MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Monday 7/18/16

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.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitchers

Jose Fernandez ($12,000 on FanDuel): Blessed is every day in which we get to lather slobber on Jose Fernandez. His 36.6% strikeout rate this year is the third-best in MLB history, trailing just seasons by some dudes named Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson. He was having issues with walks earlier in the year, but over his past nine starts, Fernandez has trimmed his walk rate to a drool-inducing 3.6% with a 2.07 SIERA. Although the Philadelphia Phillies' offense is improving significantly, their 21.0% strikeout rate and 6.5% walk rate against righties are still exploitable, especially when a generational talent like Fernandez is on the bump.