FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Tuesday 6/15/21

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.

If you need help getting started on that trek, here are some of the top options on the board today. We'll be focusing exclusively on the main slate.

Pitching Breakdown

On a 15-game slate, you'd think we'd have at least one slam-dunk option at pitcher. Well, that's not the case. Actually, our model has only five hurlers projected for more than 30.0 FanDuel points -- and one of them is pitching at Coors -- with no one projected for more than 35.6.

And something we need to consider when picking our pitcher is that we're going to want to save some coin to get pieces of the San Diego Padres' offense -- which is full of high-end salaries -- at Coors in a dream date versus Chi Chi Gonzalez. Getting the arm we want should always be the top priority, but the Padres are in such an amazing spot, we need exposure to them.

All in all, it's a weird slate, but that's kinda fun.

For me, there's a top three on the bump -- Yu Darvish ($9,000 on FanDuel), Trevor Rogers ($10,000), and Mike Minor ($8,800).

Darvish is at Coors, so he comes with plenty of risk. But the Rockies' offense isn't good, sporting just the 21st-best wOBA (.301). They're better at home, obviously, carrying a .342 wOBA in the split, but given Darvish's 3.37 SIERA and 29.9% strikeout rate, we don't need to be too afraid of the Rox. Our projections have Darvish as the slate's top pitcher, pegging him for 35.6 FanDuel points

Rogers owns similar numbers to Darvish's -- a 3.50 SIERA and 29.8% strikeout rate -- and isn't pitching at Coors, so if you lean toward him, I can't blame you. He's taking on the St. Louis Cardinals, who have been pretty blah offensively for much of 2021, ranking 23rd in wOBA (.300).

Minor is a tick below Darvish and Rogers in terms of strikeout ability as he's got a 26.6% strikeout rate, but he possesses the best matchup of the three, facing the Detroit Tigers. Detroit ranks 28th in wOBA (.284) with the highest strikeout rate (27.9%). The Tigers are a dream matchup for DFS, and the salary isn't that bad. Personally, Minor is my number-one pitcher tonight.

While I like all three of the aforementioned pitchers and rarely prefer to spend down on the mound, I am intrigued by Luis Castillo ($7,300) and Patrick Corbin ($7,000) because I'm a sucker for punishment. Not only do these two have salaries that make it much easier to stack San Diego, they have fantastic matchups.

Castillo is up against the Milwaukee Brewers, a team that has the third-highest strikeout rate (26.6%) and fourth-worst wOBA (.296). Castillo hasn't been good this year, but he hasn't deserved a 6.47 ERA as his SIERA is 4.43. He's also put up single-game swinging-strike rates of 11.5% and 14.7% in his last two, so Castillo is trending up a bit. He can come through in this matchup.

Corbin is having the worst season of his MLB career with a 4.85 SIERA and 17.6% strikeout rate. While I have him a tier below Castillo, Corbin's matchup with the Pittsburgh Pirates is undeniably good. Pittsburgh has the worst wOBA (.287) in the league. Corbin's swinging-strike rates have been all over the place from start to start, but he does have a nine-punchout game this season. Maybe we can lightning in a bottle tonight.

Stacks to Target

San Diego Padres

As we touched on above, the Padres are at Coors against Chi Chi Gonzalez. They boast a massive 6.48 implied total, and they're the epicenter of this slate. Our algorithm projects the Padres for a whopping 7.20 runs. The only negatives are that they'll be very popular and they have just one expected starter below $3,500.

Anyone in San Diego's lineup will be worth a look. While the Padres' high-salary stars are elite plays -- Fernando Tatis Jr. ($5,000) and Manny Machado ($4,000) are both top-three bats, per our model -- you don't need me to elaborate on the no-brainer guys. So let's look at some of the more modestly priced options.

Our model is really high on Wil Myers ($3,400), slotting him in as the slate's number-six bat. Eric Hosmer ($3,600) and Jake Cronenworth ($3,500) will have the platoon advantage. Switch-hitter Victor Caratini ($3,000) might be San Diego's lowest-salaried starter, and fellow switch-hitter Jurickson Profar ($3,300) would be a nice salary-saving play if he gets in the lineup.

The Padres are chalk worth swallowing.

New York Mets

After the Padres, stacking is pretty wide open as we have nine teams with implied totals between 4.50 and 5.00. If we're stacking San Diego, we won't have a ton of cap room left for the rest of our lineup. That makes the New York Mets -- who are in a good spot and have just one stick above $3,100 -- super appealing.

The Mets are at home versus Alec Mills, who owns a 4.74 SIERA and 13.9% strikeout rate in 23 2/3 innings this year. Since the start of 2020, he's got a 4.81 SIERA and 16.9% strikeout rate. New York holds a 4.59 implied total.

Pete Alonso ($3,700) is the lone high-salary Mets hitter. He blew up for back-to-back games of 41.1 and 40.9 FanDuel points last week but has just 15.0 FanDuel points across four games since then. Given his salary, Alonso won't be a priority for me, although our projections rank him as the Mets' top hitter.

I'm much more interested in saving salary and using Jonathan Villar ($3,100), Francisco Lindor ($3,000), and Dominic Smith ($2,700) -- all of whom will hit from the left side. Lindor has a .388 wOBA in June and appears to be getting back to being the Lindor we've come to expect. Smith went ding dong last night and held a .425 wOBA with the platoon advantage a year ago. Villar will likely lead off and has a .342 wOBA against righties this year.

Like Lindor, James McCann ($2,600) is rebounding after a slow start, mashing his way to a .423 wOBA this month. Billy McKinney ($2,500) offers stolen-base juice and has five hits across his last three games, popping two taters and totaling 54.1 FanDuel points in one of the outings. Kevin Pillar ($2,200) had 19.2 FanDuel points last night and is a fine dart throw.

Cincinnati Reds

I like the Cincinnati Reds tonight way more than oddsmakers do. Cincy has just a 4.18 implied total for their date with Brett Anderson. Hopefully that causes them to fly under the radar, because Anderson isn't very good, pitching to a 5.09 SIERA and 11.5% strikeout rate this year. Righties have mauled him for a .375 wOBA and 42.1% hard-hit rate.

The Reds have two high-salary sticks in Jesse Winker ($4,400) and Nick Castellanos ($4,300). While it may be hard to get to either if you're stacking San Diego, Castellanos is my pick between the two. He's mashed his way to a .486 wOBA and 53.7% hard-hit rate against lefties.

After those two, no Reds hitter is more than $3,100. Eugenio Suarez ($3,100), Jonathan India ($2,900), Aristides Aquino ($2,200) and Tyler Stephenson ($2,600) offer right-handed upside at easy-to-like salaries. India has been leading off. Two years ago -- a long time back, I know -- Suarez pummeled lefties for a .406 wOBA. Stephenson has a .420 wOBA in the split this season, and Aquino has big-time pop, posting a .368 wOBA against southpaws in his brief career.