relief.

 

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Mike Trout

In the times in which we live, when somebody on the Internet is probably telling us right now that Moms and apple pies aren't all they're cracked up to be, it's informative that no hot-take thinkpiece writer and churned out a "Mike Trout isn't really that good," article yet. That's because Mike Trout is divinity in cleats and a cap and it's maybe the one thing left everybody agrees on. Count our algorithm among the hordes of converted. Trout may be the guy we recommend more than anybody else in this space, and while that might not be the most exciting daily read for you guys, we feel OK about it when he returns value as often as he does. And despite top-shelf pricing and a bad hitter's park, he's in a good spot to help us turn another profit tonight. Jesse Hahn was a decent pitcher in his first two big-league seasons, but he's been much less than that in an injury-plagued 2016. He holds a 4.73 xFIP in eight starts, and though the sample size is limited, his swinging-strike rate (which stabilizes quickly) is the worst of any pitcher going today. That tells us his continually decreasing strikeout rate is very real. All that's just bonus, though. Trout's the attraction. His wOBA is over .400 again for the fifth straight season, and he's cut down on strikeouts significantly, while boosting his walks. As if he needed to be better. As ever, feel free to play him on any site and any format tonight.

Drew Pomeranz

Well, it could be worse. I mean, Pomeranz is a fine play, but not one we're typically excited about against a solid lineup like the Mariners. And actually, the projection system's not all that high on him tonight either, but consider the fact that Matt Moore and Drew Smyly are the two guys projected right behind him in terms of raw points, and they're both on the day slate. That should give you a feel for where we're at tonight: upside can be found, but safety is in short supply. Of course, if you've been trotting out Giants pitchers against the Phillies this week, you know well that "safety" is a fragile notion in DFS. Nonetheless, for cash games, we need to find the guys who come with the least risk, and Pomeranz is in a decent spot here. First, the Mariners are an average offense against LHP this season. Like perfectly average, with a wRC+ of 100. Then there's Safeco Field, which consistently ranks among the best pitcher's parks in baseball. On the other hand, Pomeranz hasn't been great since coming over from the Padres, with two bad starts out of three. But we're willing to write that off as an anomaly in what has otherwise been a breakout year for the 27-year-old. He's striking out more than 10 per 9, and his batted ball profile is solid across the board, which makes us believe the solid-if-not-spectacular 3.68 xFIP is real. If all that sounds like a pretty tepid recommendation, well, it is. But of the motley crue of guys taking the hill tonight, we see Pomeranz as the best bet.

 

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!