MLB

FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Sunday 6/20/21

We have a slew of quality stacking options today, including a game at Coors. Which offenses should you plug in, and which pitchers should be on your radar?

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

This isn't a pretty pitching slate, and there's no one I feel amazing about. Our projections reflect that as we have no pitcher pegged for more than 31 FanDuel points. That's going to give us a ton of stacking options offensively, but it makes it tough to lock in a pitcher with much conviction.

The guy I'm most into is Nathan Eovaldi ($8,900), because I want punchouts and I think he has as much swing-and-miss talent as anyone on the slate with his 22.3% strikeout rate and 11.8% swinging-strike rate. Because no pitcher checks all the boxes this afternoon, Eovaldi is facing a Kansas City Royals team that boasts the second-lowest strikeout rate (21.9%). Eovaldi has posted at least 36 FanDuel points in three of his past four outings, and he's at the top of our pitcher projections.

Hyun-jin Ryu ($8,500 on FanDuel) -- who is taking on the Baltimore Orioles -- is another pitcher who offers some pros and cons and is worth looking into. The negatives are that the O's have been really good against lefties, holding the second-best wOBA (.243) in the split, and that Ryu has permitted 12 earned runs across his past three starts. The positives are that Ryu owns a 3.97 SIERA and 21.1% strikeout rate, so he's a solid pitcher.

Taijuan Walker ($9,400) deserves a shout, as well. Walker is red-hot -- going for 61 and 55 FanDuel points in his past two starts -- and may wind up as the slate's most popular pitcher. He's facing a Washington Nationals offense that is right around the league average in wOBA (.308), so the matchup is decent enough. Walker's 26.9% strikeout rate is likely due for some negative regression since his swinging-strike rate is only 9.6%, but he's shown a ceiling that few on this slate can dream of. I'll probably be light on Walker, but if you're more into him than I am, I totally get it.

We have been gifted a pretty nice low-salary option in JT Brubaker ($6,900). For the year, Brubaker sports a 3.76 SIERA, 22.7% strikeout rate and 11.9% swinging-strike rate. The big issue with using him in DFS is his workload as Brubaker hasn't thrown more than 89 pitches in any of his last six starts, failing to break 80 in the past two. That dings his upside and floor, but he's a fine play against the Cleveland Indians, who rank 21st in wOBA (.302) and have the slate's second-lowest implied total (4.07). With Coors on the slate, Brubaker's salary is very enticing.

Stacks to Target

Coors Field

I'm not going to list every hitter on the Colorado Rockies (5.37 implied total) and Milwaukee Brewers (6.33), but they're all in play today as this Coors clash gives us a pitching matchup of Eric Lauer and Chi Chi Gonzalez. Lauer has much better numbers that Gonzalez does, including a 3.93 SIERA, but he's allowed a 43.3% hard-hit rate this year. Gonzalez has a 5.08 SIERA and 12.9% strikeout rate. He's one of the worst starting pitchers in the bigs. You're going to want exposure to this game, and like I said, every hitter in both lineups needs to be on your radar.

Toronto Blue Jays

Other than Coors, the chalk stack is going to be the Toronto Blue Jays, who bring a 5.75 implied total into their date versus Matt Harvey. With a 4.75 SIERA and 17.6% strikeout rate, Harvey is a guy we want to attack. He's conceded 12 earned runs over his last two starts (6 1/3 innings). Righties have a .416 wOBA versus him this season, and the Jays have a bunch of right-handed pop.

At the top, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($4,600) and Bo Bichette ($4,100) are elite plays if you can get to them. Our model ranks them fourth and first, respectively. Marcus Semien ($3,800) should be leading off and sits eighth in our projections.

Then we get into the more modestly salaried Toronto sticks -- Randal Grichuk ($3,000), Lourdes Gurriel ($2,800), Rowdy Tellez ($2,500) and Joe Panik ($2,300). Tellez and Grichuk rate out as two of the slate's best point-per-dollar hitters, according to our algorithm.

New York Yankees

The New York Yankees are hosting Sean Manaea, who is actually the highest-salaried hurler on the slate. Manaea has been really solid this year, showing a 3.95 SIERA and 23.1% strikeout rate, while the Yankees' offense has underwhelmed. Despite a 5.05 implied total, New York could slip through the cracks a bit on this slate with the masses likely going Mall Madness at Coors and with the Jays.

Other than Aaron Judge ($3,700), no Yankee bat is above $3,300, and they should be extremely right-handed against Manaea. Giancarlo Stanton ($3,300), Gio Urshela ($2,500), Gleyber Torres ($2,600), Miguel Andujar ($2,300), Gary Sanchez ($2,700) and DJ LeMahieu ($3,000) will all bat from the right side. Sanchez is a superb mid-range option as he's got a .361 wOBA and 47.4% fly-ball rate versus southpaws this year.