Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 9/8/16

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.

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What We Know

Personnel

• Carlos Correa has a sprained shoulder and is expected to miss at least a day or two. Evan Gattis is also getting the day off, and Yulieski Gurriel will be elevated to the cleanup spot in the resulting lineup shuffle.
• Charlie Blackmon was on the bench again last night, but did make an appearance as a pinch hitter. He should be getting closer to a return after missing the last five days due to back soreness.
• Maikel Franco was out last night with a thumb issue and is considered day-to-day going foward.
• Gerardo Parra was removed from last night's game due to a hamstring issue. Consider him day-to-day for now.
• Matt Duffy has officially been shut down for the remainder of the season as he will undergo surgery on his Achilles.

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Tournament Stacks

Washington Nationals

The drawback here is that stacking the Nats is probably going to be extremely popular tonight. For one, they've got the highest projected total in Vegas, which is usually a good indicator of ownership. They've also got a matchup with Alec Asher, who might be the worst pitcher on a slate full of average arms. We haven't seen Asher in the bigs since he got pummeled for a 5.66 xFIP and a 9.31 ERA in seven starts last year, and he hasn't done much in the intervening months to boost his stock, striking out about 6 guys per nine in Double-A and Triple-A in 2016. He has a history of home run issues in the minors, but we're willing to cut him some slack there, since much of that came in the Pacific Coast League, which is basically an entire division of Coors-like hitting environments. On the other hand, he's an extreme fly-ball guy, so homers are gonna happen. And if the Nationals pop a couple out tonight, it's just a bonus, because we like what this offense has become since Trea Turner took over as the everyday lead-off guy. They ranked sixth in MLB in wRC+ last month, and we're high on pretty much the entire lineup tonight.

Pittsburgh Pirates

We're not all that excited about this one, but the Nationals are the only team going today with an implied run total over five, so there's no obvious other place to turn. Here's what leads us to the Pirates: Dan Straily. We're just not buying it. We know he had a run of eleventy hundred quality starts in a row before getting rocked by the Angels two starts ago, but it just doesn't add up. Kind of like walking seven guys in 5.2 innings and somehow yielding just one run, like he did last week against the Cardinals. This dude is trash (4.99 xFIP), and regression is going to kick him to the curb soon enough. Of course, we'd feel a lot better about this pick if the game were in Cincinnati and the Pirates hadn't been such a disappointment on offense this season (.312 wOBA vs. RHP), but considering the dearth of options tonight, we're fine with it.

Sneaky Pitcher

A.J. Cole

We don't think we're lucky enough to have a pitcher going against the Phillies slip through the cracks on a slate this size, but we're writing up Cole here because we glossed over him in the picks column. Since that was written last night, Cole has gotten a nice bump from the projection system as the moneyline in favor of the Nationals keeps climbing (up to -220 in some places this morning). And with Trevor Bauer getting a slight downgrade, we've now got Cole showing up in optimal lineups across the board. Obviously, a lot of this is about the opponent. The Phillies are the worst offense in baseball. They're bad against righties, bad against lefties, they strike out a bunch, they don't have much power, bad, bad, bad. We're counting on that to continue tonight, because Cole is nobody's idea of an ace-in-the-making. He put up pretty average numbers in the minors, and profiles as an extreme fly-ball guy who has struggled with homers from time to time. But we're not looking for 7 scoreless. Six innings of limited damage, a handful of Ks, and a win would do just fine.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Bryce Harper

We should just name this section after Harper. After a run of inexplicable middle-tier pricing on FanDuel, his cost is starting to climb, but we're fine with that in most matchups, and this one is certainly no exception. As we mentioned earlier, we're all about picking on Asher tonight, and whether it's cash games or stacking in tournaments, Harper is the first place we're looking. Harper's track record speaks for itself, but for those of you concerned with the 2016 dip in production, it's worth noting that since returning to the lineup on Aug. 14 after a week off to rest an ailing neck, he's slashing .330/.417/.557 with a .410 wOBA and .227 ISO. The homers haven't fully returned yet, but he also has five steals in that span, so the upside remains.

Matt Adams

The projection system really wants us to pick on Junior Guerra tonight, which makes sense. He's been pretty fortunate in terms of home-run suppression and BABIP, so some regression is probably coming. Personally, I can't fully get behind stacking against him, because after a couple of rough outings in his first two starts this year, he's surrendered more than three runs just twice in his 16 starts since then. That said, taking a one-off or two looks like a fine strategy, and Adams (.226 ISO vs. RHP this year) is our go-to guy for those purposes. The slate is devoid of the usual elite 1B options, which makes Adams our top choice in terms of both raw points and value. If you'd rather go with teammate Brandon Moss in search of upside, we think that's a fine choice, as well, but Adams will probably be our guy in virtually 100 percent of cash game lineups tonight.

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!