FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Wednesday 8/9/23

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

I think we have a two-pitcher top tier tonight, and it's Shohei Ohtani ($11,200) and Kevin Gausman ($11,000). Both offer elite-level strikeout upside and are in a nice matchup.

Ohtani gets the San Francisco Giants. The Giants have a slate-low 3.72 implied total and are ice cold offensively of late, posting a .288 wOBA and 23.9% strikeout rate across the last 14 days. Pair that with Ohtani's ability to miss bats -- 31.8% strikeout rate -- and the two-way star could break the slate tonight. I give him the edge over Gausman.

As for Gausman, his matchup isn't quite as good as Ohtani's as he will see the Cleveland Guardians. Cleveland doesn't pack much pop (21st in wOBA against righties), but they also barely strike out (lowest K rate). Because of that, Gausman comes in a notch below Ohtani in my eyes, although he's plenty capable of posting a big score. Cleveland's 3.73 implied total is nearly identical to San Fran's.

Max Fried ($10,600) is someone I'll mostly shy away from today. He's a good pitcher -- no doubt -- and the matchup with the Pittsburgh Pirates is a soft one. But Fried always falls into the bucket of being a better real-life pitcher than DFS asset due to a lack of elite strikeout ability. On top of that, this is Fried's second start off the IL, and the Atlanta Braves -- who are 50 games up in the NL East -- have every reason to be careful with his workload. I would be way more interested if Fried offered a big salary discount from the top two, but that's not the case.

If I deviate from Gausman and Ohtani, it'll be for Yu Darvish ($9,800) or Nick Pivetta ($8,500).

Pivetta checks a couple of boxes; the salary is very appealing and so is the matchup (Kansas City Royals). And Pivetta has been downright nasty lately, recording a 2.71 expected FIP (xFIP) and 38.6% strikeout rate -- yes, 38.6% -- over his last 10 appearances. While that spans only 39 innings due to Pivetta spending some time in the 'pen, I'm more than willing to hop on board against a KC offense that has the 11th-highest strikeout rate (23.5%) and fourth-worst wOBA (.296) against right-handers.

Darvish has the ability to lead the slate in punchouts in a date with a Seattle Mariners offense that owns the second-highest strikeout rate versus right-handers (26.1%) while also sporting just the 20th-best wOBA in the split (.312). Darvish has been all over the place lately in terms of his single-game strikeout rates -- 15.4%, 39.1%, 13.0%, 28.0% and 37.5% over the last five -- but the upside is there is he's on.

Hitting Breakdown

Well, I'm going to write up the Boston Red Sox again. They've had lofty implied totals each of the past two days and have underwhelmed each time. I hope that scares the masses away today because they can nuke Jordan Lyles. Oddsmakers aren't scared as they've given Boston a slate-leading 6.12 implied total.

Lyles might be the worst starter in baseball. He's got a 5.20 skill-interactive ERA (SIERA) and 16.2% strikeout rate while also giving up a 49.1% fly-ball rate and 1.75 homers per nine innings. Baseball can be super weird and unpredictable, but all signs point to the Red Sox teeing off.

Rafael Devers ($3,500) is the main attraction, but Boston has a lot of modest-salaried bats -- including Trevor Story ($3,300), Masataka Yoshida ($3,200), Jarren Duran($3,100), Alex Verdugo ($2,900), Triston Casas ($2,800) and Adam Duvall ($2,900) -- who make it fairly easy to stack the Red Sox and still use one of Gausman or Ohtani. I think that'll be the common lineup build tonight.

The Braves are a top stack once again, and their 5.84 implied total may be selling them a bit short versus Quinn Priester. There's not much in Priester's Triple-A numbers from this year (4.30 xFIP and 22.4% K rate) or his early MLB output (5.73 SIERA) that point toward him having big-league success. And, as you may have heard, Atlanta's offense is pretty good.

I'm not going to rattle off all the stackable Braves because it's all of them. I do, though, want to mention Michael Harris II ($2,900). There's a chance Ronald Acuna ($4,900) sits today after exiting early last night, and if that happens, Harris could be bumped up a couple of slots from his usual spot at the bottom of the lineup, which would obviously be a boost to his outlook. If Harris got moved all the way up to leadoff, he'd be one of the slate's premier plays.

After those two offenses, there is a drop, with the next tier containing the New York Yankees, Los Angeles Dodgers, Baltimore Orioles and Houston Astros. Of those four, the Yanks are the offense I most want exposure to, and their salaries are really handy. Just make sure their game plays as rain could be an issue in Chicago.

Mike Clevinger isn't good. He's struggled to a 5.18 SIERA and 18.5% strikeout rate. These days, even with Aaron Judge ($4,000) back, the Yankees need a really great matchup to be a viable stack. This is one of those great matchups.

Outside of Judge, no one in New York's projected lineup comes in with a salary above $3,100. Judge is clearly the best play from the lineup -- I'm sure you needed me to say that -- and numberFire's model has him ranked as the slate's number-one hitter, 3.2 FanDuel points above anyone else (if Acuna doesn't play).

After Judge, I have my sights set on Jake Bauers ($2,700), DJ LeMahieu ($2,500), Giancarlo Stanton ($3,000) and Gleyber Torres ($3,100). Bauers will likely be atop the order while LeMahieu is eligible at three positions (1B/2B/3B).

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.