MLB Daily Fantasy Helper: Thursday 6/23/16

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. With the split slates today, we'll be focusing exclusively on the main slate beginning at 7 pm Eastern.

Pitchers to Target

High-Priced Pitchers

Jon Lester ($11,400 on FanDuel): Even though this is a tough slate overall with only five games, one thing is abundantly clear: Jon Lester is the top pitching option. Over the past month, Lester has a 2.71 SIERA thanks to a 28.8% strikeout rate and 3.6% walk rate. Part of that is the competition he has faced (two matchups with the Philadelphia Phillies and one with the Atlanta Braves), but his average fastball velocity has also jumped to 92.6 miles per hour in that span compared to 91.8 prior. The Miami Marlins are roughly average against lefties with a 97 wRC+, but they also strikeout 23.0% of the time, giving Lester some tasty upside.