Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 8/18/16

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

As often happens, a split slate is leaving us with a weird dichotomy today. Where as three of the four lineups in the early games are in great spots and the top pitching option is obvious, the right plays could be a little tougher to pin down tonight. Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Dexter Fowler is sitting today and will be replaced at the top of the Cubs order by Matt Szczur.
• The Red Sox lineup is getting a shakeup for the early game. Dustin Pedroia and David Ortiz are sitting, while Aaron Hill is batting leadoff. Also of note: Hanley Ramirez has been activated off the bereavement list and is back at 1B and hitting cleanup.
• Justin Upton is getting the day off for the Tigers. Alex Presley will be in LF and hitting ninth.
• Asdrubal Cabrera is expected to be activated from the DL and back in the Mets lineup tonight.
• Neil Walker is hoping to play tonight as well after missing the last two games due to a back issue.
• Billy Hamilton made an appearance as a pinch hitter last night and should be back in the starting lineup for tonight's game.
• Joe Mauer was scratched from last night's lineup due to quad issue, but could be back tonight.
• Geovanny Soto is back on the DL with a knee issue. Carlos Perez has been recalled to fill his roster spot.
• Adam Duvall missed last night's game and was reportedly wearing a walking boot. He isn't expected to require a DL stint, but it would be a surprise to see his name in the lineup tonight.
• Miguel Sano sat for the third straight game last night with an elbow issue, but there's a chance he could return as a DH tonight as the Twins return to AL play.
• A.J. Pierzynski has been placed on the DL, while Tyler Flowers has been activated for the Braves.

Tournament Stacks

Chicago Cubs
As expected, it looks like we're going to have another day with the wind blowing out, and that does wonderful things for the hitters at Wrigley. Not that the Cubs need a ton of help. They rank third in the NL in wRC+ against RHP, which accounts for park factors, so any time we get them in a nice hitting environment, we're going to have to give them some consideration. Zach Davies has been a pretty solid dude about a year into his big-league career, but he remains plenty vulnerable against lefties, with a 4.58 xFIP in the split. That makes Anthony Rizzo and Ben Zobrist near auto-plays in your Cubs stacks, and we could never recommend fading Kris Bryant when you're stacking Chicago. We'd like this lineup a little more with Dexter Fowler at the top of it, but Matt Szczur gives us a discounted leadoff guy in an offense with the highest projected total on the board, so there's some value there, as well.

Los Angeles Dodgers

The only issue we see is that you're going to need a couple of stacks to be able to get all the hitters in good spots. Jerad Eickhoff has been hovering around league-average marks most of the season, but when he gets hurt, it's by lefties, and that's one thing the Dodgers have loads of. It's possible, if not likely, that Justin Turner will be the only right-handed stick among the top seven hitters tonight, and he has made a career out of reverse splits. So from Chase Utley to Joc Pederson, they're all in play for one reason or another, whether it's a low cost at a nice lineup spot for the former, or double-HR upside for the latter. Citizens Bank Park is among the league's best parks for HR factors, and the wind is expected to be drifting out toward RF tonight. So while it's certainly feasible that Eickhoff could keep them in check, we think the probability is greater that the Dodgers continue their offensive assault on Philadelphia tonight.

 

Sneaky Pitcher

Joe Musgrove

Archie Bradley is actually the projection system's top choice for points/dollar at SP today, but since we wrote him up last night, we'll turn our attention to the extra-intriguing Astros rookie today. Bonus: I'm guessing nobody will play him, because who the hell is Joe Musgrove? If you have no clue, consider yourself a normal human being. I'd never heard of the guy before he came on and shut down my Blue Jays stack with 4.1 innings of near flawless relief work (8 Ks, 1 H, 1 BB) in his MLB debut a couple of weeks ago. Since then, he's worked 14 innings in two starts, striking out 13, walking just one and holding opponents to 11 hits and three runs. In case you were wondering, that's strong stuff. It's also a ridiculously small, and therefore utterly unreliable, sample size, but when we go bargain shopping, we're not often gonna find dudes with sturdy resumes and long track records. We're also slightly more willing to buy in on Musgrove (you know, in a GPP kind of way), since he's been a high-K and ultra-low walk guy in the minors. In 85.1 IP across Double-A and Triple-A this year, he put up 87 Ks compared to just 10 walks, which is beyond impressive. Can he keep it up against a dangerous Orioles team in a park that favors offense. Eh, probably not. That's why he's so cheap, after all. But Baltimore hasn't been very good lately, and they strike out a fair amount (22%) against RHP, so I'll be happy to take a flyer on Musgrove in a GPP or two.

 

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Bryce Harper

Like the sun rising in East and the Pirates waiting until an hour before game time to release their lineup, this is becoming a matter of routine. Twenty optimal lineups, twenty appearances by Bryce Harper. The projection system isn't quite as high on him as it was earlier this week; we're leaving Coors Field behind, after all. But we're also leaving behind the price bump that comes with it. Turner Field is a pretty average park for offense, but we don't think Braves rookie Rob Whalen is any match for Harper. By the way, Harper's been on a tear lately. As we talked about before, we don't typically care much about that sort of thing, but we're willing to give it a little more credence when we've been expecting positive regression.

Jake Arrieta

If you're playing a slate that includes the two early games, the only reason we can recommend not starting Arrieta would be for the sake of differentiation and fitting in an extra Cubs bats. Even then, it's a really dumb idea in cash games. The night slate brings some good arms, but for both points and value among the upper-tier SP, Arrieta's still our guy. Even at little less than last year's level of dominance, Arrieta remains a top-shelf ace. There's a lot to like here, including more than a K/inning and excellent home run suppression. He could be due for some regression in the latter category, but we're not all that worried about a blow-up outing against the Brewers, who could be without Ryan Braun in the heart of the order again today. Also noteworthy: the Cubs opened as an absurd -300 favorite in this one, and at some books, they're now as high as -310. That tells us Arrieta should be in line for a win today, and on sites like FanDuel, those accompanying bonus points are huge.

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!