FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Thursday 8/23/18

Following a string of normal-sized main slates, we narrow things down to just four games on Thursday. We may have a small board to work with, but we still get a handful of solid arms to choose from, along with some top-notching hitting spots for the Oakland Athletics, Chicago Cubs, and Atlanta Braves.

Our daily 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 our great tools into your research process. Whether you're looking for daily projections, the latest starting lineups and weather, or batting and pitching heat maps to find the best matchups -- we've got you covered! And don't forget to take a listen to The Solo Shot podcast with Jim Sannes, who breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each day.

On that note, let's highlight some of the top options for today's FanDuel main slate.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitcher

Cole Hamels ($9,200 on FanDuel): Cole Hamels sure looks like a new man in a Chicago Cubs uniform, posting a squeaky clean 0.72 ERA over four starts. As you might expect, the peripherals suggest he hasn't been that good, but we'll still happily take the 3.22 SIERA, 24.7% strikeout rate, 6.5% walk rate, and 59.0% ground-ball rate he's shown over that span. Between Hamels escaping his woes at hitter-friendly Globe Life Park (6.41 ERA in 2018) and not having to face a designated hitter, there's plenty of reason to think he will continue to see improved results moving forward. It might surprise you that the Cincinnati Reds have actually put up a strong 110 wRC+ against southpaws this season, but they aren't fielding the strongest lineup these days, most recently losing Joey Votto to the disabled list. As a result, the Reds are showing just a 3.77 implied team total, and the Cubs ought to give Hamels ample run support off Anthony DeSclafani.