FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Wednesday 6/21/23

In terms of name value, this is a deep slate for pitching, but the majority of viable options find themselves in scary matchups. There's potential rain in Philadelphia and New York, but as of this writing, it looks like the games will play.

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.

Pitching Breakdown

Luis Castillo ($10,600) is the first guy to consider at pitcher against a Yankees lineup that's still missing Aaron Judge. While this offense still possesses a fair bit of power, New York's active roster is showing just a 90 wRC+ versus right-handed pitching these days -- a far cry from what we're used to seeing.

Over 14 starts, Castillo has produced a 3.39 SIERA, 29.6% strikeout rate, and 6.9% walk rate, and he's recorded 10 punchouts in two of his past four outings. His workload has also been consistent, logging at least 99 pitches in five straight appearances.

Castillo will also be aided by strong winds blowing in at Yankee Stadium, and the Bronx Bombers are being credited with a slate-low 3.38 implied team total.

Shohei Ohtani ($10,700) might be the biggest wild card of the slate, due to both his difficult matchup versus the Dodgers and a curious dip in strikeouts this month. While Ohtani owns a fantastic 31.7% strikeout rate on the year, he's generated Ks at just a 20.3% clip across his three June starts.

Shohei's also struggled with walks all season, posting a 10.6% rate for the season and a 9.5% rate in June.

The good news is Ohtani hasn't demonstrated any dip in velocity, suggesting that he should be able to figure things out sooner rather than later. After all, this is a guy who's reached double-digit Ks four times in 2023, and his season-high (13) came in a tough spot against the Cardinals.

The Dodgers are hardly the ideal opponent for a ceiling game, but Max Muncy's absence brings them down a notch, and their 3.95 implied team total is one of the night's lower marks.

Among the other arms with salaries over $9,000, Michael Kopech ($9,500), Aaron Nola ($9,300), and Yu Darvish ($9,100) are noteworthy names, though much like Ohtani, they aren't in easy matchups, either. There's a case for including Sonny Gray ($9,900), too, but he's going through a lengthy stretch of underwhelming starts, and his dwindling workload makes him a poor bet to break through in a low-strikeout matchup versus the Red Sox.

Of this group, Nola arguably gets the nod due to his workload and innings volume, which may very well be his best fantasy assets. He's exceeded 100 pitches over each of the last four starts, and he hasn't logged fewer than six innings since way back in early April. He's also begun to show more upside lately, putting together a 31.8% strikeout rate over his last six starts.

The problem is a rough spot against the Braves, a team brimming with power and is at best a neutral opponent for strikeouts. But on a slate with no sure things once we get past Castillo, he's someone we have to consider.

Darvish faces a more whiff-happy offense. The Giants are tough on righties, but they also strike out 24.1% of the time. Despite what has been an up-and-down campaign, Darvish's underlying numbers are encouraging, as he's put up a 3.83 SIERA, 25.9% strikeout rate, and 7.5% walk rate. And while his pitch counts have been all over the place, when he was dealing against the Cubs a few starts back, he was allowed to go 115 pitches.

Kopech reverted back to his old ways last week, doling out six walks against Seattle. But even with that start, he's produced a 3.40 xFIP, 34.0% strikeout rate, and 7.8% walk rate over his last six outings. Yet again, it's a poor matchup against Texas, but the ceiling's been there to make some noise in tournaments.

Gavin Williams ($8,300) and Garrett Whitlock ($6,600) are the best value plays. Williams is a top prospect making his MLB debut, and he's shown both promise (33.3% strikeout rate) and concerns (11.5% walk rate) in Triple-A. It's always impossible to know how these things will go, but he could hit the ground running in a plum spot against Oakland. While Whitlock has thoroughly average numbers across the board, this is a punt salary against a Twins roster with a whopping 28.2% strikeout rate versus righties.

Hitting Breakdown

We don't have a single implied team total reaching five runs tonight, which could potentially lead to spread-out roster percentages.

The Chicago White Sox have one of the better matchups, though, as their predominantly right-handed lineup is well-suited to take care of a struggling Martin Perez.

Over 14 starts, the left-hander has a 5.03 SIERA and 15.9% strikeout rate, and he's giving up 1.40 home runs per 9 innings off a 37.0% fly-ball rate. Luis Robert ($3,200) is the only guy above $3,000, and then we can look to Eloy Jimenez ($3,000), Jake Burger ($2,900), and Andrew Vaughn ($2,700) as the other top righties.

It says something that the Texas Rangers have one of the slate's highest implied team totals (4.75) because their matchup is a mixed bag against Kopech.

But if Kopech is all over the place with the walks again, the Rangers are the type of offense who will punish him. The righty actually has some reverse splits, owning a 4.87 xFIP and 22.8% strikeout rate against right-handed batters, boosting the prospects of Adolis Garcia ($3,800), Marcus Semien ($3,800), Josh Jung ($3,300), and Mitch Garver ($3,200). Kopech has a scary 31.5% strikeout rate versus lefty sticks, but that comes with a 14.8% walk rate and 50.0% fly-ball rate, so we can still roll with Corey Seager ($4,500) as per usual.

Michael Grove's 4.17 SIERA is nearly half his bloated 8.10 ERA, so there's definitely some poor luck behind his results -- but this is still a plus matchup for the Los Angeles Angels. More specifically, he's dreadful when facing lefties, displaying a 6.22 xFIP, 13.3% strikeout rate, and 11.7% walk rate in the split.

The trouble is that we can't roster Ohtani as a hitter tonight, so we can only take advantage of this with guys like Mickey Moniak ($2,800), Matt Thaiss ($2,200), and Jared Walsh ($2,300). Grove is allowing home runs to both sides of the plate, though, so we can still take our shots on Mike Trout ($3,900), Brandon Drury ($3,100), and Hunter Renfroe ($2,600) to give these stacks more punch.

The Philadelphia Phillies, Seattle Mariners, and San Diego Padres are three more to have on the radar. AJ Smith-Shawver has gotten good results over his first 13 1/3 MLB innings, but he isn't getting a ton of strikeouts (21.2%) and is allowing a boatload of fly balls (51.4%), so the Phillies could get to him. Seattle is facing Jhony Brito, who posted a 5.16 SIERA, 16.9% strikeout rate, and 10.1% walk rate earlier this season and was struggling in the minors before getting called back up. The Padres will presumably see lefty Sean Manaea for the bulk of innings tonight, and he's giving up 1.85 home runs per 9 innings to righty bats.