MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Friday 8/18/17

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

Max Scherzer ($11,500 on FanDuel): Max Scherzer against the San Diego Padres? Um, yes, please. You honestly probably don't need any analysis after that first sentence, but Scherzer has been one of the best pitchers in baseball with a 2.75 SIERA and 35.7% strikeout rate, and getting the Padres is just icing on the cake. San Diego has a slate-low 2.94 implied team total, and their active roster is striking out 24.5% of the time against righties. Scherzer is your man for cash games, and a great, albeit likely popular, play in tournaments.