Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 8/3/16

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

If Madison Bumgarner getting shelled by the Phillies didn't prompt you to quit DFS for good, welcome back. We've got a split slate today with three early games and a robust 12-gamer tonight, so let's get to it.

Personnel

• Bummer here. Trevor Story is going to miss the rest of the season to undergo thumb surgery. His absence will leave a hole in the middle of the Rockies order and take away one of the most prolific offensive shortstops of 2016.
• Addison Russell is getting the day off for the Cubs. Javier Baez will be at SS and hitting eighth.
• Keep an eye on the Mets' lineup today. Yoenis Cespedes was slated to return to the lineup as the DH when the Subway Series moves to Yankee Stadium tonight, but he appeared to re-aggravate his quad injury last night after pinch hitting.
• Hanley Ramirez suffered a hand injury last night when he fell in the dugout after the game. We're awaiting word on the X-ray results as of this morning.
• Brandon Moss was activated from the DL yesterday and went 3-for-5 with a homer in his return to the lineup.
• Catcher prospect Gary Sanchez has been called up by the Yankees and will get the start as the Yanks face lefty Steven Matz tonight.
• Zack Cozart was scratched last night due to a finger issue. He's day-to-day for now.
• Josh Donaldson was back in the Blue Jays lineup last night after a one-game absence, but Troy Tulowitzki remained sidelined due to a thumb injury. Consider him day-to-day until further notice.
• Red Sox prospect Andrew Benitendi is expected to get his first major league start tonight after being called up yesterday. The lefty was a first-round pick in 2015 and put up big numbers in the minors.
• A.J. Reed was called back up yesterday by the Astros, but went 0-for-4 with a strikeout in his return to the bigs.
• Asdrubal Cabrera has been placed on the DL, leaving the Mets further shorthanded on the left side of the infield. On the bright side, it should assure Wilmer Flores (who has been scorching, especially against lefties) of continued playing time.

Tournament Stacks

Colorado Rockies
Yeah, it's a chalk pick. Sorry. I'll try to make up for the apparent laziness with some research. First, the obvious: this is Coors Field and the Rockies are awesome at home (.379 wOBA, .221 ISO) and they're facing a rookie making his second big league start. The Dodgers are sending Brock Stewart to the mound, who before 2016 had never pitched above High-A ball. His minor league numbers are solid, and his misses a respectable number of bats, but he also gives up plenty of fly balls (44 percent in his first three years in the minors), and that bodes well for the Rockies' power guys (We miss you already, Trevor Story). Stewart is a righty, and though mostly neutral, he's shown a trend toward slight reverse splits as he's moved up the ladder, but whether or not that will continue against MLB hitters is still a matter of speculation. In his only major league start so far he gave up five runs on eight hits at Milwaukee, but struck out seven. So, the book on Stewart is yet to be written, and there's always some risk in picking on a guy like that. But given the upside, it's a risk we're willing to take.

Boston Red Sox
This one's a little less obvious than it might seem on the surface, but I'm not totally sure why. Vegas has this one pegged for a relatively low total with the Red Sox a slight favorite and the over/under set at eight. That tells us Boston is projected to score a shade over four runs, but at the risk of foolish bravado, I'm taking the over on that. Like, by a lot. By any park factors you want to look at, Safeco Field is not a great place to hit, and that's likely a big factor in the Vegas total. But Boston has the best offense in baseball against righties, and though the top three guys in the lineup are all right-handed, all are posting reverse or neutral splits this season. And they're followed by David Ortiz, who leads the league in virtually every meaningful offensive category against RHP this season. Meanwhile, Hisashi Iwakuma is just a guy. Only five pitchers going today have a worse xFIP on the season than his 4.49 mark, and we don't even need a terrible arm to make the Boston bats attractive. He's more or less equally average (or worse) against righties and lefties, so he makes a fine guy to pick on here. As always, you'll have to pay up for the marquee names, but as a pivot off of Coors Field, we think they make a nice play for tournaments, where they're ownership could be low if people are adhering closely to the Vegas total.

Sneaky Pitcher

Rob Whalen

Sneaky's probably not the right designation, because the fact that a starting pitcher is available on FanDuel for $3K isn't going to elude many DFSers tonight. What-the-hell-why-not is probably a better way to classify this pick. So what do we know about Whalen? Not a lot, to be honest. He's not much of a prospect, but has pitched pretty well over the last couple of years in the minors. His strikeout numbers aren't especially impressive, but he appears to do a good job of limiting home runs, so that's something. The Pirates have also been a below-average offense against RHP this season and even worse lately, so take that for what it's worth. But make no mistake, this is all about the price, because you're taking on plenty of risk with Whalen for the sake of being able to play pretty much any bat you want.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Max Scherzer

If you're playing early or all-day slates, here's your guy for all formats. Not exactly earth-shattering news, but few pitchers in baseball come with Scherzer's high-floor/high-ceiling combo. He works deep into games, is always a threat for doube-digit Ks, and with the Nats a -237 favorite, he stands a strong chance of taking the win. The ballpark is working against him in this one, as Chase Field is one of baseball's better hitting environments, but we're not afraid to pick on the Diamondbacks, who rank 22nd in wRC+ against RHP while striking out fifth-most in the league in the split.

Mike Trout

There's an awful lot of variation in today's optimal lineups, so when in doubt, play Mike Trout. Today's foe, Kendall Graveman, has been decent lately, but the fact remains that he's Kendall Graveman and this is Mike Trout. He's the guy whose xFIP (4.52) is nipping at the heels of his Ks/9 (5.47). And Trout is the guy who's arguably the most consistently excellent player in baseball over the past five years. He owns a .423 wOBA and .250 ISO against righties this season and remains one of the game's best power/speed threats. It also doesn't hurt that his teammates have finally starting producing around him, which only bolsters his already substantial value. Yeah, his cost is high and the ballpark isn't great. To that, our algorithm replies, "so what?" He's one of our top projected offensive producers tonight, and a fine play in all formats.

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!