Daily Fantasy Baseball News and Updates for FanDuel and DraftKings - 4/27/16

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 full schedule ahead of us, with one early game and a 14-game slate tonight. Unless you're just dying to get your hands on Jeff Samardzija, we'd recommend laying off the all-day slate, as we've got some uncertain weather situations that you'll likely want to monitor right up until 7 p.m. Eastern.

At the top of the list is the Brewers at the Cubs, where Jake Arrieta is slated to take the hill and would be the top choice for cash games if the weather relents. But as of this morning that's very much in doubt. The forecast is calling for significant chances of rain into the night, so keep an eye on this one.

Elsewhere, we've got iffy forecasts for Philadelphia at Washington and Cleveland at Minnesota.

Personnel

• Yoenis Cespedes looked like he's ready for a return to the lineup, slapping a three-run pinch-hit homer Tuesday night against the Reds. He's been on the bench for the last four games due to a quad injury.
• After leaving Monday's game due to leg cramps, Matt Holliday was out of the Cardinals lineup Tuesday, but did fielding work before the game. He is considered day to day.
• Scooter Gennett was scratched from Tuesday's lineup due to an oblique injury. There's been no update on his status as of Wednesday morning.
• Twins pitching prospect Jose Berrios is making his major league debut tonight against the Indians. The 21-year-old had 20 strikeouts and allowed two earned runs in 17 innings across three starts in Triple-A this season.
• Cardinals 2B Kolten Wong missed another game due to illness on Tuesday. With St. Louis facing lefty Patrick Corbin tonight, there's a decent chance he'll be on the bench again.
• Alex Rodriguez sat again on Tuesday with an oblique injury and is considered day to day.
• Russell Martin took Tuesday off as he continues to deal with neck stiffness. Early indications are that he may be out again tonight.
• Wilson Ramos is on the bereavement list and is expected to miss a couple of games.
• Travis d'Arnaud has been placed on the DL with a shoulder injury.

Tournament Stacks

NOTE: Baseball is being played at Coors Field tonight, and you should absolutely consider stacking either side. With a righty on the mound, the Pirates' matchup is a little less appealing that it was last night, but Jon Gray is nobody to hide from. Ditto for Jonathan Niese, who hasn't experienced the Ray Searge bump some other Pirates pitchers have. The Colorado righties look especially strong in this one. But since telling you to stack in Colorado is kinda putting it on autopilot for us, here are a couple of other options to consider.

Los Angeles Dodgers
The trick here is projecting the lineup. The Dodgers have loads of moving pieces and can mix and match according to matchups more than most teams. And with a late start time on the West Coast, you may not have a lot of time to get it sorted out before lineup lock. We think you can count on Enrique Hernandez and Yasiel Puig at the top of the lineup against a lefty, though, and that's a great place to start. Hernandez is a southpaw-mashing super utility guy sporting absolutely obscene numbers in his brief career in this split, and Puig's numbers aren't too shabby either. And depending on where he gets slotted in the lineup, Trayce Thompson is also a nice value play against lefties. Through 160 big-league plate appearances, he's shown great pop and an extreme preference for left-handed pitching. They'll be squaring off a Justin Nicolino, who's making his first start of the season. He projects as a mid-4s ERA guy and hasn't cracked 5 Ks/9 since Double-A ball in 2013.

Boston Red Sox
Back in Fenway after two games in Atlanta, the Red Sox will have their full allotment of offense tonight. In other words, David Ortiz will be back in the lineup with a prime matchup against Bud Norris. The 31-year-old journeyman has been crushed by lefties over the course of his career, but he's been pretty terrible against everybody over the last year-plus. He posted a 4.29 xFIP last season and has a 4.71 mark through four starts in 2016. Papi makes a great place to start your stack, and we think all pretty much all of the Red Sox bats are in play for tournament lineups.

Sneaky Pitcher

Steven Wright

You want sneaky? We present a 31-year-old knuckleballer with 14 career starts and a lifetime xFIP of 4.36. This is primarily a FanDuel play, because what we're doing when we chose to deploy Wright is unabashedly chasing a win. Of the non-elite arms on tonight's slate, he's the biggest favorite on the board, and on sites that award big points for Ws, that makes a cheap pitcher pretty enticing. Especially when that pitcher is facing the Braves, who rank dead last in MLB in wRC+, wOBA and home runs. About those home runs. The Braves have three. All season. Three. 3. As in the same number Andrew McCutchen hit last night. Three. In 757 plate appearances. Three. So, yeah. Atlanta has shown us no reason to believe they can make Wright pay for his mistakes. That doesn't raise Wright's floor to level where he's in cash game consideration or anything, but I'm fine plugging him into a tournament lineup and investing the savings in some high-priced bats.

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Adrian Beltre

We're getting really different results between the optimal lineups on the two big sites today, but the projection system is all over Beltre's FanDuel price against CC Sabathia. Beltre's 30 HR upside might be a thing of the past, but he's still producing at a solid clip and he's downright dangerous against lefties, against whom he posted a .393 wOBA and .237 ISO in 2015. He's also got a great floor thanks to an elite contact rate, making him an excellent play for cash games. Meanwhile, Sabathia hasn't aged as well. He hasn't posted decent numbers since 2012 and has a 5.45 xFIP through three starts this season.

Kike Hernandez

As mentioned earlier, Hernandez is a lefty killer and Nicolino makes for a willing victim. Now, let's go ahead and marvel and Kike's splits. Career vs. LHP: .473 wOBA, .285 ISO. I'll pause now so you can go ahead and get him in your lineups. ... ... ... As you probably saw during the intermission, he's coming cheap ($2,700 on FanDuel, $3,100 on DraftKings). The depressed price is likely due to his role as a part-timer, but he's been hitting leadoff against lefties, so don't overthink this one. Play him in all formats; just double check before lineup lock to make sure Dave Roberts and the Dodgers coaching staff remain the keen observers of the obvious that they've been so far this season.

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!