Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 9/7/16

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

• Zack Cozart is sitting today. Jose Peraza will be at SS and batting leadoff as the Reds take on Noah Syndergaard.
• The Marlins surprisingly activated injured slugger Giancarlo Stanton off the DL yesterday, and he made an appearance as a pinch hitter. It's unclear when he'll return to the starting lineup, so keep a close eye out for Marlins news over the next couple of days.
• Robinson Cano left late in Tuesday's game after fouling a ball off his foot. He's considered day-to-day.
• Yoan Moncada will get the night off after struggling in his first exposure to big-league pitching.
• Ian Kinsler is expected to be out again today with a finger injury.
• Erik Aybar was on the bench again last night as he continues to deal with abdominal soreness, but eventually entered the game as a pinch hitter. He's still day-to-day for now, and there's no guarantee that we'll see the Tigers lineup before the early slate gets underway today.
• Trevor Plouffe sustained an oblique injury late in last night's game and could miss some time.
• Salvador Perez suffered a wrist injury after getting hit with a pitch last night. X-rays came back negative, but he's considered day-to-day until further notice.
• Chris Davis left last night's game with an apparent injury. There's been no update on his status as of this morning, so consider him day-to-day.
• Marcel Ozuna, who has missed the last week with a wrist injury, could make his return to the lineup tonight.

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Tournament Stacks

Colorado Rockies

Hey, I get it. The last few days have been pretty rough for those of us adhering to the math and stacking Rockies. But we're not going to deviate from the plan with Albert Suarez taking the hill, because sooner or later, the numbers will bear themselves out. This is a lineup that has crushed RHP, especially at home, this season. They rank second only to the Red Sox in team wOBA with a .348 against righties in 2016, thanks to a substantial lift from Coors Field (.378 wOBA at home). Suarez has split his rookie season between the bullpen and the starting rotation and has been mostly ineffective in both roles as evidenced by a 4.46 xFIP.

Toronto Blue Jays

I'm fully aware that over time reverse platoon splits don't usually last. But with nearly 4,000 plate appearances against RHP under their belt in 2016, I'm willing to buy in to the Blue Jays' .190 ISO (fifth-best in MLB), even though the lineup is overloaded with right-handed bats. That doesn't mean we want to use them against anybody anywhere, but I'm willing to take a shot in a hitter's park against a marginal 25-year-old prospect like Bryan Mitchell, who hasn't seen a major league hitter since the 2015 season finale. Make no mistake, this is pure homer hunting, which is always a boom-or-bust proposition. But if it hits, there aren't many lineups that can match Toronto for power upside.

Sneaky Pitcher

Brock Stewart

Ok. Not a cash game play. That's probably obvious, but we just want to be clear. Things that are safer than playing Stewart include wrestling polar bears and car surfing on the Interstate. Nonetheless, we're intrigued. He's shown K-per-inning ability throughout his minor league career and flashed upside with eight Ks in a five shut-out innings against the Cubs last time out. On the other hand, walks continue to be a problem, and he's yet to go beyond five innings in any of his three major league starts. But that's baked into the price, and we think it's worth taking a flyer on him against the D-backs, who continue to be a pretty soft matchup against RHP (88 wRC+, 22.6% K).

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Bryce Harper

Our algorithm doesn't need a lot of extra reasons to get excited about Bryce Harper; his .381 career wOBA and .226 ISO is usually sufficient. But when we're getting the inexplicable discount FanDuel has been giving us recently, it's gonna be practically impossible to get him out of our optimal lineups. Mike Foltynewicz has shown signs of rounding into a decent pitcher this season, but he's still far from intimidating, and still has pretty significant HR and BB problems against lefties. That translates to a nice ceiling/floor combo for Harper, and he'll be the foundation of all our cash game lineups tonight.

Carlos Gonzalez

You'll probably notice quite a few repeat picks from yesterday in the FanDuel optimal lineups, because in addition to Harper's relative bargain status, the prices on Coors Field bats are extremely doable. You'll have to pay up quite a bit more on DraftKings, but Cargo is second only to Harper in terms of raw projected points for hitters tonight, so we think he'll be worth it. As mentioned earlier, Suarez is an easy guy to pick on in baseball's best hitting environment, and though we like a lot of Colorado bats, none are better positioned than Gonzalez. He owns a .392 career wOBA against righties, and is just slightly off that pace this season at .375.

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!