Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 9/22/16

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

• Starling Marte made an appearance for the first time in nearly three weeks last night, striking out as a pinch hitter. He's been sitting with a bad back, but could be close to return to the starting lineup.
• The Red Sox said rookie Andrew Benitendi will be starting and could be elevated in today's batting order. Other than a stint on the DL, he's been producing well (.373 wOBA) ever since getting called up last month.
• Hanley Ramirez sat last night to deal with lingering shoulder and foot issues, but is expected to return to the lineup tonight.
• Victor Martinez was out for the second consecutive game last night with a knee issue, while Ian Kinsler missed another start due to a concussion. Consider both day-to-day.
• Brandon Crawford missed last night's game after injuring a finger on Tuesday. He's considered day-to-day.
• Miguel Sano was out again last night due to a back ailment, but was reportedly available for pinch-hitting duty. He could be back in the lineup as early as tonight.
• Wilmer Flores is expected to miss tonight's game with a wrist injury. He's been out for nearly two weeks now, and his return date remains unclear.
• Tyler Goeddel was removed from last night's game after getting hit with a pitch in the head. Consider him day-to-day until further notice.

We're proud to introduce a brand new partner (and player in this space), Fantasy Factor! DFSR readers can get a bunch of sweet freebies (including a $5, no strings, no drip bonus) by signing up now!

Tournament Stacks

Houston Astros

There's no obvious chalk for team offenses today, but there are quite a few in decent spots. That should make tournaments interesting, because even on a shorter slate, I doubt we'll extremely high ownership on one team. We're leaning toward the Astros as our top choice, and we like them best on DraftKings, where the top two guys in the lineup (George Springer and Yuli Gurriel) can be had at a decent bargain. They're facing Ricky Nolasco, who's coming in with a 4.45 xFIP this season. That only puts him in the middle of the pack on the smorgasbord of sadness that is tonight's middle tier of pitching, but it's plenty bad enough to make him a slow-moving target, especially against a powerful lineup in Houston. Minute Maid Park isn't actually a great hitter's park overall, but it does have a habit of turning fly balls into homers, and Nolasco's fly-ball rate is higher than it's been since 2007. His hard-hit rate allowed is also at an all-time high, so while the Astros have been boom or bust this season, they have the fifth-ranked ISO in baseball and we like their chances to put a couple in the seats tonight.

Pittsburgh Pirates

Andrew McCutchen's return to form has done wonders for this offense, which came out hot in April, but slacked off considerably in the season's middle portion. Over the last three weeks, they're back at the top of baseball in wRC+ (even as they do without Starling Marte down the stretch), thanks in no small part to the contributions of their erstwhile superstar center fielder. Since getting benched for an entire series in early August, McCutchen has completely revamped his approach. For the first four months of the season, he was striking out in 24.8 percent of PAs, while walking in 8.1. Since his return on Aug. 5, he's walked and K'd in equal measure (14.4 percent), while putting up a .377 wOBA and .206 ISO. That's more like what we expect out of McCutchen, and with him sitting in the No. 3 hole in the order, it's made stacking the Pirates much more appealing. We like a number of other bats against Chase Anderson (4.75 xFIP, 1.87 HRs/9 vs. righties), most notably Jung-ho Kang and Gregory Polanco. And it shouldn't go unmentioned that Miller Park is arguably the top overall hitting environment on the slate.

Sneaky Pitcher

Mike Fiers

We're moving away from Seth Lugo here, not because our opinion has changed since we wrote him up in the picks column, but because he's the biggest favorite on the board and that will likely raise his ownership levels in tournaments. As for Fiers, we don't really love picking on the Angels, because they strike out less than any team in baseball, but we do like Fiers' chances to limit the damage and get out with a win tonight. We also really like the price on DraftKings, which is low enough that big K numbers won't be necessary to get solid value. And while Fiers' 4.24 xFIP on the season isn't exactly inspiring, it is the fifth-best on the slate. That doesn't make him a cash game play, and we don't really seeing using him on one-pitcher sites. But where you can find him cheap, he's our top SP2 choice of the night.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Justin Verlander

As alluded to earlier, pitching is pretty bleak tonight, and if you want some degree of safety, DraftKings is going to make you pay for it. Even with the elevated price tag, we think Verlander is worth it, because for cash games it's really coming down to him or David Price, and we'd rather roster the guy facing the Twins instead of the Orioles at Camden Yard. Not that the Twins are terrible; they've been about league average against RHP. But they strike out at a rate higher than the league average, and Ks are what we're looking for with Verlander, whose strikeout rate (9.7 per 9) is higher in 2016 than it's been in seven years.

Carlos Correa

As mentioned, we're more than happy to pick on Ricky Nolasco tonight, and Correa looks like a good place to start. Over the course of nearly 250 big-league games, the 21-year-old shortstop owns a .360 wOBA and .200 ISO against RHP, and while Nolasco has historically be tougher on righties, his splits have been trending in the opposite direction more recently. It started in limited work last season, and this year he's giving up nearly twice as many homers against righties (1.66 per 9).

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!