Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 9/6/16

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

Personnel

• Stephen Piscotty was forced out of last night's game after taking a pitch off the wrist, but X-rays came back negative. Consider him day-to-day for now.
• Billy Hamilton is expected to miss the next week or so before his oblique injury is re-evaluated.
• Evan Longoria left yesterday's game with a hand soreness after getting hit by a pitch. Consider him day-to-day.
• The Twins have recalled 1B/DH Kennys Vargas. The 26-year-old should get ample opportunities as Minnesota plays out the stretch.
• Former first-rounder Gavin Cecchini has been called up by the Mets. The 22-year-old shortstop posted a .325/.390/.448 triple slash in the Pacific Coast League this season.
• Rookie Brandon Nimmo is also back up with the Mets now that the Triple-A affliliate has completed its season.
• Jon Jay, who has been sidelined since June with a forearm injury, is expected to rejoin the Padres today.
• Matt Duffy is expected to miss the remainder of the season to undergo surgery on his Achilles.
• Justin Bour, who has been out since early July, is expected to be activated by the Marlins soon. It's unclear if he'll make an immediate return to the starting lineup, however.
• Francisco Cervelli left last night's game with a thumb issue. He's considered day-to-day.
• Nori Aoki is expected to be recalled by the Mariners today. In news of arguably equal importance, I'm thinking about mowing my yard later.

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Tournament Stacks

Colorado Rockies

The Rockies haven't made big noise since Friday's 14-run outburst, but we're not fading them tonight. Jeff Samardzija is in his second straight season with below league-average output, including a K rate below 7 per 9 and an xFIP north of 4.00. He's been better lately, with the improved results correlating strongly to his decision to start using a curveball. Here's the thing, though: Coors Field is where curveballs go to die, as the thin atmosphere leaves them sitting fat more often than not. Of course, Samardzija and the Giants know are aware of this, so it's probably a moot point. And that's just fine by us, because the projection system isn't considering the revamped pitch mix anyway. It's considering the fact that the Rockies blister RHP, especially at home, and Samardzija doesn't present an especially imposing obstacle. The lefties are the go-to guys here, and Nolan Arenado is always in play at home. And we'll be especially high on this lineup if Charlie Blackmon makes his return tonight.

Chicago Cubs

As many of you probably know, Wily Peralta has been one of the projection system's favorite guys to pick on over the last couple of years, but this is the first time since he came off the DL last month that we've been this excited about going after him. That's a good thing, because he's been much closer to the Wily Peralta of 2014 (if not better) over those five starts and is coming off a 10-strikeout, 1-run performance over 7 IP against the Cardinals last time out. So the risk here is that he's suddenly become a decent pitcher. Yeah. Ok. If that's what you want to bet on, be our guest. A more likely scenario is that he's still the below-average arm who ran up a 4.07 xFIP in 600-plus big-league innings, and going against the Cubs in the homer-friendly environs of Miller Park, we're happy to load up on visiting bats. Though they're better against lefties, the Cubs are still the third-best offense in wRC+ against RHP in the National League. It won't be easy to fit in all the guys you want on DraftKings, but the prices are reasonable on FanDuel, and they're our top non-Coors pick on any site where you can afford them.

Sneaky Pitcher

Ross Stripling

There are an awful lot of cheap arms out there today, and with a full 15-game slate, it shouldn't be tough to find relatively low ownership on pitchers in GPPs. Stripling isn't a very exciting guy, we'll grant you that, but that's kinda why he's showing up here. The problem with rostering him is a lack of upside, but that should be mitigated on FanDuel, where he stands a good chance of picking up 12 points for a win, as the Dodgers are a -177 favorite as of this morning. Over on DraftKings, he's just a salary-saving SP2 with a good chance to return solid value on his low price. Working in his favor is the fact that the Diamondbacks are pretty bad against RHP (88 wRC+, 22.4% K), and Dodger Stadium's roomy confines should help limit the damage.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Bryce Harper

We strongly considered recommending the Nationals as one of our stacks tonight, but were ultimately turned off by the fact that Williams Perez gets loads of ground balls (60+% career) against righties. No such worries against lefties, who average 1.57 HRs/9 against the journeyman-in-the-making. In fact, keeping the ball in the yard against right-handed hitters is just about the only thing Perez does well. In 165 MLB innings, he barely fans more than 5 per 9, while walking nearly 4, and his career xFIP against lefties is 5.03. Meanwhile, y'all know how we feel about Harper. In terms of true talent, he's an elite bat, and while his underlying numbers have been strong all season, we've finally started to see that talent reflected in the results recently.  Also, he's ridiculously underpriced on FanDuel, and he's an easy cash game play there.

Carlos Gonzalez

Cargo can be had for a similar value on FanDuel, and whether you're stacking Rockies or not, we think he needs to be one of your building blocks in all formats tonight. As alluded to earlier, Samardzija is especially vulnerable against lefties; he owns a 4.17 career xFIP in the split, and it's trending in the wrong direction at 4.70 in 2016. As for Gonzalez, he just keeps cranking out All-Star caliber numbers. His .371 wOBA in 2016 is an exact match of his career number, and his .230 ISO this season is just three points off his lifetime average. Additionally, we're expecting a nice night out of the Colorado offense, and hitting in the heart of the order, Cargo should get plenty of chances to drive in some runs.

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!