FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Friday 9/18/20
Our daily helper is available every day to analyze FanDuel's main slate and help give you a starting point when you're building lineups. Be sure to also incorporate our great tools into your research process. Whether you're looking for daily projections, the latest starting lineups and weather, or batting and pitching heat maps to find the best matchups -- we've got you covered!
And don't forget to take a listen to The Solo Shot podcast with Jim Sannes, who breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each morning.
On that note, let's highlight some of the top options for today's FanDuel main slate. Below are tonight's projected starters with their 2020 stats. Opposing team strikeout rate and wRC+ date now show this year's splits against a given pitcher's handedness using up-to-date active rosters, per FanGraphs.
| Pitcher | Salary | L/R | Opp. | SIERA | K% | BB% | Opp. K% | Opp. wRC+ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zach Plesac | $10,400 | R | @DET | 3.60 | 25.5% | 2.0% | 28.1% | 80 |
| Tyler Glasnow | $10,100 | R | @BAL | 3.18 | 37.4% | 9.7% | 22.3% | 107 |
| Zac Gallen | $9,700 | R | @HOU | 4.07 | 27.4% | 9.1% | 20.5% | 97 |
| Zack Greinke | $9,500 | R | ARI | 3.95 | 23.0% | 3.5% | 21.0% | 86 |
| Kyle Hendricks | $9,300 | R | MIN | 4.03 | 19.7% | 2.3% | 25.0% | 109 |
| Max Fried | $9,000 | L | @NYM | 4.16 | 23.9% | 8.6% | 19.4% | 125 |
| Danny Duffy | $8,300 | L | @MIL | 4.70 | 23.9% | 9.6% | 25.8% | 114 |
| Chris Paddack | $8,200 | R | @SEA | 3.72 | 25.4% | 4.4% | 23.3% | 110 |
| Tyler Mahle | $8,100 | R | CWS | 4.19 | 28.9% | 10.2% | 25.3% | 109 |
| Yusei Kikuchi | $7,900 | L | SDP | 3.78 | 26.2% | 7.4% | 23.3% | 104 |
| Chris Bassitt | $7,800 | R | SFG | 4.64 | 20.0% | 6.7% | 23.0% | 116 |
| Rich Hill | $6,900 | L | @CHC | 5.14 | 20.2% | 11.0% | 25.7% | 78 |
| Martin Perez | $6,800 | L | NYY | 5.69 | 16.7% | 11.8% | 22.7% | 101 |
| Alex Wood | $6,800 | L | @COL | 4.37 | 26.2% | 11.9% | 23.6% | 94 |
| Logan Webb | $6,700 | R | @OAK | 4.54 | 22.1% | 9.5% | 23.1% | 103 |
| Jordan Montgomery | $6,300 | L | @BOS | 4.21 | 21.5% | 4.7% | 21.9% | 108 |
| Alex Cobb | $6,000 | R | TAM | 4.68 | 16.6% | 7.4% | 25.7% | 107 |
| Steven Matz | $5,900 | L | ATL | 4.18 | 23.4% | 5.6% | 26.9% | 81 |
| Jaime Barria | $5,800 | R | TEX | 4.99 | 19.4% | 9.2% | 24.7% | 67 |
| Adrian Houser | $5,700 | R | KAN | 4.40 | 18.0% | 8.8% | 24.4% | 89 |
| Ryan Castellani | $5,600 | R | LOS | 5.96 | 16.0% | 12.5% | 21.0% | 125 |
| Michael Fulmer | $5,600 | R | CLE | 5.53 | 16.2% | 9.9% | 23.4% | 87 |
| Jonathan Stiever | $5,500 | R | @CIN | 5.28 | 21.4% | 14.3% | 24.9% | 101 |
| Jimmy Herget | $5,500 | R | @LAA | 5.55 | 20.0% | 15.7% | 20.5% | 114 |
Let's check out the top spots on tonight's main slate.
Pitchers
Tyler Glasnow ($10,100) laps everyone on the slate in strikeout rate (37.4%), and his walk rate has been excellent over his last four starts (6.0%). The matchup with Baltimore is tougher than we would've expected entering the season, but they have a modest 3.63 implied total.
Zach Plesac ($10,400) is probably the "safest" guy on the list -- at least as safe as any pitcher can be for DFS -- in a matchup against the Tigers and their massive strikeout rate. The salary is tough to stomach, but Plesac does have a season-high of 61 FanDuel points (11 strikeouts), so don't totally write off his upside.
Chris Paddack ($8,200) is coming off an ankle issue, but he has solid numbers across the board, making him a mid-range value against the Mariners. Although Seattle has been above average against righties, they rank just 22nd in ISO (.155), so Paddack shouldn't have to worry as much about the long ball, which has plagued him at times this season.
Tyler Mahle ($8,100) is a big risk against the White Sox in a hitter-friendly park, but the matchup does lend itself to punchouts. He actually has the second-best strikeout rate behind Glasnow, so you could roll the dice in large-field GPPs.
Rich Hill ($6,900) benefits from strong winds blowing in at Wrigley tonight, and he tallied seven strikeouts over five innings in his last start. He threw a season-high 90 pitches in that outing, so maybe he can finally log more than five innings and get into quality start territory. The Cubs have a middling 3.61 implied total.
Hitters
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers are the obvious top hitting spot of the evening, sporting an absurd 7.89 implied total at Coors Field.
Rockies starter Ryan Castellani has the worst SIERA (5.96) and strikeout-minus-walk rate (3.5%) of tonight's starters, and he's allowing a 47.5% hard-hit rate and 43.4% fly-ball rate.
The Dodgers will be immensely popular, but I just don't see how you can't completely fade this matchup. You can roster pretty much anyone in this lineup, but give a boost to left-handed sticks. Castellani has an 11.1% strikeout rate, 12.7% walk rate, and 6.63 xFIP in the split this year.
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees were on fire in their series against the Blue Jays, and that should continue tonight at Fenway Park against Red Sox lefty Martin Perez.
Perez has poor peripherals as usual, and compared to 2019, he's actually taken even further steps back in SIERA, strikeout rate, walk rate, and ground-ball rate. It's pretty telling that the Yankees have a 6.05 implied total in a non-Coors game where the temperatures are only around 60 degrees.
Best of all, there are still low-salary sticks in this lineup, so you don't necessarily need to pay down at pitcher to gain exposure to this game.
Cleveland Indians
Michael Fulmer just can't get things going this season (9.27 ERA) and hasn't been allowed to get past three innings in any of his eight starts.
His underlying numbers are wretched no matter where you look, including a whopping 2.82 home runs allowed per 9.0 innings. He's the lowest of the low in just about all of his Statcast metrics.
The Tigers also have a mediocre bullpen, with their active roster showing a below-average 4.74 xFIP.
Cleveland is an ideal stack to find savings, with most of the lineup coming in at $3k and below.
For other stacks, also consider the Colorado Rockies, Los Angeles Angels, and Tampa Bay Rays.
