MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Friday 5/12/17

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. We've also got our Solo Shot Podcast, which breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each day. Here's today's episode.

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

Lance McCullers ($8,800 on FanDuel): Entering the year, Lance McCullers was an improved walk rate away from being one of the game's best pitchers. Through seven starts this year, he has put that down to 7.5%, the lowest mark of his career. Whew, doggies. That has put his SIERA down to 2.92 with a 28.9% strikeout rate, the best marks for a non-Coors pitcher on the slate. McCullers pairs that with sickly batted-ball stats in his 58.1% ground-ball rate and 21.3% hard-hit rate. The matchup is tough as he faces the New York Yankees, but this new-look McCullers is capable of shutting down any team. Let's lock him in while the pricing is still abundantly favorable.