FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Thursday 7/6/23

Thursday's main slate checks in at six games, and we have a good number of offenses with higher implied team totals. As of this writing, half of tonight's teams have totals above 4.70 implied runs.

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

Pitching Breakdown

On this smaller slate, pitcher salaries are down across the board tonight, so we won't have to allocate as much cap space to the position as we might normally do. In fact, the guy who's arguably the top arm is a borderline value play.

That would be Tanner Bibee ($9,200), who draws a plus matchup against the lowly Royals. While Bibee's metrics don't jump off the page, they're perfectly fine in the context of this slate. Over a dozen starts, the 24-year-old has amassed a 4.17 SIERA, 24.4% strikeout rate, and 8.4% walk rate. As a fly-ball pitcher, he's probably gotten a little lucky in the home run department, but he's had respectable quality of contact numbers at least.

As for Kansas City, they just got eviscerated by Pablo Lopez last night and continue to be one of the best possible matchups for opposing right-handers. Their active roster comes in with an 83 wRC+, 25.1% strikeout rate, and 6.9% walk rate in the split, which are all bottom-three marks. Although Bibee often struggles to go six-plus innings, he should have an easier time doing so in this spot, and his workload over his last three outings has been promising (105, 105, and 96 pitches).

Unfortunately, there's one thing that could take us off of Bibee: weather. Naturally, this is the one game with rain concerns, which is something that we'll need to keep tabs on.

If we end up with a washout in Kansas City, Kyle Bradish ($8,500) is a viable alternative at an even lower salary. It's still weird to say, but the Yankees aren't an imposing offense versus right-handers these days, as their active roster is down to an 85 wRC+ in that split.

Despite a flukey one-strikeout performance against Toronto in mid-June, Bradish's punchouts have been on the rise since the beginning of that month, coming to a healthy 27.7% strikeout rate in his last six starts. If that wasn't enough, he's also posted a 2.98 xFIP, 5.1% walk rate, and 51.1% ground-ball rate over this span. On a night lacking elite K rates, Bradish's recent play stands out -- and even more so at this salary.

George Kirby ($10,200) is the lone pitcher with a five-figure salary, and he's typically a safe bet to go six-to-seven innings and nab the quality start bonus. Kirby leads all qualified starters with an absurdly-low 2.2% walk rate, and that control has helped him tie two others for the league's second-most quality starts (13). He's logged seven or more innings in 7 of his 16 appearances, too.

A modest 21.4% strikeout rate tends to limit his ceiling in most starts, but he'll rarely crush your lineup and has still managed to pop off for 50-plus FanDuel points a couple of times. This is a neutral matchup against the Astros, but Houston is still without slugger Yordan Alvarez, and they could also be missing Jose Altuve, who's sat out the last two games.

Finally, Nathan Eovaldi ($9,900) is in the midst of a banner campaign, but a decent gap between his 2.64 ERA and 3.71 SIERA point to some good fortune in his results. Additionally, this isn't an ideal matchup against his old team. The Red Sox are an above-average offense versus righties and could have as many as six left-handed batters starting tonight. That's of particular note against Eovaldi because he has a much higher strikeout rate facing righty sticks (27.0%) compared to lefties (21.8%).

High temperatures and a hitter-friendly Fenway Park are also factors working against Eovaldi, and that's evident when we see that Boston's up at a 4.71 implied team total. None of this is to say that Eovaldi can't put up a big score, but he probably shouldn't be a priority, either.

Hitting Breakdown

It sure looks like 36-year-old Carlos Carrasco is running on a tank nearing empty these days, and that places the Arizona Diamondbacks high on tonight's stacking list.

Over 11 starts, Carrasco has produced a 5.32 SIERA, 16.3% strikeout rate, and 10.8% walk rate while coughing up 2.04 home runs per 9 innings. Incredibly, he's given up at least one home run in all but one of his starts. Given his high 21.4% homer-to-fly-ball rate, I would normally chalk this up to bad luck, but he's been getting absolutely pummeled with hard contact, leaving him with a 6.51 xERA. Although quality of contact data can sometimes be misleading for pitchers, that probably isn't the case when it's this extreme and consistent.

Technically, Carrasco is inducing more grounders against left-handed batters, but he's otherwise showing terrible marks against both sides of the plate, so I'm not too concerned about splits. Corbin Carroll ($4,000), Ketel Marte ($3,600), and Christian Walker ($3,100) are the key pieces, and then Geraldo Perdomo ($2,700) is a value leadoff man, and Lourdes Gurriel ($3,000) continues to show nice power.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are seemingly always in play -- particularly on these lighter slates -- and that's especially when they're up against a pitcher like Johan Oviedo. Over 17 outings, the right-hander has an underwhelming 4.74 SIERA, 19.2% strikeout rate, and 9.0% walk rate. While he's generally done a good job of keeping the ball in the park over his career, that's not something we're worried about when it's the Dodgers taking their hacks against him.

Similar to Carrasco, we don't need to be picky when it comes to choosing between lefties or righties here, though the right-hander does have a lower strikeout rate (16.8%) and ground-ball rate (42.6%) in same-sided matchups if you need a tiebreaker. Given the salaries at pitcher, it should be much easier to get up to Mookie Betts ($4,400), Freddie Freeman ($4,200), J.D. Martinez ($3,800), Max Muncy ($3,700), and/or Will Smith ($3,600) tonight.

As of this writing, it's the Texas Rangers who actually carry the night's highest implied team total (5.29) despite facing a quality pitcher in righty Kutter Crawford. That being said, Crawford does give up his share of dingers (1.57 per 9 innings), and he's posted a mere 4.58 xFIP and 16.8% strikeout rate versus right-handed batters. Adolis Garcia ($3,700), Marcus Semien ($3,600), Josh Jung ($3,400), and Ezequiel Duran ($3,200) are the potential big winners, and we can always look to lefty Corey Seager ($4,200) in any Rangers stack.

The Cleveland Guardians, New York Mets, and Baltimore Orioles are other offenses of note. Although Cleveland's lack of pop diminishes their upside as a stack, if nothing else, we can always roster Jose Ramirez ($3,800) against Jordan Lyles. For the Mets' matchup, Ryne Nelson has gotten some good results lately, but he's still a low-strikeout pitcher who particularly struggles with left-handed sticks, showing a 5.59 xFIP and 13.7% strikeout rate in the split. Baltimore will face Luis Severino, who has struggled to find his way this season, owning a 5.09 xFIP, 18.0% strikeout rate, and 9.5% walk rate after eight starts.