MLB

FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Tuesday 7/12/22

The San Diego Padres will be popular again in another plus matchup at Coors Field. Which other stacks and which pitchers stand out tonight?

Coors Field will draw plenty of attention on Tuesday, but they're hardly the only show in town on a deep 13-game main slate. And while this isn't a slate filled to the brim with aces, there's still plenty of upside in tonight's pitching selection.

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!

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

Pitchers

Gerrit Cole ($10,600): Cole is the top pitching talent on the board, and his matchup versus the Reds only further solidifies his status as the night's best option.

Cole comes in with a pristine 2.98 SIERA, 31.2% strikeout rate, and 7.3% walk rate, and he's been about as consistent as you could hope, earning quality starts in 11 of his last 14 outings.

Meanwhile, Cincinnati's active roster owns a 93 wRC+ and 23.3% strikeout rate versus right-handed pitching. Their 3.18 implied total is the slate's lowest.

On a night lacking many guys with upper-tier strikeout rates, we shouldn't overthink rostering Cole in this spot.

Spencer Strider ($9,100): Perhaps the best candidate to give Cole a run for his money is Strider, but his matchup is a tough one against the Mets. While the Mets may not have the most power, their active roster still possesses an upside-sapping 19.6% strikeout rate versus righties.

But Strider's the type of pitcher who can slice through resilient opponents with a 39.1% strikeout rate and 16.6% swinging-strike rate. He's racked up double-digit punchouts in three of his eight starts, and two of them came against low-strikeout opponents in the Cardinals and Nationals.

Walks have been a problem at times for Strider (9.6% rate), but he hasn't let it get out of control lately, issuing two or fewer free passes in each of his last six starts.

His 2.38 SIERA backs up his excellent results to this point.

Overall, it's just hard to look past someone bordering on a 40% strikeout rate at this salary -- regardless of the matchup -- and Strider's job could get a little easier if Starling Marte sits out again tonight. The Mets have a fairly modest 3.61 implied total.

Luis Garcia ($9,500): Garcia can't hang with Cole and Strider when it comes to pure firepower, but he's got the right matchup to help level the playing field.

The Angels have some elite bats, but they're far and away the best opponent for strikeouts, as their active roster has a league-worst 28.3% strikeout rate versus right-handers.

That should boost Garcia's already solid profile, one that features a 3.53 SIERA, 25.7% strikeout rate, and 6.5% walk rate.

However, the main concern with him is workload. The Astros are typically content with leaving Garcia's pitch counts hovering right around 90 pitches, so he really needs to be on his game to go six-plus innings. He did log a season-high 101 pitches two starts ago, though, so perhaps he could have a little more leeway moving forward.

Cole and Strider are more likely to post slate-winning scores, putting them ahead of Garcia, but this matchup is enough to give Garcia a path to a higher ceiling than he usually offers.

Stacks

San Diego Padres

The San Diego Padres have the highest implied total again tonight (5.85), this time facing left-hander Austin Gomber in the confines of Coors Field. We're also still seeing lower salaries on the Padres, with only Manny Machado ($4,500) and Jake Cronenworth ($3,800) salaried above $3,200.

So, yeah, they'll be pretty popular.

Gomber's been hit around this season for a 6.46 ERA, and while ERA estimators have been more kind to him, a 17.7% strikeout rate and 42.9% ground-ball rate isn't moving the needle much at Coors.

If you're picking just one Padre, Machado is the obvious choice, leading the team with a .228 ISO and .392 wOBA. His 158 wRC+ is 30 points higher than anyone else's on the team.

After that, it's just a matter of taking advantage of value righties like Luke Voit ($3,200) and Jorge Alfaro ($2,800) in the middle of the order, and Ha-Seong Kim ($3,300) should bat leadoff if he's back.

New York Yankees

Although the New York Yankees aren't sneaking by anyone tonight, they ought to see lower roster percentages than San Diego does, and they're showing one of the next-best implied totals (5.32).

Cincinnati's Graham Ashcraft has gotten respectable results over nine starts, but a 13.4% strikeout rate isn't what you want to be bringing into Yankee Stadium. Additionally, Ashcraft is actually showing worse underlying numbers in same-sided matchups. In the split, he's posted a 4.83 xFIP and 12.9% strikeout rate, and his 45.1% ground-ball rate is far lower than his elite mark versus lefties (60.9%).

That's all we need to hear to lock in Aaron Judge ($4,200) and Giancarlo Stanton ($3,800). DJ LeMahieu ($3,300) and Josh Donaldson ($3,100) are the usual mid-salaried righties to work in around them.

Ashcraft's high ground-ball rate versus lefties is hardly enough to move us away from Anthony Rizzo ($3,700) as a top option, too.

Texas Rangers

You don't need to limit yourself to the above stacks because we're actually loaded with good-to-great alternatives. We have 14 different teams with implied totals above 4.50, and the Texas Rangers are one such team at 4.69.

The take on right-hander James Kaprielian, someone who has really fallen back down to earth after a promising 2021 campaign. This season, he's put together just a 5.36 SIERA, 14.9% strikeout rate, 10.9% walk rate, and 41.0% ground-ball rate. He checks all the boxes of a pitcher we want to pick on, and to top it off, he has poor splits against both lefties and righties.

Corey Seager ($4,000) and Adolis Garcia ($3,700) are the top power options for Texas, and an improved Marcus Semien ($3,700) is finally looking like himself in the summer months.

The rest of the lineup comes in at value salaries, with Kole Calhoun ($2,700) being particularly appealing as a cheap source of pop.