FanDuel Daily Fantasy Baseball Helper: Friday 6/9/23

We have a whopping 13 games on tap for Friday night, complete with ace pitching, Coors Field, and minimal weather concerns (unless smoke is an issue again).

Our daily helper is available every day to analyze FanDuel's main slate and help give you a starting point when you're building lineups. Be sure to also incorporate our great tools into your research process. Whether you're looking for daily projections, the latest starting lineups and weather, or batting and pitching heat maps to find the best matchups -- we've got you covered!

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

Pitching Breakdown

We're getting Shohei Ohtani ($10,000) at an appealing salary after a poor start against Houston, and it's a great time to jump in against the Mariners.

Over a dozen starts, Ohtani's put up a 3.30 SIERA and 33.8% strikeout rate, and he's even bumped up his ground-ball rate to 48.7%. His 10.2% walk rate is perhaps the one thing that holds him back, but he still pitches deep into games on a consistent basis, going six or more innings 10 times. That's due in large part to a workload that often exceeds 100 pitches.

Against right-handed pitching, Seattle's active roster owns a 98 wRC+ and a 25.1% strikeout rate, so Ohtani is primed for a bounce-back outing.

Luis Castillo ($10,600) and Tyler Wells ($9,700) are arguably our next-best options after Shohei.

Castillo is on the other side of that Ohtani game, and he comes in with a fantastic 3.28 SIERA, 29.2% strikeout rate, and 5.7% walk rate. He's had a good run of late, too, logging three straight quality starts while scoring 52, 58, and 40 FanDuel points. His matchup against the Angels is tough, but they have some high-strikeout bats that could boost his fantasy output tonight.

Wells probably isn't someone many expected to be hovering near $10,000 this season, but he's really turned things up a notch lately. Over his last five starts, he's posted a 3.34 xFIP, 34.5% strikeout rate, and 6.2% walk rate, and he's gotten up to over 100 pitches in his last two.

While Wells has had mixed results over this stretch, this is the right matchup for him to shine. The Royals' active roster has an 89 wRC+ and 23.9% strikeout rate versus right-handers, and their implied team total (3.74) is one of the slate's lowest. There's definitely a case for making him your second choice behind Ohtani.

We also have Gerrit Cole ($10,500) going tonight, though his matchup against Boston arguably places him behind these other three. The Red Sox have the eighth-lowest strikeout rate versus righties (21.0%), and that's significant considering Cole's strikeout rate has dropped to 25.9% this season. It's Cole, so he's in play, but I have a hard time seeing him making the optimal lineup when it's all said and done.

In the value range, it won't feel great, but Yusei Kikuchi ($8,400) is an option because he's up against the whiff-happy Twins.

Kikuchi's strikeouts are slightly down, but his 12.7% swinging-strike rate falls in line with prior seasons, and he's coming off an eight-strikeout game against the Mets, one of the toughest opponents for generating Ks. He should have an easier time duplicating that effort against Minnesota, whose active roster owns a 26.8% strikeout rate versus southpaws. The downside is that despite dropping his walk rate to 7.6%, Kikuchi has gone six or more innings just three times, and home runs are an ongoing issue.

Jordan Montgomery ($8,200) could be the more popular value play. The Reds have gotten some buzz since calling up top prospect Elly De La Cruz, but their active roster has a 98 wRC+ versus left-handers this year, and their implied team total is the night's worst mark (3.58). That being said, Montgomery isn't someone who gets a lot of punchouts (20.8%), and it's not like he's racking up the innings, either, with his last quality start coming at the beginning of May. As much as it pains me, I'm more willing to roll the dice with Kikuchi for the potential upside.

Hitting Breakdown

The San Diego Padres get the Coors Field bump tonight, and their implied team total is way up at 6.55 versus Austin Gomber.

Gomber has been a disaster across the board this season. The left-hander isn't getting strikeouts (15.0%) or grounders (41.2%), and on top of that, he's issuing too many walks (9.9%). He's struggled with dingers over his career, and that's ballooned to 2.06 per 9 innings in 2023.

Fernando Tatis Jr. ($4,500) is a no-brainer, and Manny Machado ($3,300) is at an appealing salary despite his lack of consistent production. Gary Sanchez ($3,200) has demonstrated he's still got plenty of pop in his bat, and he can excel in this kind of matchup. Gomber hasn't had much success against lefties, either, so Juan Soto ($4,100) deserves top billing, too. Everyone else in the lineup comes at $3,300 or below, giving us some pretty good flexibility for such a smash spot.

The Milwaukee Brewers have the third-highest implied team total (5.64), which says a whole lot about their matchup against Oakland.

Sam Moll will be the opener for the A's, but right-hander Luis Medina is expected to pitch the majority of innings, making him the primary guy to key in on. Medina has Gomber'd his way to a 4.88 SIERA, 19.1% strikeout rate, 10.3% walk rate, and 41.7% ground-ball rate, and he's allowed multiple home runs in four of his six appearances. Throw in the shoddy Oakland bullpen, and it's easy to see why the Brewers could feast tonight.

Considering Moll is a left-hander and Medina actually has worse numbers against right-handed batters, Willy Adames ($3,000) and William Contreras ($2,900) are especially enticing at their modest salaries, but we really don't need to be too picky here. Lefties Christian Yelich ($3,500) and Rowdy Tellez ($2,900) perform well with the platoon advantage and should be able to get in on the fun against such a weak righty.

The Atlanta Braves are the one other team sporting an implied team total well over five (5.75). Right-hander Josiah Gray may have a 3.09 ERA, but that looks awfully suspicious when we see that he also has a 5.11 SIERA. While righty sticks have found more success against Gray thus far this season, it's the lefties who should be crushing him, and that's where Gray could see significant regression. In that split, he's showing a 5.64 xFIP, 20.3% strikeout rate, and 16.2% walk rate, and he should be allowing far more home runs off a 45.7% fly-ball rate.

That moves Matt Olson ($3,900) to the front of the line, and both Ozzie Albies ($3,000) and Eddie Rosario ($2,700) should get a boost as value plays. Gray still has an unremarkable 17.6% strikeout rate in same-sided matchups, though, so we shouldn't hesitate to pay up for the usual righty studs, too.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are right up there among the best stacks on the board, and then the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets, and Philadelphia Phillies are others to consider.

The Dodgers get left-hander Ranger Suarez, who consistently has a ground-ball rate hovering around 70% when facing lefties but has a less imposing 47.7% clip against righties this year. As a pitcher with a lackluster strikeout rate, L.A.'s crew of potent righties should win out.

Tylor Megill has an unimpressive 5.27 SIERA, 17.9% strikeout rate, and 11.9% walk rate over his 12 starts, putting the Pirates in a great spot. The Mets should be able to take advantage of ancient lefty Rich Hill, who's coughing up 1.57 home runs per 9 innings to righties. Dating back to last season, Michael Grove has gotten obliterated by left-handed batters (5.27 xFIP), and the Phillies have a 4.71 implied team total at home.