FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Sunday 6/6/21
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.
Pitching Breakdown
There's a clear top three for me at pitcher in Corbin Burnes ($11,000 on FanDuel), Trevor Bauer ($10,500) and Dylan Cease ($7,600). You can make a case for any of them, but even when you factor in the salary, Burnes is my top pick.
At home against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Burnes has a neutral matchup, but he's just been so dang good, pitching to a 1.92 SIERA, 40.9% strikeout rate, 3.5% walk rate and 18.3% swinging-strike rate. Milwaukee carries a slate-low 3.10 implied total.
Since back-to-back outings of 58.0 FanDuel points in April, Burnes has gone five starts without surpassing 43.0 FanDuel points. However, as his rate stats show, the ceiling is still there. His workload is the lone negative as he hasn't thrown more than 95 pitches in a start this season, but he's gone 93 and 95 in his past two. All in all, Burnes is a guy I'll be heavy on as the strikeout upside is what I crave.
As for the other two, Bauer has a tough draw at the Atlanta Braves while Cease is at home versus the Detroit Tigers. Given the matchups and salaries, Cease has the edge in my eyes. Cease has a ceiling as good as Burnes', posting three games of at least 55.0 FanDuel points this season. But his floor is nowhere near Burnes' as Cease has gone for fewer than 27 FanDuel points in four of his last five outings, including a -2.1-point dud last time out. The matchup with Detroit raises both his floor and ceiling.
Sandy Alcantara ($8,700) deserves a mention, as well. He's up against the Pittsburgh Pirates (3.53 implied total), so the matchup is there. Alcantara has a 3.77 SIERA, 23.8% strikeout rate and 13.8% swinging-strike rate, becoming another really solid pitcher off the Miami Marlins' assembly line. With Burnes likely to see a fairly high draft percentage and Cease possibly being the most popular arm on the slate, Alcantara could slip through the cracks.
Stacks to Target
Chicago White Sox
This slate is pretty wide open for stacking as there are six teams with an implied total of at least 4.5 runs. At the top of the tree is the Chicago White Sox, who boast a 5.17 implied total for their home clash with Jose Urena.
The Tigers' righty has more or less been the same guy we've come to know. He keeps the ball on the ground quite a bit (54.2% ground-ball rate), but he doesn't get many punchouts (15.0% strikeout rate) and allows a decent amount of hard contact (37.5% hard-hit rate). Lefties are striking out just 7.4% of the time against Urena this season -- yes, 7.4% -- and they own a .351 wOBA. That's where I'll focus.
The White Sox are usually a righty-heavy lineup, but they could have four guys -- Yoan Moncada ($3,500), Yasmani Grandal ($2,800), Adam Eaton ($2,200) and Jake Lamb ($2,500) -- hitting from the left side versus Urena. Eaton hit second the last time Chicago saw a righty, and the salaries for him, Lamb and Grandal are handy if you're using Burnes or Bauer.
We don't have to limit ourselves to only left-handed hitters, though, so Tim Anderson ($3,700) and Jose Abreu ($3,500) are quality options, as well.
Los Angeles Dodgers
The Los Angeles Dodgers don't have an easy matchup against Max Fried, and their 4.48 implied total isn't all that sexy. But as we saw on Friday, when LA touched up Ian Anderson en route to nine runs, the Dodgers should at least be on the stacking radar most nights.
Chris Taylor ($3,400) and Justin Turner ($3,100) are two guys I love in this spot. Turner has mashed lefties this year for a 43.8% hard-hit rate and 52.1% fly-ball rate. A season ago, he put up a 52.6% hard-hit rate and 47.4% fly-ball rate in the split. Taylor has recorded a .463 wOBA versus southpaws this season.
A.J. Pollock ($2,400) has a 45.8% hard-hit rate in 2021 with the platoon advantage, and he had a .468 wOBA in the split last season. Mookie Betts ($3,900) is a worthwhile play in any matchup while Cody Bellinger ($4,400) and Max Muncy ($3,800) are viable despite the lefty-lefty matchup, though Muncy is dealing with an ankle injury and didn't play on Saturday.
Baltimore Orioles
The Baltimore Orioles aren't a great offense, but they're in a great spot today as they hold a 5.09 implied total for their home game against Cal Quantrill. A former first-round pick, Quantrill just hasn't been able to get over the hump at the big-league level and has fairly average numbers with a 4.36 SIERA and 20.6% strikeout rate for his career.
Trey Mancini ($3,500) and Cedric Mullins ($3,100) are the top targets in this O's lineup. Mancini has a .368 wOBA and 11 jacks this season, with a .423 wOBA and eight taters at Camden Yards. Mullins will likely leadoff and has a nice combination of speed (nine steals) and power (eight homers).
Our model is really into Freddy Galvis ($2,500), rating him as a superb point-per-dollar play. Ryan Mountcastle ($2,800) is on a heater with a dinger in four of his last five games. D.J. Stewart ($2,300) has a .333 wOBA and 54.9% fly-ball rate against righties this season.
