MLB

FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Wednesday 6/15/22

We're one game shy of a full slate, as today's 14-game main slate awaits us in MLB DFS.

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!

Let's check out the top options on today's main slate.

Pitchers

Nestor Cortes (FanDuel Salary: $10,500), Shane McClanahan ($11,400), and Corbin Burnes ($10,900) - These are the three pitchers with elevated salaries (i.e. above $9,500) on tonight's main slate.

McClanahan is in a tough spot against the New York Yankees (and thus against Cortes), and Burnes also has a rough draw against the New York Mets.

Of the three, it's Cortes rating out best in my model before even accounting for the salary. Cortes sits first among the main slate's starters in hard-hit rate allowed (25.3%) and fourth in both strikeout rate (28.6%) and SIERA (3.10).

The Tampa Bay Rays sit 20th in active-roster strikeout rate (22.7%) and in wRC+ (101). Now, the Rays do have a 108 wRC+ against left-handed pitching with a strikeout rate that drops to 17.8%. Still, among the top three, he should have the highest floor.

It's worth noting here that McClanahan ranks first in expected strikeout rate in my model, and Burnes is still fourth. They make sense in tournaments because they can be written off by many due to the tougher matchups.

Spencer Strider ($7,500) - Strider owns the top strikeout rate (36.8%) on the main slate across his 155 batters faced. That is paired with a 12.3% walk rate (second-worst among the 18 starters), yet he ultimately still owns a 2.80 SIERA and a 2.83 xFIP (good for an xFIP- of 72).

Even if we reduce the sample to his three games as a starter, the strikeout rate is 33.3% (with a 13.3% walk rate) and a 2.92 FIP.

He'll face a tougher test in the strikeout department than we'd like, as the Washington Nationals' active roster holds a 19.0% K-rate (4th-best in the bigs). He still has enough juice (including an elevated 31.1% called-strike-plus-whiff rate) to rank second in my expected strikeout rate model.

Considering salary, there's enough here to view Strider as the King of Gondor -- and the main slate.

Jose Berrios ($8,700) - In case you're not sold on the top trio or find fault with Strider, then Berrios is probably your guy. The Toronto Blue Jays' starter has a heavy -300 moneyline, and the opposing Baltimore Orioles own a lowly 2.61-run implied total.

Berrios's middling data across the board (among main-slate starters, he's 9th in fly-ball rate, 10th in strikeout rate, 14th in hard-hit rate, and 10th in xFIP) should work well enough against a modest offense in Baltimore, which ranks 22nd in strikeout rate (23.3%) and 21st in wRC+ (98). Against righties, their wRC+ falls to 93, and they're 22nd in wOBA (.300).

Stacks

Chicago Cubs
The top implied run total (6.06) goes to the Chicago Cubs, who are playing in a great hitting environment. The temperature will be just shy of 90 degrees, and the wind is blowing out at 15-plus miles per hour.

This will prop up a middle-of-the-road offense. The Cubs are 16th in wRC+ (102) and 17th in barrel rate (7.6%).

Ryan Weathers is drawing the start opposite the Cubbies in his return to the MLB where he held 4.71 xFIP and an 18.0% strikeout rate last season against 401 batters. In Triple-A this season, however, Weathers has maintained a 14.3% strikeout rate and a 6.88 FIP.

The Cubs' bats won't sneak up on anyone, but they're affordable enough as a team to differentiate in other ways from there. Christopher Morel ($3,500), Willson Contreras ($3,400), Patrick Wisdom ($3,100), and Frank Schwindel ($2,500) are a pretty flexible top four today.

Cleveland Guardians
Out in Denver, we've got an 11.5-run total to match that in Wrigley Field. Though the Cleveland Guardians are the underdog (+100), they're the offense I'm keying on.

They'll draw Austin Gomber and his tepid 18.1% strikeout rate (13th on the slate) and 4.40 SIERA (9th) while presenting him with a high rate of contact (they're first in strikeout rate at 15.4%).

In all, their implied run total is third-best on the slate at 5.64, and we have plenty of salary to go around here, even if we build around Jose Ramirez ($4,600).

Myles Straw ($3,000), Amed Rosario ($2,900), Josh Naylor ($3,300), Owen Miller ($3,500), and Oscar Gonzalez ($2,800) stack well enough with or without Ramirez if you can't quite get there. That said, Ramirez is around 28.2% likely to homer today.

Toronto Blue Jays
The fourth-best implied run total tonight belongs to the Blue Jays at 5.55. They'll start the game against Bruce Zimmermann, whose only real defense is not allowing walks (4.2%) against a team that gets the bat on the ball (they're 8th in strikeout rate) and well (they're 3rd in barrel rate).

Zimmerman ultimately ranks 12th on the main slate in hard-hit rate allowed (31.3%) and 14th in strikeout rate (16.6%) across 265 batters faced.

As for Toronto's bats, they won't be too hard to build around if you are into Strider or Berrios at pitcher.

George Springer ($3,800), Bo Bichette ($3,800), and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ($3,800) have identical salaries at the top of the order, and things taper off from there anyway. Alejandro Kirk ($2,800), Teoscar Hernandez ($2,500), and Santiago Espinal ($2,600) can help round out rosters even without Blue Jays stacks.