MLB

FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Wednesday 9/30/20

Which spots stand out on Wednesday's eight-game MLB slate?

Following Tuesday's first taste of the playoffs, we get all 16 teams in action on Wednesday's slate. Today's first game begins at 12:08pm ET, and the last one gets going at 10:08pm ET, so you'll have to keep tabs on official lineups for the late games throughout the day.

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!

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.

PitcherSalaryL/ROpp.SIERAK%BB%Opp. K%Opp. wRC+
Trevor Bauer$11,200R@ATL2.9436.0%6.1%23.0%125
Kyle Hendricks$10,600RMIA4.0020.3%2.5%24.2%92
Tyler Glasnow$10,400RTOR3.0438.2%9.2%22.2%110
Walker Buehler$10,000RMIL3.8028.6%7.5%26.4%84
Carlos Carrasco$9,500RNYY3.9129.3%9.6%21.5%123
Jose Berrios$8,900RHOU4.3925.1%9.6%19.8%102
Chris Bassitt$8,700RCWS4.4621.1%6.5%26.2%105
Chris Paddack$8,500RSTL3.9123.7%4.9%24.3%92
Hyun Jin Ryu$8,300L@TAM3.6726.2%6.2%28.1%124
Masahiro Tanaka$8,100R@CLE4.0722.3%4.1%23.3%86
Max Fried$7,900LCIN4.3222.3%8.5%25.1%82
Sandy Alcantara$7,600R@CHC4.3922.7%8.7%25.3%97
Kwang Hyun Kim$7,300L@SDP5.0015.6%7.8%23.8%104
Dallas Keuchel$6,700L@OAK4.5716.3%6.6%22.2%94
Brent Suter$5,600L@LOS2.8529.5%3.9%20.7%113


Let's check out the top spots on today's slate.

Pitchers

Tyler Glasnow ($10,400) and Trevor Bauer ($11.200) have the best numbers of the slate, but Glasnow gets the slightly less imposing matchup, enjoying one of the day's best implied totals against Toronto (3.26).

As we saw with Blake Snell yesterday (82 pitches), the Rays care little for your DFS lineups and have no problem pulling their starters early even when they're cruising. But Snell still came away with a season-high 50 FanDuel points, so even if Glasnow gets similar treatment, it won't necessarily wipe away his ceiling. Only Shane Bieber and Jacob deGrom had a higher strikeout rate in the regular season.

Bauer gets a tough matchup versus against the Braves, who have been one of the top offenses against righties this year. Given the opponent, it's possible his afternoon goes the way of Bieber's Game 1 against the Yankees (ouch), but we can also bet on Bauer's talent to still shine through. Pitch counts are no concern with Bauer, who almost never drops below 100 pitches.

Once we dip below $10k, there are a few different ways you can go, but Hyun-jin Ryu ($8,300) seems to hit the sweet spot if we're purely looking for upside. That's because he gets the aforementioned Rays, who are a tough draw for left-handers but also have the highest strikeout rate in the split. Although Ryu's strikeout rate pales in comparison to Glasnow and Bauer, he still has one of the better marks in this range, and he's hit at least 40 FanDuel points in five of his last six starts.

Hitters

With a lack of any true standout spots on Tuesday, I noted that going off the beaten path for your bats was probably the right idea when multi-entering tournaments. Sure enough, it was the Yankees who emerged with the biggest night on offense despite facing arguably 2020's top pitcher in Shane Bieber.

Weird things could happen again, of course, but we do get some more obvious matchups to attack this time around.

The Los Angeles Dodgers (4.78) and San Diego Padres (4.44) both display solid implied totals and aren't bad places to look first.

The Dodgers face Brent Suter, but ultimately this boils down to a bullpen game for Milwaukee. The Brewers' active roster ranked first in bullpen SIERA for the regular season and have some scary end-of-game arms in Josh Hader and Devin Williams.

No, this won't be a total walk in the park for Los Angeles, but we're also talking about one of the top offenses in the league, and the key for them will be trying to get Suter bounced from the game as early as possible and taking advantage of the middle innings.

San Diego faces a low-strikeout hurler in Kwang-Hyun Kim, and as we all know, allowing contact to this lineup doesn't tend to end well. Although Kim has a 50.0% ground-ball rate and hasn't allowed many home runs, he's still one of the weaker starters of the slate.

As of this writing, the Houston Astros haven't officially named a starter, but it's expected to be Jose Urquidy, who produced a 5.41 SIERA, 14.7% strikeout rate, and 6.9% walk rate over five starts. The Minnesota Twins have low salaries outside of Nelson Cruz ($4,000), making them an easy stack to like.

Sandy Alcantara has decent overall numbers but has always struggled versus lefty sticks, with a 5.58 xFIP in the split dating back to last season. That doesn't bode well against a Chicago Cubs team with some solid left-handed options.

The Yankees should also be given consideration despite another tough matchup in Carlos Carrasco. However, Carrasco isn't in the same class as Bieber and was inconsistent at times this year due to an elevated walk rate. The Bronx Bombers won't fly under the radar after last night, but they shouldn't be especially popular, either.

Note that from a weather perspective, high winds are blowing out in Minnesota, Chicago, and Cleveland, giving a potential bump to bats in those spots.