FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Tuesday 4/13/21

With a bevy of number one starters taking their third turn on the hill tonight, we've got a pretty stacked pitching slate on our hands. That could limit the number of hitting spots we're interested in, but early in the day, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros lead the way in implied team totals.

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

Pitchers

Trevor Bauer ($11,000): We may generally avoid rostering pitchers at Coors Field, but when the Colorado Rockies hit the road, it's an entirely different story. As is, Trevor Bauer held his own in his Dodgers debut at Coors with 10 punchouts over 6.1 innings, and in addition to a successful start versus the Athletics, he's looked every bit the part of an ace, rocking a 2.29 SIERA, 39.2% strikeout rate, and 5.9% walk rate thus far. Bauer now gets to face the Rockies at Dodger Stadium, and with Colorado's active roster owning a 79 wRC+ and 25.2% strikeout rate versus righties dating back to 2019, it's of little surprise we see them sporting a 2.82 implied total tonight.

Shane Bieber ($11,200): In a somewhat similar situation to Gerrit Cole yesterday, Shane Bieber clearly has the ceiling to post the top score on any given night, but his matchup is less appealing against the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox aren't a bad matchup for strikeouts, though, with a 24.5% clip versus righties from 2019 to the present, and a 3.50 implied total certainly favors Bieber, as well. Outside of issuing too many walks in his two starts, it's hard to complain about Beiber's early results, which include 24 strikeouts over 12.1 innings (45.3% rate) and a ridiculous 22.2% swinging-strike rate.

Lucas Giolito ($9,800): If you need a little extra salary to fit in your bats, you don't have to skimp on upside if you hop a couple of rungs down to Lucas Giolito. Not to be outdone by the previous two, Giolito's mowing down batters at a roaring pace, too, showing a 42.9% strikeout rate and 19.1% swinging-strike rate early on. The Chicago ace will be opposite Bieber tonight, and he's actually the one with the less imposing draw, facing a Cleveland team with a 90 wRC+ against right-handers from 2019-21.

Others to Consider: Brandon Woodruff ($8,800)

Hitters

Los Angeles Dodgers: The Dodgers have one of the best lineups in baseball and are facing a pitcher with a 10.2% strikeout rate in 2021. I don't think you need much more to deduce why Los Angeles is one of the slate's top stacks.

That strikeout rate isn't a fluke for Antonio Senzatela, who's posted a rate below 14% in back-to-back seasons. As always, his one calling card is a high ground-ball rate (53.8% in 2021), but that isn't likely to do him much good against a lineup pretty much entirely made up of fly-ball hitters.

While all the usual studs are in play, Senzatela posted an especially poor 5.28 xFIP and 11.3% strikeout rate against lefty sticks in 2020, so be sure to target Corey Seager ($3,900) and Max Muncy ($3,200) where you can, and Gavin Lux ($2,600) offers some salary relief.

Houston Astros: As of this writing, the Astros have the highest implied total on the board (5.11) against home run machine Matt Boyd. However, Boyd is actually coming off a promising start against the Twins, allowing 3 earned runs over 7.0 innings with 8 strikeouts, and he hasn't let up any dingers yet.

That said, his peripheral numbers haven't been anything exciting, and history favors the home run ball for right-handed batters (1.74 allowed per 9 innings over Boyd's career). That puts us on Jose Altuve ($4,000), Alex Bregman ($3,900), Carlos Correa ($3,100), and Yuli Gurriel ($2,900) as top targets. Lefty Yordan Alvarez ($3,700) doesn't benefit as much from the matchup, but his power can't be ignored in stacks.

Tampa Bay Rays: Part of the reason we ought to see lineups quickly gravitate towards the Dodgers and Astros is that the implied totals take a dip after them, as it's easier to poke holes in our potential stacking matchups. This could be a reason to get a little wild with your stacks in large-field tournaments or implement more one-offs with your primary four-man stack.

For the Rays, we see them take on Kyle Gibson, who was lit up in his opening start but then bounced back nicely in his second with eight strikeouts over six scoreless innings against the Blue Jays.

Hopefully, we get the bad version of Gibson tonight, and Tampa Bay's left-handed bats have history on their side. Gibson has consistently shown a lower strikeout rate and ground-ball rate over his career against lefties, and he got slapped around with a 5.22 xFIP in the split last season.

Austin Meadows ($3,200) and Brandon Lowe ($2,700) are the two guys you want to start with, and Yoshi Tsutsugo ($2,400) and Joey Wendle ($3,300) should be two other lefties batting in the top six. Randy Arozarena ($3,600) is a righty, but he's also firmly in play as one of the Rays' top overall bats.

Others to Consider: Los Angeles Angels