FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Friday 8/11/23

Our daily fantasy 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 numberFire's great tools into your research process, including daily projections, the latest starting lineups and weather, and batting and pitching heat maps to find the best matchups.

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

Pitching Breakdown

This pitching slate is pretty wide open. I think there are several routes you can take at various salary ranges, which should keep draft percentages pretty spread out.

In my eyes, the top arm is Lance Lynn ($9,900), and the reason for that mostly comes down to his matchup -- a home date with the Colorado Rockies. On the road this year, Colorado is 28th in wOBA (.292) and boasts the second-highest strikeout rate (26.7%). It's about as good of a matchup as there is, and Colorado's 3.28 implied total is a slate-low clip.

With a 26.8% strikeout rate and 13.7% swinging-strike rate, Lynn has plenty of strikeout upside in this spot, giving him a top-notch floor/ceiling combination.

After Lynn, Luis Castillo ($10,600), Justin Verlander ($10,500) and Corbin Burnes ($10,800) are all plenty viable, although Castillo's matchup against the Baltimore Orioles makes him more of a tourney play. Of those three, Burnes is the one I'm most drawn to.

Burnes has been off this campaign, but he's still got quality numbers, including a 25.0% strikeout rate. He's been a lot more Burnes-like over his past seven outings, amassing a 30.4% K rate and 2.93 FIP in that span. The Chicago White Sox -- an offense with the third-lowest wOBA (.292) versus righties and one that could be sans Luis Robert -- are a superb matchup, and Burnes' down year could keep his draft percentage in check.

Joan Adon ($5,500) and Cristopher Sanchez ($8,900) are fine value options, with Adon an extreme value.

Sanchez has been good this year, boasting a 3.52 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) and 23.3% strikeout rate. On most large slates like this one, he probably wouldn't have the ceiling to be worth using, but a date with the Minnesota Twins and their 25.1% strikeout rate versus southpaws gives him a boost.

Adon dropped 40 FanDuel points in a difficult matchup at the Cincinnati Reds last time out and is worth considering at his salary. If he generated even just 20 to 25 FanDuel points, that might be enough given how many high-upside bats his salary allows you to pack into your lineup. The matchup is 100% there, too, as he will see the Oakland Athletics. On the downside, Adon put up just a 20.7% strikeout rate at Triple-A, so the gem versus the Reds was likely an outlier.

Hitting Breakdown

Similar to the pitching on this slate, there are a ton of viable stacks on Friday, with eight offenses carrying an implied total of at least 4.90. With so many good offensive spots and this being a 13-game slate, I wouldn't worry too much about draft percentages as no offense figures to be super chalky.

I'm not sure I've said this in 2023 -- the Kansas City Royals are my top stack. While it's way more about Adam Wainwright than it is KC, the Royals are hot, sitting fifth in wOBA (.348) across the last 14 games. They're showing a 5.37 implied total tonight, the slate's second-highest mark. Just watch the weather for this one as rain could be a big issue.

Wainwright shouldn't be an MLB pitcher anymore. He owns a 5.66 SIERA, 12.2% strikeout rate and 5.5% swinging-strike rate. For as long as he's in the rotation, we'll be stacking against him every fifth day.

There is only one Royals hitter with a salary over $2,900, and that's Bobby Witt Jr. ($3,900). If you have the coin for Witt, go for it. He's a beast. But you can stack KC very economically everywhere else, with MJ Melendez ($2,900), Maikel Garcia ($2,900), Salvador Perez ($2,700) and Freddy Fermin ($2,700) expected to join Witt in the top five of the lineup. Michael Massey ($2,400) looks like one of the slate's better values.

It's another day with the Atlanta Braves (5.35 implied total) and Los Angeles Dodgers (5.22) as elite stacks, and one of the reasons Adon is so appealing today is that using him will let you go berserk with these two high-salary offenses, giving you the cap space to get to all their big boppers.

At this point, it feels like Braves have been on the stacking radar every day for three months, so I'm not going to list off all their top hitters -- you know who they are. I will say that Ronald Acuna ($4,900) is the slate's number-one bat, per numberFire's model. They're taking on Tylor Megill, who at one point last year looked like an emerging ace but has very much not been that guy in 2023, struggling to a 5.30 SIERA and 17.4% strikeout rate.

It's pretty much the same story with the Dodgers -- you're well aware of who their best bats are, so I'm not going to rattle them all off. LA will face Austin Gomber. Across his last eight starts, Gomber has been stingy, recording a 2.63 ERA, but it's mostly a smoke-and-mirrors act. His expected FIP (xFIP) over that time is 4.59, and his K rate is just 15.0%. If it at all seems like Gomber's recent production will keep the masses off the Dodgers, they'll be the stack I have the most exposure to.

Other top stacks: St. Louis Cardinals (5.63 implied total), Philadelphia Phillies (5.20), San Diego Padres (4.94).

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The above author is a FanDuel employee and is not eligible to compete in public daily fantasy contests or place sports betting wagers on FanDuel. The advice provided by the author does not necessarily represent the views of FanDuel. Taking the author's advice will not guarantee a successful outcome. You should use your own judgment when participating in daily fantasy contests or placing sports wagers.