Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 6/28/16

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 slew of homer-friendly parks, including some tantalizing high-priced bats in Cincinnati and Colorado, as well as a smattering of aces to choose from on tonight's 15-game slate. Let's get to it.

Personnel

• Justin Smoak came in as a pinch hitter last night, making his first appearance since last Wednesday. He may be getting close to a return, but with the Blue Jays in a National League park and Edwin Encarnacion swinging a hot bat, it's far from a guarantee that we'll see him in the starting lineup over the next couple of days.
• Gregory Polanco was held out again yesterday, but did make an appearance as a pinch hitter. He's considered day-to-day for now.
• We're awaiting an update on Aledmys Diaz; the Cardinals SS was taken to the hospital Monday night after taking a foul ball off the face. At this point, it would have to be considered a surprise if he's in the lineup tonight.
• Josh Reddick could be activated from the DL today. He's been out since mid-May with a thumb fracture.
• Jurickson Profar is expected to draw a start for the Rangers today at 1B.
• Yunel Escobar sat for the fourth straight game on Monday as he continues to nurse a knee issue.
• D.J. LeMahieu and Trevor Story were absent from last night's lineup due to knee and finger issues, respectively. Keep an eye out for tonight's lineup, because fill-ins Cristhian Adames and Daniel Descalso could make attractive punt plays on sites where they're cheap. More on that later.
• Justin Turner was removed from yesterday's game due to a cramp. He's considered day-to-day.

Tournament Stacks

Chicago Cubs

Hot take: Kris Bryant ain't gonna score 81 FanDuel points again tonight. Nevertheless, we like the Cubs pretty much any time they're in Cincinnati, and John Lamb does little to dissuade us. He's turned in solid outings in three of his last five, so take that for whatever it's worth, but he's still a guy with a subpar strikeout rate, loose command and home run issues, all of which adds up to an xFIP north of 5.00. Meanwhile, the Cubs are a top-five offense against LHP this season and have plenty of guys who can take advantage of Great American Ballpark's homer-boosting dimensions. The only downside we see is that they're going to cost you and ownership will probably be high after last night's offensive bonanza. But they're still cheaper than what you're going to find in Coors Field, and the upside is at least as high, especially when you factor in the Reds' bullpen woes.

Toronto Blue Jays

Their bats were kept in check last night, but they still managed three bombs, and Eddie Butler is nowhere near the pitcher last night's starter Jon Gray is, so we're happy to go back to the Blue Jays well again tonight. Butler is quickly becoming one of our favorite guys to pick on, giving up at least six runs and two homers in three of his last four starts. And it's more than just a bad run; the former prospect has yet to show the ability to get big-league batters out consistently, and now owns a 1.6 HR/9 rate and 4.88 career xFIP in a little less than 150 IP. And while the Blue Jays lineup has a reputation for favoring southpaws, they've actually been better against righties this season, posting a .201 ISO in the split, good for third best in baseball. As always, the Coors Field price bump is gonna make it tricky to load up on bats and still fit in a pitcher you can feel OK about, but we think it's worth taking a shot on some cheaper arms and filling in with a couple of deep punt plays in tournament lineups, given that Vegas has Toronto pegged for about 6.5 runs tonight.

Sneaky Pitcher

Albert Suarez

About those cheap arms. There's not a ton on this slate we can whole-heartedly endorse. You could take a shot on Lucas Giolito in his MLB debut, but that's always a risky proposition, and Rick Porcello is in a solid spot against Tampa Bay, but his price tag on DraftKings dings his points/dollar expectation considerably. Ubaldo Jiminez against the Padres is actually the projection system's top choice for value, but we wrote him up last night. So today we're settling (correct verb choice) on Suarez for a couple reasons. A) He's cheap, B) he's got a decent chance to get a win going against Kendall Graveman, and C) AT&T Park is the stadium Petco Park used to be. No venue in baseball suppresses offense more, and while the A's have actually been OK against RHP this season, they're not a lineup we have to avoid. That said, if Josh Reddick is back in the lineup that hurts, and there's not a ton of upside with Suarez anyway. He doesn't miss a lot of bats and he doesn't work deep into games, so we're going to have to depend on the ability to pay for high-priced bats to carry us into the money and hope (especially on FanDuel) we get the win bonus.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Mike Trout

There's a ton of variation in today's optimal lineups, and if you're stacking Cubs, Rockies or Blue Jays it's going to be nigh impossible to fit in Trout as well. But he's a great choice if you're mixing and matching, and no player is showing up more often in the projection system's picks across both FanDuel and DraftKings. That's because Mike Trout is awesome. You probably know this. He's never had a full season in the bigs with a wOBA lower than .400, and his .413 number this year is actually slightly better than his career average. He's also cut the strikeouts substantially and is running more, which, coupled with his ample power, gives him the high-floor/high-ceiling combo we always like. Tonight he's facing Scott Feldman, who's not terrible, but also isn't as good as his 3.07 ERA. Most of his production this season has come out of the bullpen, and in his first start in more than two months, we're expecting him to start regressing toward his 4.27 xFIP quickly.

Cristhian Adames

Lineup-dependent DraftKings special here. Adames filled in at shortstop and hit second last night with Trevor Story sitting due to a finger issue and if he's back in there tonight the price ($2.2K!) is simply too good to pass up. To be clear, we're not looking for huge points for Adames. He doesn't have much power or speed, but he makes contact and does a decent job of getting on base, and in Coors Field that make makes him a great punt option where he's priced as such. He's more expensive on FanDuel, so it'll be tough to justify the cost if he's not near the top of the order, but we like him on DraftKings regardless of the lineup slot because of the salary relief he provides.

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!