Daily Fantasy Baseball News & Updates for FanDuel & DraftKings - 7/28/16

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 pair of early games, but the action picks up in earnest tonight with seven-game evening slate, replete with solid arms and a handful of offenses in good spots. The lineups for early games are starting to roll in, so let's get to it.

Personnel

• Yoennis Cespedes and Jose Reyes are out today for the Mets. Reyes is dealing with an intercostal strain and unlikely to return before the weekend, while Cespedes' quad injury has flared up again. He's considered day-to-day for now.
• Denard Span was out of the lineup on Wednesday, but is expected to return tonight as the Giants host the Nats.
• Stephen Drew has been placed on the DL after missing the last week with what is being described as vertigo-like symptoms.

Tournament Stacks

Baltimore Orioles
We need to start this by talking about hot/cold streaks and how much you believe in them. Actually, that's probably a bad way to phrase it. They definitely exist. Empirically, objectively, streaks are things that happen. What's more salient to this discussion is how much you believe in their predictive value. It's a tricky question. When you watch a guy (like Chris Davis, for example) struggle mightily for the better portion of two weeks, it's really hard to disregard that and keep plugging him in your lineups. But the numbers tell us there's no way to measure or predict when a guy will suddenly turn it around, become the guy he's always been, and start smashing a couple of homers per week. And since algorithms don't have eyes, our projection system is all about the numbers and shows no hesitation in recommending the Orioles here against Kyle Gibson, even though they've had the worst offense in baseball (in wRC+) over the last 14 days. Listen, if this is a fade for you, it's understandable. In fact, fading the Orioles probably puts you among a wide majority since we've all been burned by them recently, but that only makes the projection system's recommendation all the more tantalizing for tournament players. The thing is, we know the Orioles aren't this bad. Though they're in an undeniable funk right now, they still rank fourth in MLB in wRC+ against RHP, second in wOBA and second in ISO. They've been a bit on the boom-or-bust side all year, but booms are what we're looking for in GPPs, because when they happen, they more than pay off a week's worth of busts. Will the Orioles boom today? Hard to say. Kyle Gibson is a pretty average guy across the board and does a decent job of keeping the ball on the ground, so it's certainly not automatic. On the other hand, all of Baltimore's top six hitters own wOBAs north of .340 against righties this year, and Hyun Soo Kim is the only one without an ISO over .200. So you can see why the projection system loves them. My advice: like most old-school vs. new-school debates in baseball analytics, you need to find the middle ground and then decide which way you lean. I suggest siding with the numbers and getting at least some exposure to the Baltimore bats, but I also wouldn't put all of my bankroll in that basket, either.

Texas Rangers
The Rangers have been mostly middle-of-the-road against righties all season, but they've got a few things working in their favor today, not the least of which is Yordano Ventura. The once-exciting Royals righty is flirting with a flameout, as his numbers are down across the board the season. Fewer strikeouts, more walks, more homers, fewer grounders, and ample hard contact against lefties and righties. That makes for a dangerous cocktail in Globe Life Park, which ranked second behind only Coors Field in terms of overall offensive park factors last season. The Rangers also come with a handful of enticing cheap guys, especially if Jurickson Profar and Nomar Mazara are near the top of the lineup and Joey Gallo gets a start. They'll probably be a popular play, given the affordability and a high Vegas total, but there are enough ways to find differentiation within the lineup that we don't see that as a major problem.

Note: We also really like the Red Sox going against Jered Weaver, even though the park is a tough one for offense. Maybe even more problematic is the pricing. If you're spending up for pitching (and we think you should), it's going to be nearly impossible to stack Boston. Still though, it's probably not a bad idea to find room for at least one Red Sox-heavy lineup in your arsenal tonight.

 

Sneaky Pitcher

Aaron Nola

Another test case for your faith in advanced numbers. If you're just judging by results, Nola has been pretty terrible lately. After an excellent first two months of the season, his ERA shot up to 10.42 in June and is at 6.60 through three starts in July. Obviously, that's awful, but it's not at all obvious what's behind his struggles. The walks and hard contact have gone up some, but not enough to explain the dramatic jump, and he's also striking more guys out, which is why even at his worst, Nola's xFIP remains solid (3.82 in June, 3.12 in July). Clearly he's getting hurt by some bad BABIP and strand-rate luck, but is that sufficient to explain all that's going on here? There's some evidence that the troubles have their root in some issues with his sinker, and if that's the extent of it, there's literally no way to know when he'll get it figured out and the results once again begin matching the peripherals. But we think it's worth taking a shot in a tournament lineup that he gets right against the Braves, who despite some recent improvements are still the worst offense in baseball against RHP this season.

 

The "Every Lineup" Guys

Manny Machado

If the Orioles' recent struggles turn you off, Machado is one of the few you should still feel OK with. He's got hits in seven straight and remains one of the game's elite hitters, even though he's not really priced that way. He's also about as neutral as it gets when it comes to platoon splits, but has been ever so slightly better against RHP with a .385 wOBA and .249 ISO. Target field isn't exactly a hitter's haven, but it does favor right-handed power, so we've got no problem playing Machado in all formats tonight.

Jose Fernandez

This one is more specific to one-pitcher sites, because the the projection system likes the idea of paying up for a pair of upper-middle class guys on DraftKings. But as far as raw points, we see Fernandez as the top choice tonight by a solid margin. We don't make a habit of recommending righties against St. Louis, but Fernandez is a special case. His 13.09 K/9 rate leads the majors by more than 1.5, and his 2.27 xFIP is second only to Clayton Kershaw. Put simply, Fernandez is the best guy going right now for bankable DFS production, and he'll be our guy in cash games tonight.

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!