MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Friday 5/19/17

The beauty of daily fantasy baseball is that the top targets are different each and every day. Whether it's the right-handed catcher who destroys left-handed pitching or the mid-range hurler facing a depleted lineup, you're not going to find yourself using the same assets time after time.

While this breaks up the monotony, it can make it hard to decide which players are primed to succeed on a given day. We can help bridge that gap.

In addition to our custom optimal lineups, you can check out our batting and pitching heat maps, which show the pieces in the best spot to succeed on that slate. Put on the finishing touches with our games and lineups page to see who's hitting where and what the weather looks like, and you'll have yourself a snazzy looking team to put up some big point totals. We've also got our Solo Shot Podcast, which breaks down the MLB daily fantasy slate each day. Here's today's episode.

If you need help getting started on that trek, here are some of the top options on the board today.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitchers

Chris Sale ($12,000 on FanDuel): Chris Sale isn't just having the best season of any pitcher this year; it's pacing as one of the best all time. His 38.8% strikeout rate is more than a full percentage point higher than Pedro Martinez's 1999 record of 37.5%. His 2.18 SIERA (a stat dating back to 2002) would rank second behind Clayton Kershaw's 2014 season. You're getting all of that nastiness against an Oakland Athletics team that strikes out 23.7% of the time against lefties with a 7.3% walk rate, so it's Chris Sale no matter what on this slate. It won't be easy to afford him, but this is a time where we have to do what it takes to get him on our rosters.