FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Thursday 9/8/22

Tonight's three-game main slate gets going slightly earlier at 6:45 p.m. ET. Given the quality of tonight's pitching, offense will be tougher to come by -- not a single team has an implied total that cracks even four runs.

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

Dylan Cease ($10,800): On the short slate, it's easy to like Cease, who has a slate-best 31.4% strikeout rate and draws a cupcake matchup against the Athletics.

Against right-handers, Oakland's active roster carries a 90 wRC+, 23.3% strikeout rate, and 7.3% walk rate -- all of which are bottom-10 marks. Unsurprisingly, they have a poor 3.01 implied total tonight, too.

A 10.4% walk rate is one of the few things that can slow down Cease, but that shouldn't be as much of a problem against an opponent lacking many players who take free passes.

The sky's the limit when Cease is efficient with his pitches, and he's gone eight and nine innings over his last two starts while tallying a combined 15 punchouts. Another deep outing could be in store for him in this spot.

Sandy Alcantara ($10,200): And speaking of pitching deep into games, there's no one better at it in 2022 than Alcantara.

Despite getting shelled in two of his last three starts against the Dodgers and Braves, Alcantara still leads the league in innings by a comfortable margin, and most of his closest competition has an extra start over him. As a reminder, the Miami righty has hit at least seven innings in 18 of 27 starts and gone eight or nine frames in 11 of those.

This has helped him maintain a high fantasy ceiling despite an otherwise pedestrian 22.9% strikeout rate. He checks every other box, though, with strong marks in walk rate (6.3%), ground-ball rate (53.7%), and hard-hit rate (27.4%).

The Phillies aren't pushovers versus righties, but their 105 wRC+ sits in the middle of the pack, and their 23.0% strikeout rate can push some extra punchouts our way. It's been a tough stretch for Alcantara lately, but we shouldn't let a couple of missteps sway us from rostering him.

Considering the lack of must-have stacks tonight, you probably don't need to take the value route at pitcher. But if you do, Kyle Gibson ($9,100) is a possibility on the other side of this game. The Marlins have a lackluster 88 wRC+ when facing righties, and Gibson has proven he can still pop for the occasional big game here and there.

Stacks

Chicago White Sox

The Chicago White Sox have the highest implied total on the board, but don't get too excited -- it's just 3.99.

Still, this isn't a bad matchup for them against left-hander JP Sears, who comes in with a 4.59 SIERA and 16.1% strikeout rate. The White Sox are well-suited to take advantage of opposing southpaws, as they can field an entire lineup of righties and switch-hitters.

While Sears hasn't allowed a ton of home runs this season, he's giving up a 42.6% fly-ball rate to righties, so the opportunities should be there for Chicago's power hitters.

The White Sox are a cost-effective stack, as well, with only Jose Abreu ($3,300) showing a salary above $2,900. In addition to Abreu, we can get solid pop from the likes of Andrew Vaughn ($2,600), Eloy Jimenez ($2,600), and A.J. Pollock ($2,900).

If you need a punt, Elvis Andrus ($2,200) is basically free out of the leadoff spot, too.

New York Yankees

It's slim pickings out there tonight, and it might be more of a slate where you gravitate away from traditional four-man stacks and skew toward mini-stacks and one-offs.

That could be the case here with the New York Yankees. Their matchup against Sonny Gray is nothing special, and the Yanks' lineup is looking awfully thin these days. But we know MVP candidate Aaron Judge ($5,100) is a nightly home-run threat, and Gray actually has lesser marks in same-sided matchups this season with a 21.6% strikeout rate and 9.3% walk rate in the split.

If he's back in the lineup, Giancarlo Stanton ($2,700) can also be considered despite his terrible slump since coming off the injured list this month. He's still in the league's top five when it comes to barrels per plate appearance, so that power is still lurking somewhere.

It's tough to get too stoked with the rest of the lineup, but everyone else is at or near the minimum salary, so this is an easy team to stack if you do go all in. DJ LeMahieu ($2,500) benefits from batting directly ahead of Judge, and Ronald Guzman ($2,000) has shown some pop over his career and may be batting in the heart of the order.