FanDuel MLB Daily Lineups: Friday June 29

Welcome to the FanDuel MLB Daily Lineups column for Friday, June 29th 2018. We’re a fantasy baseball column focused on helping you build a DFS MLB optimal lineup for each slate.

We’ve been unable to write about FanDuel MLB for the past couple of days, but we stayed in the game. Yesterday was a difficult set of slates. The Early Only was easier to manage, but the Main slate was just ugly.

Ultimately, Zack Greinke was likely the best pitcher to own in the Main slate, and he wasn’t too expensive. Greinke gave up seven hits over seven innings, but somehow the Marlins never scored a run. Zack also piled up a solid six K’s during the outing. Paul Goldschmidt stayed hot away from Arizona (ironic), and Nick Ahmed was a great value play for offense as well.

But most of the offense came in the Early Only slate. The Cubs piled up an awesome 11 runs, while the Rockies and Giants had a combined 17 runs. Stacking the Cubs and Rockies offenses in the Early Only was an easy way to win the slate, almost regardless of who was pitching. But in the Main slate, you were in trouble without Greinke.

Fortunately, the Friday Main slate for FanDuel MLB is an awesome one. The starting pitcher list is chock-full of great pitching talent, some elite, there’s some intriguing value plays, and within that list there are plenty of offensive targeting options as well.

Before we get there, a reminder to never take a DFS MLB optimal lineup as ‘bible’ for your personal lineup each day. Use the suggestions as guidance. Also, make sure you follow final lineup thoughts throughout the day on our twitter account @FantasyCPR or me @mattymcmatt17 look for late breaking lineup news.

Weather Note: Today’s weather is generally fantastic for baseball. Yes, it will be hot, and hotter than normal at night, but things slowly cool down as the sun lowers. Regardless, there are zero, I repeat ZERO, shower and thunderstorm chances across all stadiums. Play whoever you want without worried about weather tonight!

With weather-related considerations addressed, let’s get to the top pitching options…

FanDuel MLB: Top Pitcher Main Slate

You likely need a solid pitcher with a 40 to 50 FanDuel MLB point baseline and 60 to 70 point ceiling to win cash games tonight. For GPP, however, tonight is one of those nights were you need to target a good, value, low-ownership type of play.

There are actually plenty of good options for the SP spot in cash games tonight, making ownership less of a concern. That is excited, because some nights like this, you basically plug in the 70-80% owned pitcher and focus all of your energy defining the best offense.

I don’t love Trevor Bauer ($12,000) match up against the A’s tonight. Oakland is an under-the-radar efficient offense, and can be tricky to gauge. However, Bauer is having a fantastic season, and we can’t ignore his 31.8% K-rate. Still, between Bauer and the rest of this list, there are better options. Especially with the $12K price tag.

Jacob deGrom ($11,700) is in Miami, but he has a better match up, against the Marlins, than Bauer. We’re not sure if deGrom will get a win, because the Mets offense likes to take the night off when he’s on the mound. But we do know Jake is throwing an easy seven to eight K’s per game, isn’t giving up more than one to three runs per game, and matches his 31.4% K-rate with Miami’s 23.7% rate against RHP’s. deGrom is one of the better plays for cash games tonight.

Still, I think we can get better value out of this slate. Yes, Gerrit Cole ($11,500) has a ridiculous 36.3% K-rate, but that’s not who I’m talking about. We’ve faded Patrick Corbin ($9,600) the last two weeks because his performance seemed to be settling away from his dominating play earlier in the season.

Last week, that was a huge mistake. The Pirates, with a 101 wRC+ and low 21% K-rate against LHP’s, are one of the better southpaw smashers. But Patrick only gave up three hits to the Pirates last week, in seven innings, with no walks or runs, and he earned a quality start. Best of all, Corbin had 12 K’s for a monster 61 FanDuel MLB point result.

Tonight, Corbin and the D-Backs have a better match up in Chase Field. The Giants aren’t bad at hitting lefties, but they’re much worse than the Pirates. Their 22.6% K-rate also opens the door to a higher strikeout rate tonight. So we’d rather save some salary, and drop down to Corbin for the cash game plays.

For the GPP plays, we’re going super-risky tonight. Well, not totally risk. I mean, Sandy Alcantara ($5,500) is the Marlins top pitching prospect. Also, the Mets bats seem to fall silent each time deGrom is on the mound. And, it’s in Miami. So this isn’t the worse time to have Alcantara make his first major league start for the Marlins. We could get 20 to 30 FanDuel MLB points out of Sandy tonight, with a loaded set of bats. But, Alcantara has 40 to 50 point potential as well.

FanDuel MLB: Top Hitting Stacks Main Slate

Five of tonight’s starting pitchers are giving up around two or more home runs per nine innings. Yes, you read that correctly…five. And that’s before you even get to Chase Anderson‘s 1.75 per nine. So, in short, we have a lot of offensive targets to consider tonight.

Wilmer Font and Yovani and Wilmer Font don’t have a lot of starting experience this season, so their numbers are skewed a bit. But we can’t ignore the fact that they’re giving up nearly three home runs per nine innings, when pitching. That’s basically a home run every three innings…at least.

Even better, that two pitcher stack gives us big expensive Astros bats mixed with affordable, but offensively productive White Sox bats. It’s feasible to play Jose Altuve ($4,500) and Alex bregman ($4,600) with Jose Abreu ($3,300). Jake Marisnick ($2,300) has been red-hot, but still dirt-cheap. Josh Reddick ($2,600) has the lefty-righty match up, and guys like Avisail Garcia ($2,400) and Tim Anderson ($3,100) can pile up FanDuel MLB points with multiple hits and runs.

But, like we said, you have options tonight. The Rockies piled up nine runs last night, and Rich Hill is surprisingly struggling to keep the ball down. Hill has been giving up two long-balls a game since returning to the mound.

Also, Felix Pena only has a couple starts and a decent amount of K’s, but the D-Backs and Blue Jays were getting on base easily against the young RHP. That bodes well for the Orioles, who are home at Camden Yards.

In fact, with David Hess also on the mound in Baltimore, you could stack the game with the Angles in your offense as well. Think Mike Trout ($5,100) is pricey? Not if you’re building your GPP lineup with Alcantara!

Lastly, we’ve been targeting Chase Anderson all season. Anderson has looked solid in the past two years, but he’s struggling to keep the ball down this year. Anderson’s home run rate consinues to flirt with two per game. Also, the Reds offense has been surprisingly hot lately.

FanDuel MLB: Summary and Example Lineup

We have many options at pitcher tonight. For FanDuel MLB cash games, we like Jacob deGrom, but Patrick Corbin is our better play. Corbin is more affordable, and has a ceiling and match up similar to deGrom’s. For GPP, we like Alcantara in the pitcher spot, loading up our offense with basically the NL or AL All-Star team.

For offensive stacks, we have even more options. In fact, it’s surprising how many great offensive options we have, when you consider some of the top, sometimes elite, pitching talent also on the mound tonight. But our focus starts with the Astros and Whit Sox, followed by the Rockies, Orioles, Angels, and Reds.

With that summary in mind, here’s a look at a sample CASH lineup for the MAIN FanDuel MLB slate on Friday, June 29th 2018:

FanDuel MLB Main Slate Sample Lineup: 

P               Patrick Corbin ($9,600)

C/1B        Jose Abreu ($3,300)

2B             Jose Altuve ($4,500)

3B             Alex Bregman ($4,600)

SS             Tim Anderson ($3,100)

OF             Josh Reddick ($2,600)

OF             Avisail Garcia ($2,400)

OF             Jake Marisnick ($2,300)

UTIL          Daniel Palka ($2,600)

Remaining Salary: $0 

Note: This is a recommended lineup after discussing our top options for today. You should use this as a guide, and provide your own input when building FanDuel NHL lineups.  We are not telling you, or selling you, to use this lineup.

Next: MLB DFS Game by Game Breakdown

Best of luck in your FanDuel MLB contests and stay tuned to Fantasy CPR for all your DFS news and analysis across MLB, PGA, and World Cup this summer!