FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Sunday 8/30/20

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, which starts at 1:10 p.m. EST.

Pitchers to Target

This is a really fun slate, and the good times start on the mound as we have three enticing options in stellar matchups -- Blake Snell ($9,400 on FanDuel), Kenta Maeda ($9,700) and Brandon Woodruff ($9,100). Snell gets the Miami Marlins, King Kenta will see the Detroit Tigers and Woodruff faces the Pittsburgh Pirates.

You can easily make a case for all three. Ultimately, I think I rank them Snell-Maeda-Woodruff, but I have a tough time splitting them.

I go with Snell first because he was allowed to throw 101 pitches last time out. Woodruff tossed a season-high 96 pitches in his last outing while Maeda hasn't gone over 85 pitches outside of a 115-pitch outing in his no-hit bid, when they basically had to leave him in. After the 115-pitch effort in the near no-no, Maeda was limited to 83 pitches in his following start.

All three guys have the swing-and-miss stuff to plow through their opposition today. I think Snell has just a smidge more upside than the others thanks to his 33.3% strikeout rate -- tops of this trio -- and date with a Miami offense that's fanning 25.8% of the time. But I'll mix and match these three in lineups today, and if you wanted to rank them in the complete opposite order than I have them, you won't hear much of a fuss from me.

If you're going to use a pitcher other than one of those three, you need a guy who has upside, because odds are at least one of Snell, Maeda and Woodruff will post a big number.

Well, Luis Castillo ($9,100) has plenty of upside, and he probably won't see much ownership. He's in homer-happy Cincy versus the Chicago Cubs, so it's not a great spot, but a locked-in Castillo can shove against anyone. There's plenty of risk in fading the three guys I talked about early, but if I venture from them, I'll land on Castillo.

Stacks to Target

Colorado Rockies and San Diego Padres

Just as I did it yesterday, I'm not going to spend much time on Coors. You know the deal -- you want exposure here if you can get it. The San Diego Padres-Colorado Rockies game has a 12.5-run over/under as Ryan Castellani and Chris Paddack square off. The Padres (6.80 implied total) are more appealing than the Rox (5.70), but you can feel good about both sides.

I will say this: we have a loooooot of good offenses to target today, so don't feel like you have to jam in Coors bats. At the same time, the plethora of high implied totals on this slate -- 10 teams with an implied total of at least 4.98 (as of early Sunday morning) -- could make the Coors bats a little lower-owned than usual. So, yes, that's me sitting on the fence. I probably won't stack Coors, but I'll dip my toes in the water, most likely with some Padres' bats.

Boston Red Sox and Washington Nationals

I'm going to pair these two together since they're facing each other. The Boston Red Sox-Washington Nationals clash is almost like a second Coors game -- with cheaper salaries -- and the over/under sits at 11.5 runs, 1.5 more than any other non-Coors total. Against Austin Voth, Boston has a 5.81 implied total, which is better than the Rockies' clip. Washington, meanwhile, holds a 5.69 implied total for their matchup with Zack Godley.

Pretty much anyone in either starting lineup needs to be on our radar.

For Boston, I love Rafael Devers ($3,300) and Alex Verdugo ($2,900). They'll likely be hitting 1-2, and they'll have the platoon advantage versus Voth. They're a sweet mini-stack.

On the Nats side, Eric Thames ($2,200) is a cheap dart throw at a dinger, and I like the idea of pairing Adam Eaton ($2,800) and Asdrubal Cabrera ($2,800) as they're projected to be hitting second and third, respectively.

Of course, if you have the coin for the likes of Juan Soto ($4,800), Trea Turner ($3,900), and Mitch Moreland ($3,700) go for it.

Los Angeles Dodgers

It'll be interesting to see how ownership shakes out and which stacks outside of Coors and Boston-Washington wind up being popular. I think there's a chance the Los Angeles Dodgers go a bit under-owned in their matchup with Kyle Gibson.

The Dodgers' carry a 5.60 implied total, so they're definitely stackable, and I am going to go to them -- or the Los Angeles Angels against Justin Dunn and the Chicago White Sox versus Kris Bubic -- for four-man stacks while peppering away at the aforementioned offenses for two- or three-man stacks and one-off plays in an effort to dodge some ownership.

Gibson isn't terrible, which could help the Dodgers sneak under the radar, but after two solid seasons, Gibson's numbers are down across the board in the early part of 2020. He's got a 17.6% strikeout rate with an 8.1% swinging-strike rate and is allowing a 49.5% hard-hit rate. Lefties got to him for a .347 wOBA last season, and they're probably the way to go here.

Cody Bellinger ($4,000), Max Muncy ($3,400) and Corey Seager ($3,700) should all be in the meat of the lineup. If Muncy hits third like he did yesterday, he'll be a fantastic option.

Joc Pederson ($2,700) and Gavin Lux ($2,700) will also hit from the left side and are much cheaper. Joc sometimes hits leadoff versus righties, which would obviously boost his value if he's there today. Lux was called up Saturday, and the super prospect has a 53.2% hard-hit rate in 77 career MLB plate appearances versus righties.

Mookie Betts ($4,200) isn't a lefty, but he's a reverse-splits guy who mashed his way to a .391 wOBA in righty-righty duels in 2019.