Just like in other sports, the focal point of your daily fantasy baseball lineups will be your high-priced studs. These guys take up by far the biggest chunk of your cap space, but they also offer the highest ceiling, and in the case of pitcher, by far the highest floors for production.
For hitters, we're looking for guys with big numbers, strong matchups, and with players around them that are likely to produce well too, increasing our chances for runs and RBI. For pitchers, we want big strikeout numbers, while the ability to go deep in a game and pick up a win is also valuable.
Taking up so much salary, and playing such a big role in your lineup's ceiling, you're not going to want to whiff on these guys, so let's take a look at a few top-end options that you can count on to anchor your lineup today.
Gerrit Cole, SP, Houston Astros ($12,000)
The Houston Astros have the luxury of trotting out not only one of the league's best offenses, but they also have one of the best rotations, too.
Gerrit Cole gets a bit overshadowed by teammate Justin Verlander, but he could be just as effective. Over 184 1/3 innings pitched in 2019, Cole owns a 2.73 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, and 39.4% strikeout rate.
While Cole's opponent tonight, the Kansas City Royals, doesn't whiff a ton (22.5% strikeout rate), they are one of the league's weakest offenses with a .301 wOBA (fourth-worst), .156 isolated power (ISO, fourth-worst), and 34.4% fly-ball rate (seventh-worst).
It all adds up to a big night for Cole.
Aaron Judge, OF, New York Yankees ($4,400)
Whether he was beset by injuries or just not hitting well, Aaron Judge struggled through the first part of the 2019 season.
Those struggles have seemed to vanish. Since August 20th, spanning 93 plate appearances, Judge has rocked his way to 10 home runs, a .702 slugging percentage, and a cool 15.26 FanDuel point-per-game average.
After yesterday's blast in the second game of a doubleheader, he's up to 22 home runs, and he could add to that total tonight with southpaw Anthony Kay on the mound. Judge sports a .642 slugging percentage against left-handers, so expect yet another big outing from the outfielder.
Nolan Arenado, 3B, Colorado Rockies ($4,600)
Coors Field. Southpaw. Warm weather. All of that means dial up Nolan Arenado.
Returning to where he does some of his best work, the slugging third baseman, who's up to 39 home runs (second-most in his last five seasons), gets to attack Joey Lucchesi at home.
This season at Coors, Arenado has a .599 slugging percentage and 1.019 OPS in this split, so like Judge, peep Arenado with his platoon excellence.
Matt Kupferle is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Matt Kupferle also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username MKupferle. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in his articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.