FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Thursday 6/15/23

We actually have a good deal of talent at pitcher for a seven-game slate, but it's also difficult to pick an absolute favorite when factoring in recent form and matchups. One stack stands out over the rest, but it's naturally the one spot where we're expecting bad weather.

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

Pitching Breakdown

There isn't necessarily a clear top option on tonight's slate, and there are cases to be made for rostering all of the guys above $10,000. Those five are Nathan Eovaldi ($11,000), Shohei Ohtani ($10,700), Marcus Stroman ($10,500), Cristian Javier ($10,300), and Sonny Gray ($10,100).

Let's begin with Ohtani. He hasn't exactly been crushing it on the mound lately, and a tough matchup looms versus the Rangers, but if we're thinking strictly in terms of upside, he still looks like our first guy to consider.

While Shohei has fallen short of quality starts over his last two, he still boasts a slate-best 33.3% strikeout rate for the year, and every other guy listed above comes short of 26%. He's also regularly allowed to pitch deep into games, logging six or more innings in 10 of 13 starts.

The main concerns lie with Ohtani's 11.1% walk rate -- he's issued three or more free passes in three of his last four starts -- and a Texas team that's been one of the league's most dangerous offenses. The Rangers' active roster has a frightening 122 wRC+ and .192 ISO versus right-handed pitching

Perhaps the one thing working in Ohtani's favor is that Texas' 8.3% walk rate in the split is a bottom-10 mark, so his occasional wildness could be less of a factor tonight. The Rangers are also a neutral matchup for punchouts, so Shohei shouldn't have a problem racking up the Ks if he's on his game.

But mostly, this boils down to betting on Ohtani's immense talents against an imposing opponent, and numberFire's projections back him as the night's top scorer.

If we're going with the guy benefiting from the softest matchup, that has to be Gray. Against right-handers, Detroit's active roster ranks last in wRC+ (77) and ISO (.122) and has the fifth-worst strikeout rate (24.6%).

Admittedly, Gray has been going through a rough patch over his last five starts, but three of those have come against top-tier offenses between the Dodgers, Giants, and Blue Jays, and the Astros aren't a walk in the park when they're at full strength, either. Even the Guardians suppress Ks despite being an otherwise below-average lineup.

This is easily Gray's best spot in a long time to bounce back, and while he's been fortunate to allow one home run all season, he still has a respectable 3.95 SIERA and a solid 25.2% strikeout rate. The Tigers have the slate's worst implied team total (3.19).

Eovaldi has been about as consistent as Texas could have hoped, recording quality starts in 8 of his last 10 starts, and playing behind a strong offense has also helped him pile up eight wins over that span. Overall, he's rocking a 3.52 SIERA, 24.9% strikeout rate, 5.1% walk rate, and 50.9% ground-ball rate, and he even has two complete games on the books.

The slate-high salary is a little tougher to stomach without an elite strikeout rate, but it's hard to complain about that profile. He's on the other side of that Ohtani game, though, and the Angels have a pretty strong offense themselves (111 wRC+ versus righties). That arguably slots him in behind Ohtani's elite punchouts and Gray's cupcake matchup, but he's still a very good play.

Rounding out these five, Stroman and Javier are practically interchangeable as guys who probably won't accumulate a ton of punchouts tonight but have a great chance of blanking their respective opponents.

Stroman has what would normally be an average matchup versus Pittsburgh, except this is one of those windy Wrigley Field days where winds are blowing in at roughly 14 mph and temperatures could drop below 60 degrees. As a result, the Pirates have a 3.20 implied team total. Stroman isn't a big strikeout guy and often falls short of even 90 pitches, but his 61.0% ground-ball rate helps him remain brutally efficient, with quality starts in 12 of his 14 appearances, and he also has a complete game under his belt.

While Javier brings a better strikeout rate to the table (24.8%) than Stroman, the Nationals have a 19.3% K rate versus righties, which is the third-lowest clip among active rosters. The good news is that the Nats are an otherwise awful offense, though, owning an 83 wRC+ in the split. Javier should be able to cruise in this spot but might need some of the others to flop in order to contend for a perfect lineup slot.

For a value play, MacKenzie Gore ($8,600) is the most likely guy to hang with the big boys. Despite his modest salary, Gore actually ranks second on the slate in strikeout rate (28.2%), and while his walk rate is still high (9.9%), he's doled out more than two just once over his last nine starts (7.2%).

Unfortunately, this is a poor matchup for fantasy points against Houston, as the Astros' active roster has a mere 15.8% strikeout rate versus lefties this season, and even if we expand out to 2022, that number rises to just 16.9%. It's hardly ideal, but on a slate where every pitcher has some level of increased risk, he's a possibility.

Hitting Breakdown

The Atlanta Braves have a slate-best 5.66 implied team total in what could be a bloodbath at home against Kyle Freeland. The trouble is that rain could derail this one before it even begins.

But if the weather is looking promising as we close in on lock, Atlanta is very much the top stack.

Freeland actually has a pretty good 3.91 ERA, but the underlying numbers all point to regression. Over 14 starts, the left-hander has a 4.90 xFIP, 15.7% strikeout rate, and 42.1% ground-ball rate, and despite avoiding too many shellackings, he's still allowed 1.42 home runs per 9 innings.

With this being Atlanta, there's no shortage of batters who will have the platoon advantage. Ronald Acuna Jr. ($4,600) and Sean Murphy ($3,700) will cost a pretty penny to roster, but then we also have Ozzie Albies ($3,200), Austin Riley ($3,000), Marcell Ozuna ($3,000), Orlando Arcia ($2,900), and Kevin Pillar ($2,500), all of whom bring some degree of power to the table.

As always, Matt Olson ($3,800) handles lefty-lefty matchups well, so he could be a way to be contrarian when spending up.

We see a fairly big drop-off in implied team totals after the Braves, but the Los Angeles Dodgers might be the next-best place to look.

The Dodgers are facing a quality pitcher in Dylan Cease, but Cease has seen a dip in performance in 2023, and his numbers against lefties are where he can be exploited. In the split, the right-hander has posted a 4.84 xFIP, 20.1% strikeout rate, and 36.8% ground-ball rate.

Freddie Freeman ($4,500) is the headliner, of course, and then David Peralta ($2,600) and Jason Heyward ($2,700) are the usual value lefties. Cease has a scary 30.3% strikeout rate in same-sided matchups but also walks them at a 12.9% clip, which is where the keen batting eyes of Mookie Betts ($4,200) and Will Smith ($3,800) come into play.

While the Minnesota Twins aren't the most exciting offense with Byron Buxton out, we should like their opportunity to plate some runs versus lefty Matthew Boyd. Against righty sticks, Boyd's put up a 4.89 xFIP and 22.8% strikeout rate while allowing 1.62 home runs per 9 innings off a 48.9% fly-ball rate. Home runs have been a frequent problem over his career, so this is nothing new.

The Twins may lack star power, but the positive is that no active player is salaried above $3,000, and the lineup could have eight or nine right-handed batters. Carlos Correa ($2,900), Ryan Jeffers ($2,300), and Royce Lewis ($3,000) are some of their better power options.

The San Diego Padres and Houston Astros are the best of the rest. Left-hander Logan Allen is showing promise as a rookie, but a 21.9% strikeout rate versus righties could get him in trouble versus the Padres. The Astros are up against the aforementioned MacKenzie Gore, and while that could prove difficult, their low strikeout rate may lead to putting balls in play, and dingers have been an issue for Gore this year.