Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 6/14/16

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

We've got a wide array of arms across the spectrum and the Yankees and Rockies at Coors Field. The Blue Jays and Phillies are also the lone day game, leaving us with 14 games tonight which helps make for an intriguing slate, especially from a tournament standpoint.

Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Juan Nicasio will be replaced on the hill by Jameson Taillon as the Pirates take on the Mets tonight. Taillon is not available on FanDuel as of this morning.
• Maikel Franco is sitting for the second straight day. That makes Marcus Stroman's matchup with a weak Philadelphia offense all the more enticing for those playing the all-day slate.
• Edwin Encarnacion is back in the lineup after missing last night's game due to a finger injury.
• Victor Martinez saw action as a pinch hitter last night. He was sitting with a knee issue, but could return to the lineup soon.
• Giancarlo Stanton missed his second straight game Monday, but initial reports say it was due to his prolonged slump and not an injury. The Marlins didn't miss him, putting up 13 runs in a win over the Padres.
• Shin-Soo Choo went 1-for-4 in his return from the DL on Monday. Nomar Mazara took a seat to make room for the oft-injured veteran in the starting lineup.
• Adrian Beltre will be out of the Rangers lineup until Thursday as he nurses a hamstring issue. Expect to see Jurickson Profar continue filling in at 3B until then.
• Juan Uribe missed Monday's game after taking a ball to the groin on Sunday. There's been no update on his availability for tonight as of this morning.

Tournament Stacks

Colorado Rockies
Almost without exception both sides are in play anytime there's baseball played in Coors Field. Tonight is no exception, despite the fact that the Yankees have been pretty awful against LHP this season. New York is actually the slight favorite in this game, but both offense are expected to put up runs. We're siding with the Rockies because we're slightly more confident we can predict where their offense will come from. Colorado ranks fourth in MLB in wOBA vs. RHP, and much of that production comes from the usual suspects: Blackmon, Arenado, CarGo, Story. Those will again be the chalk plays, but Mark Reynolds and DJ LeMahieu have also posted nice numbers in the split, so don't overlook them in your stacks. There are very few pitchers we're afraid to pick on in Colorado, and Nate Eovaldi isn't one. He's coming off a pair of bad outings and his ability to limit the long ball has apparently deserted him. At 1.26 HR/9, his rate is more than double last year's number, and he gave up a pair in Angel Stadium last time out, which is pretty close to the polar opposite of Coors Field in terms of home run factors.

Toronto Blue Jays

If you're playing an all-day slate, give some serious consideration to the Blue Jays in tournaments. They're facing a rookie making his MLB debut, and they could go overlooked with the Rockies and Yankees demanding attention and salary space. Toronto hasn't come close to matching last season's torrid offensive output, but they remain a top-10 offense in both wOBA and ISO, and the Rogers Centre is basically Coors Light. The aforementioned rookie they'll be facing is Zach Eflin, a sinker baller with a history of limiting home runs in the minors. Ok, that's fine. Maybe he'll do so against the Toronto sluggers, but he's never been consider a prospect, and we're inclined to lean toward the heavy hitters with proven track records at the major league level. Vegas agrees, and has the Blue Jays slated as the top non-Coors offense on the board today.

 

Sneaky Pitcher

Jhoulys Chacin

We're expecting Brandon Finnegan to be a popular pick in tournaments as players look to pair cheap pitching with expensive Coors bats, but the projection system actually prefers Chacin, and not just because he's even more affordable. Finnegan's value takes a bit of a hit going against Julio Teheran, who is favored to take the win. Aside from that, what we like about Chacin is his upside. A quick scan of the game log tells you pretty much everything you need to know: 5.1 IP, 7 hits, 5 runs at the Yankees; 5 IP, 6 hits, 3 runs at Pittsburgh; 9 IP, 1 run, 10 Ks vs. Detroit. Clearly he's not a safe play, and a deeper dive tells us the mammoth game against the Tigers is the outlier in his profile. But we don't need 60+ FanDuel points at these prices. We just need him to neutralize the Twins, and this season that hasn't been tough to do. Minnesota ranks near the bottom of the league in wRC+ and they're in the bottom third in wOBA, while striking out nearly 23 percent of the time in the split. They've been better lately, but they'll get a negative park shift heading into Angel Stadium, the most pitcher-friendly venue in the AL. Chacin's numbers don't give us a ton to get excited about beyond that, but his xFIP is sitting nearly a run below his ERA, so some positive regression is expected, and the Angels are favored tonight. Even so, this a pure tournament play, and the real attraction is how Chacin's low salary will allow us to stack up bats.

 

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Miguel Cabrera

Even with Coors Field on the slate, Miggy's the best bet for value at first base tonight, and the system loves the matchup with Miguel Gonzalez. The White Sox righty's surface numbers are OK through seven starts this season, but his shaky command and history of home run issues make the Tigers an attractive pivot away from the Rockies and Yankees tonight. It also doesn't hurt that US Cellular Field is an excellent home run park. As for Cabrera, it's looking like his contact skills will help him remain a highly effective hitter through his post-prime years. It's unlikely he'll ever push for a triple crown again, but he's still an All-Star caliber guy, posting a .376 wOBA and .216 ISO through 63 games this season, with a .413 wOBA and .257 ISO vs. RHP.

Mike Trout

He'll cost a little more, but Trout is actually the system's top pick among hitters on a raw-points basis, and as top-tier hitters go, the price isn't prohibitive. An added bonus: he'll likely go under-owned, as many players will opt for the Coors outfielders in the same price range. We probably don't need to sell you on Trout too hard; he's putting up a wOBA over .400 for the fifth straight season and few in the game can match his power/speed combo. He's also striking out substantially less and walking more this season, which raises his already-high floor. He'll be facing Ervin Santana tonight, who is fine, but certainly not a guy we need to duck. He's also been hit hard by righties this season, yielding a .370 wOBA and 1.67 HR/9 in the split.

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!