FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Friday 8/3/18

The beauty of daily fantasy baseball is that the top targets are different each and every day. Whether it's the right-handed catcher who destroys left-handed pitching or the mid-range hurler facing a depleted lineup, you're not going to find yourself using the same assets time after time.

While this breaks up the monotony, it can make it hard to decide which players are primed to succeed on a given day. We can help bridge that gap.

In addition to our custom optimal lineups, you can check out our batting and pitching heat maps, which show the pieces in the best spot to succeed on that slate. Put on the finishing touches with our games and lineups page to see who's hitting where and what the weather looks like, and you'll have yourself a snazzy-looking team to put up some big point totals.

If you need help getting started on that trek, here are some of the top options on the board today. We'll be focusing exclusively on the main slate.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitchers

Jacob deGrom ($11,500 on FanDuel): deGrom has been the definition of consistency for the New York Mets this season. His 3.02 SIERA and 30.1% strikeout rate are both the third-best marks on the slate. He has a semi-tough matchup with the contact-heavy Atlanta Braves, but their main threats on offense are both left-handed, and deGrom's strikeout rate sits at 30.3% in the split this season. He possesses upside, but you are mainly paying for his consistent floor, making him perfect in a cash-game setting on Friday night.

Chris Archer ($9,000): If you're into narratives then you'll love targeting Archer in his Pittsburgh Pirates debut. The St. Louis Cardinals are a pretty bad team against right-handed pitching, coming into tonight 23rd in both wRC+ and ISO. Archer should see a pretty right-handed heavy lineup tonight outside of Matt Carpenter in this one, and he is striking out righties at a 27.0% clip this season, further adding to his value in this matchup. A sizable -159 favorite, his popularity could continue to grow throughout the afternoon.

Value Pitchers

Vincent Velasquez ($8,100): Velasquez has taken a step forward for the Philadelphia Phillies this season, boasting a 3.82 SIERA and a 27.1% strikeout rate through 20 starts while trimming his hard-contact allowed down to 31.8%. He still has a bit of a control issue with a 9.3% walk rate, but that shouldn't come into play tonight against the Miami Marlins, who rank 26th in walk rate against right-handers. Velasquez has also followed the Philly trend of being better at home this season, which is where this game happens to take place. He's one of the few cheaper guys that can match the strikeout upside of the aces on the slate, making him playable in all formats in this matchup.

Jake Odorizzi ($7,000): Odorizzi is a very cut-and-dry daily fantasy option at this point of his career, he's good against right-handed hitters and he's pretty bad against left-handers. Matchups where he will see a lot of left-handed bats are the ones that can really bite him, but thankfully that's not the case tonight against the Kansas City Royals. Odorizzi has pitched to a 4.36 xFIP and a 25.9% strikeout rate against righties, which is quite a step up from his 5.23 xFIP and 21.6% strikeouts against lefties. The Royals were already one of the weakest offenses in the major leagues, but now that they have traded Mike Moustakas, they have almost no left-handed threats in their lineup outside of Lucas Duda. Odorizzi is a -185 favorite tonight and is firmly in play at his price.

Hitters to Target

High-Priced Hitters

Jose Ramirez ($5,200): Ramirez is having an MVP-caliber year, hitting .301 with 32 home runs and 78 RBI, and he's fresh off being named player of the month for July. His opponent, Jaime Barria, hasn't pitched poorly this season, but Ramirez remains one of the top floor/ceiling plays in all of daily fantasy -- especially playing at home. His numbers are better against right-handed pitching, and at home his ISO rises from .314 to .349 while his OBP balloons from .336 to .434. Ramirez is a cash-game staple most nights, and that holds true on Friday evening.

Rhys Hoskins ($4,400): Hoskins homered again last night, and he remains on a tear at the plate, owning a 56.1% hard-hit rate and 46.3% fly-ball rate over his last 52 at-bats. Some might be wary of the righty-righty matchup, but Hoskins has actually been a better hitter in the split this season, with a .288 ISO and a 146 wRC+ compared to a .145 ISO and a 122 wRC+ against southpaws. The Philadelphia Phillies feature a 4.74 implied run total according to our heat map, and Hoskins is the focal point of their entire offense.

Value Hitters

Shin-Soo Choo ($3,100): Choo was featured in this column yesterday, and it's wise to go back to the well while his price remains in this range. He has been an on-base machine once again this season atop the Texas Rangers' lineup, while also offering power to the tune of a .244 ISO. Opposing pitcher David Hess has pitched to a 5.69 xFIP with 47.6% fly-balls allowed to left-handed batters, so this could be another offensive dream spot for the Rangers, who are only one day removed from dropping 17 runs.

Logan Morrison ($2,500): The Minnesota Twins threw in the towel on the 2018 season when they traded away Eduardo Escobar and Brian Dozier at the trade deadline, but that doesn't mean that they won't provide value in daily fantasy. Heath Fillmyer has been all but imposing for the Kansas City Royals through three starts, and he sports a 5.02 SIERA with just a 13.3% strikeout rate for the season. Morrison has been steady at the plate with a 47.6% hard-hit rate over the last 14 days while providing his typical power against right-handers. For the price, LoMo provides power upside that you don't often find in this pricing tier.

Ben Hossler is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Ben Hossler also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username oatw. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.